In my field placement I was exposed to a lot of new resources. I learned about a lot of new resources that I would like and will using in my own classroom in the future. The first main resource I learned about in my placement was seesaw it is great resource for connecting home and classroom. I also learned about GoNoodle which is a great resource with a huge variety of movement break activities. My teacher also shared a resource with me that she created, called ball words to help students learn sight words.
Seesaw was one of the most beneficial resources I got to learn about in my placement. Seesaw is a great app for students, teachers and parents that help everyone stay connected to what’s happening in the classroom. In my placement classroom students are trained on how to use Seesaw. The know how to log on and how to add photos. Throughout the day students get to add their work then the teacher can approve it then the families can see it. This is a great resource to help bridge the gap between school life and home life.
Another great resource I was exposed to in my placement is GoNoodle. GoNoodle is a site that has a large variety of movement break activities. The activities are quick and easy to access they come in a variety of lengths and levels. Therefore I think this is a great resource to have in my pocket as I begin my teaching journey.
My supervising teacher also shared one of the resources she created, called ball words. The ball words are levelled sight readings words for the kids to work through. All the kids start at the first level and once they can read all the words on that level without hesitation then they move to the next level and so on. This is a great resource cause its easy for the students to just pull them out and work on at any given time. Moving forward in my own classroom in the future this is definitely something I would like to use.
This year I got the opportunity to be placed in a grade 1/2 classroom in the heart of regina. This classroom is very different from the school I attended as a student, which means there is a lot of potential for me to learn.
On our very first day placement we really just wanted to focus on getting to know the kids. As I have learned throughout this degree so much of our teaching relies on our relationships with students. With that being said I wanted to get off on the right foot so I tired to make a small interaction with each of the students to allow me to introduce myself and get to know them a bit. Me and my partner co-taught a very basic introduction lesson. This allowed for us to interact with the kids and see what they are all about. Overall I feel the day went very well. I still have a lot of work to do on remembering students names, however I see the importance in knowing their names and I will learn them with time.
Week Two- Developing Problem Solving Strategies & Skills- Co- teaching
This week of placement I took a more professional approach and planned a proper lesson plan then taught it to the students. My teaching partner and myself co-planned and co-taught this lesson. This lesson was very interactive and a great first lesson to teach. The group discussion aspect of the lesson was definitely instructing because the students don’t get to work in groups often. However I think having the students work in groups was a great introduction to my future lesson because I believe group work can be a great skill for students.
This week for PDP’s I focused on implementing a written lesson plan . I decided to focus on this in the first week becasue I wanted to have feedback on my first lesson plan to be able to make my next ones better and to my cooperating teachers standards. The second PDP I worked on was observing students while teaching. This lesson is very interactive and descussion based so that made it easy to observe the students while teaching. In conclusion I feel that this week in my placement I learned a lot about creating a lesson that I’m going to teach.
Week Three-Identifying Beginning, Middle, End and Setting- Co-teaching
In week three of placement we got the opportunity to teach an English Language Arts lesson on beginning, middle, end and setting of a story. This lesson allowed the students to practice comprehension skills then make visual representations. This lesson also included an adaptive dimension for students with lacking literacy abilities. This was my first time teaching a lesson with adaptive work however overall I would say it went very well. We taught the lesson to the entire class then explained the activity. Then I pulled aside the three students I was providing the adoption to while the other kids got working. This allowed me time to example to those three students what they needed to do without taking time away from all the kids. This was my last week of co-teaching next week I will teach my first lesson by myself.
This week I focused on learning to plan by making a detailed lesson plan and rehearsing interactions with students. I choose to do this PDP this week because it allowed me to reevaluate my lesson plan making skills and ensure I was making high quality lessons. I decided to focus on interacting with students in this lesson because it is easiest in a smaller group setting or with more educators so being how this was my last co-taught lesson I thought it would be a good one. For this PDP I just focused unobserving and making direct meaningful comments. It actually really well and it allowed me to become more familiar with the students and continue building relationships.
Week Four- Exploring Pumpkin Characteristics and Life Cycles- Independent Teaching
In week four of my pre-inernship I had my first opportunity to teach solo. I was pretty nervous to teach solo my first time but one I started my lesson and the class discussions I felt a lot more confident. Overall I would say the lesson went very smooth. We started off with a short formal lesson and a short class discussion then the students had the chance to do a pumpkin investigation. I really liked this activity because it didn’t directly relate to Halloween but it was still fall themed.
