Week One
The first day in the field was wonderful, the school and teacher that I am under are so welcoming. When I first got there, we were given a tour of the school. The school is large and has two floors and an elevator, something I had never seen in an elementary school before. The classrooms were also well equipped with the latest technology of chrome books and smart boards.
The teacher that I am under is a physical education/health specialist for both the French Immersion and English programs in the school. On Wednesday she had two back to back prep periods, so she put us in two different classes. The first class we went into was a grade 5/6 class. The students were learning English and were very involved. The learners in that class were eager to learn and participate in class discussion which was wonderful to see. The teacher encouraged the students to answer questions and was energetic with each response, making the students feel valued.
The second classroom we went into was a grade 4 classroom. The teacher used many of the practices that we talk about in our class. For example, she did not have her own desk and the student’s desks were split off into pairs instead of rows. She also encouraged the students to do inquiry-based learning and they were proficient at it. This class used technology as a great resource for the students which was good to see since that was not my experience with my early education. The teacher also got the students to work in pairs or groups, which seemed to work well for most. The students were hard working and inclusive of all. The school’s moto for this year is ‘being a leader’ so the students are encouraged in every task, in and out of the classroom to be a leader.
I enjoyed walking around the classroom and getting an opportunity to introduce myself to the students and get to know a little bit who they are and what they like about school. In almost every classroom we went into on Wednesday, the students seemed engaged and excited to learn which was encouraging to see as an aspiring teacher. I was worried with not being in one classroom for the whole afternoon and how that would affect my field experience but if anything, I feel it is going to enhance my experience even further. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to learn alongside many great teachers, and am excited to go again.
Week Six
This was one of my favourite weeks in the field. We started out in the gym for the first two classes and the students were playing a ‘world cup’ soccer tournament. My cooperating teacher split the students up into countries the day before and told them to wear their countries colour. The students were so excited to play and were enthusiastic about winning. It was fun to see the atmosphere that my cooperating teacher created for the students. They all had a lot of fun and were excited to come back the next day for the finals and to find out who the champions were.
I asked my cooperating teacher about curriculum outcomes in gym and how she incorporates outcomes in each gym class. She explained to me how for gym she has the freedom to choose whichever sport she would like as long as it meets the movement outcomes for the age group. She also explained to me that one of the outcomes for grade 5 is being able to score keep, so when the students were not playing soccer, they were score keeping the other games. The students were learning by doing, which is great! After gym we were able to spend some time in a kindergarten classroom. Their class is focused on play-based learning. The students are learning colours, numbers, shapes, etc. through a play-based learning style. The kindergarten teacher explained how this type of learning can be accomplished. They spend most of the day independently playing and the teacher comes around and sits with each individual student and has a conversation that facilitates learning. I found it interesting to see and observe. There was proof of learning through the evaluation sheets the teacher had on each student comparing what they knew now and what they knew in September.
All in all this week was great and gave me ideas of how I can integrate learning into more than just structured learning times.
Week Seven
This week in the field was one of my favourites. In gym class the students were focusing on pickleball skills. My cooperating teacher split the class into three groups and set up three stations that were each focused on a different skill. My cooperating teacher then assigned myself and the other education student I’m paired with to different stations. We were then tasked with running the station and teaching the students the skills required for our station. My station was focused on ball control and hand eye coordination. I had a wonderful time teaching the various students that came to my station and they left showing improvement in their skills. Being able to participate in teaching gym gave me confirmation that teaching is a passion of mine. After recess, our school had a pep rally for the girls and boys volleyball teams as they were going to city finals. The whole school cheered the teams on, it was great to see!
The focus question of this week was the role of technology. This question was harder to find the answer for because there is not much technology used in the gym. In the gym my cooperating teacher uses technology in the form of an iPad and speaker to play music, for attendance and to create teams. My cooperating teacher told me she uses the app called Team Shake, she recommended it for gym classes because it randomizes teams and groups so that students aren’t always paired with the same people. We also talked about how the school has many forms of technology that the teachers can utilize. There are roughly ten smartboards in the school and all classrooms have access to chrome books for work if the teacher would like. One of our first weeks we observed in a grade 4 class and the class had five iPads to use for research purposes. My cooperating teacher explained that most of the younger grades in the school do not use technology and that the older grades (3 and up) are the students who utilize it the most.
I have talked to a few students about technology before and many of their responses were the same. Many students use technology mainly to play games or watch shows. I found it surprising how many young students have their own iPad or iPhone. When talking to the students it seemed like technology outside of school was based more for recreational purposes than academics. However, there was one grade 5 classroom we observed in where the teacher and students used an online classroom software to keep up with schoolwork.
This week was very enjoyable, and it is starting to set in that next week is our last week of field placement. The experience has been so rewarding and I have learned so much about many aspects of the classroom.