During my four week practicum, I was in a grade 6/7 class. This practicum was outside my comfort zone as I have always worked with primary age students. I loved working with intermediate students. The goals for myself for this practicum that my coaching teacher and I set up were working on me communicating the expectations for the students. I worked on communicating academic expectations and being clear and using examples so each student knew what was expected of them for that task.
I taught a poetry unit, and the students and I co-created criteria for creating Found Poetry. Found poetry is creating a poem when there is no poem. This poetry is free-style and students could choose if they wanted their poem to rhyme or not. I cut out pages from chapter books for the students to choose from or they could use magazines. After showing students examples of the poems and having students turn and talk about the Found poems that they observed, I started writing on a lined piece of paper on the doc camera, criteria to have a visual for students. I then asked students what they think the criteria of the Found Poem should be to create a great poem. Students communicated with me that the poem should be at least 5 to 10 words long, the poem should have a topic, have the letters circled in a dark marker, so the poem pops off the page, and the poem should have pictures drawn that relate to the topic or doodles. I found this student-centred learning amazing, as this was the criteria that I had in mind, but now it belonged to the students as they created the criteria. Found Poems can be tricky, but the students were engaged in the task and worked so hard on them. The poems turned out amazing.
Another goal for my practicum was to communicate behaviour expectations for each task. I communicated with students whether the task that we were doing was to be completed individually, or if they can work with a partner of their choosing or if I was creating groups for the activity. I also communicated whether the activity was a silent activity, low noise level or medium noise level. This made such a big difference in students behaviour when students knew what was expected of them during each activity.
I focused on this practicum, giving clear directions but also not so much teacher talk and letting the students do more talking and creating a student-centred learning environment. I did lots of turn and talks and getting the students to collaborate in groups. I want to continue this learning for my next practicum and research other ways to create a student-centred learning classroom.
During my final practicum, I was placed in the same grade 6/7 classroom. I loved this as I was able to continue building relationships with the same students. There was one student however who was not excited to have me back. He was frustrated as he does not like change and I was not his teacher. I took it upon myself to really focus on building a relationship with him. I knew that he just got a new dog and he loved pokemon. Every morning, I would say good morning to him and ask him how he was doing. Which he ignored me. One day, he came to school wearing a pokemon shirt. I communicated with him that I had indeed caught all of those pokemon. He looked so excited when he asked me, “Do you play Pokemon?” I told him, “yes, I play Pokemon Go.” From that point on instead of ignoring me in the morning, we chatted about pokemon. He then felt comfortable to ask for my help in class and if he was feeling overwhelmed he would be comfortable enough to tell me what he needed. This made my time in the classroom easier for me, and easier for him. My big take away is that relationships are so important and educators need to find a way to reach each student. Some students may take longer than others to reach and that is ok. It will be worth it.
