Collaboration and Teamwork
Over the course of my practicums collaboration and teamwork have been so vital to my learning. It takes a village to raise a teacher candidate. I have been in awe of how so many people went out their way to help me find resources and to give me tips and tricks throughout my practicums.
During my final practicum, I worked with the librarian, the ELL teacher, the resource teacher, and other grade 6/7 classroom teachers. Working together helped benefit the students in so many ways. It helped me see that this profession is a profession built on team work. This teamwork has huge benefits for the students.
Working together as colleagues is a wonderful way to model collaboration and teamwork for the students. These skills are so important for the students to learn to help them navigate their lives and future schooling.
Creativity
It is important to build relationships with your students. One of the benefits of building these relationships is getting to know your students and understanding what their strengths are. Once you know your students strengths you can plan activities that they will enjoy and build their confidence and encourage creativity. I loved seeing how students came out of their shells when doing certain activities. A student in my practicum who is not the most confident in themselves when it came to subjects like math and language arts really came out of his shell and demonstrated amazing creativity and leadership skills during an ADST activity. The task was to collaborate in a group to design their own Rube Goldberg machine. This particular student came out of their shell and had some amazing and unique ideas for the Rube Goldberg machine.
