During COVID my practicum was a little different and unfortunately, there were not as many extracurricular activities going on within the school. One thing that was offered for students was once a week during lunchtime students had the choice to go outside or to spend their lunch in the gym. I had the opportunity to accompany my grade 6/7 class during this activity. It was a great learning opportunity as students would play team-building games and then have some free time afterwards in the gym. The students loved this day. Usually every week most of the students in the class would choose to go to the gym rather than go outside. As I would read out the agenda for that morning and ask students if they had any questions about our day, students would always remind me today is gym day at lunch! It was great to see how excited they were about gym day and the fun they had. I learned during this time some really neat team building gym exercises that gets the students to work together and keeps them active. Such a great learning experience.
During my four week practicum, I also had the opportunity to attend a one hour workshop with Sd57. The workshop focused on assessment for grades 6-12. I learned so much during this workshop and was introduced to triangulation assessment. I learned that when using triangulation assessment, educators are collecting evidence from three sources, product, conversation and observation. During this workshop, it was also taught strategies that educators use to implement these assessment tools. What I found really interesting was learning that triangulation assessment is also a way that educators can use differentiation in the classroom. This form of assessment also aligns with indigenous ways of knowing and being. After the workshop, I started to practice some of the methods of assessment that I was taught. I am looking forward to doing more research on triangulation and practising these methods during my summative practicum.