For this weeks PDP I focused on two goals from the section learning to plan. The first PDP was becoming familiar with the curriculum. This aspect of my learning was done before I got to the classroom. I did this activity by picking a theme and then searching the curriculum to find outcomes and indicators that could relate. This allowed me to make myself familiar with the curriculum. The second PDP focused on considering the actions of myself and my students. This was done both in the planning stage and in the classroom stage. In the planning stage I focused on creating a lesson that considered my actions as a teacher and the students reactions or responses as learners. I did this by creating time for discussion and allowing students a lot time for their actions and or reactions/ responses. In the classroom I focused on this goal by asking questions to students and giving proper wait time to ensure they could answer them. Giving wait time is defiantly trickier then I thought it would be but it really allowed me to see how important wait time is. Giving what time got the students more involved and motivated to learn so going forward wait Tim is something I will continue to work towards.
Week Five- Little Red Riding Hood Story Investigation- Independent Teaching
In week five of my placement I took a new approach and started by teaching the first lesson in a group of connected lessons. This was something I really wanted to try before going back in March where I will be teaching a unit. When first brainstorming for the lessons I felt a bit overwhelmed. However I found it easiest to start with three activities then create the lessons all at once. By creating them all at once it made it easy to intertwine and connect the lessons to each other. This first lesson focused on examining then visually recreating the settings. The students where very excited about this lesson and super engaged so that made it very fun for me as the teacher.
This week I decided to focus on organizing a complex lesson plan. I decided this would be a good PDP for this lesson because this lesson was very complex to organize with all the different sections. I did this in my lesson by giving the students a clear outline of all the lessons and then broke it down to each lesson or day of teaching. The second PDP I focused on was having clarity of direction. I decided to do this PDP because in some of my past lessons I feel like this is an area where I lack. In the past I have given good directions but the directions are to multi step for the students. So in this weeks lesson I just focused on having single step very simple directions. I found this worked well and the students they where on task and listening well to the directions I had given.
Week Six
In week 6 of my placement I wasn’t able to make it to the school due to weather. Instead I spent my time at home working on my two upcoming lessons for my last two days of placement.
Week Seven- Little Red Riding Hood Story Investigation- Independent Teaching
The energy in week seven of my internship was astonishing. I missed week six so the students where very excited to have me and my teaching partner back. My week seven lesson focused on charter, specifically Little Red Riding hood. I brought a bunch of supplies to have the kids physically create Little Red. As soon as I pulled out the materials the student where so excited and couldn’t wait to get started. The lesson was loud and very busy but the students where intrigued and learning so I would say that’s a win.
For week seven PDP I decided to just focus on being aware. In a busy lesson like this it is really important to be aware of the students, are they on task, is more direction need, what students are needing support and so on. I worked on this in my PDP by constantly floating and interacting with the students.
The kids creations.
Week Eight- Cookie Decorating.
In the final week on my placement I wanted to still teach a formal lesson that still related to curriculum but I wanted to make it fun for the students. So I decided to do a cookie decorating lesson related to health and traditions. The lesson had a lot of very loud learning but the students where having so much fun and so engaged I didn’t mind. I taught the first section of the lesson then the students went with there math teacher which allowed to set up for my activity. Once the students returned I was all set up for my activity and they where so excited. This was my favourite lesson of the semester and I can’t wait to go back in March.
My teacher had recommended that I work on a clear closure as my last PDP so that was my goal. I had the kids do the activity then a gallery walk to see there peers creations then we winded down by eating a cookie and listening to a book.
Areas of Growth From Pre-Internship & Professional Growth
My biggest area of growth in my pre-internship is developing and applying lesson plans. Having the ability to try out some of the lesson plans I have create really allowed me to curate and adjust my lesson plans to work best for myself. In this journey I have learned a lot about adding time to each section of the lesson and how this supports overall time management. I have also learned about the importance of making very detailed lesson plans. I liked to have a lot of details in the lesson so if I’m feeling lost I can easily just grab the lesson and see where I need to go next. Also having lot of details in the lesson plan ensures I give full directions and don’t forget any key parts.
My second biggest area of growth is a more personal area of growth. Throughout my internship I have really been able to examine the importance of forming a relationship with the students. Forming a relationship with students is important for a lot of reason. One reason is it allows us to get to know our students and once we know our students we can start using inquire based learning on topics our students are interested in which drives students determination to learn. Forming a relationships with the students also allowed me to become familiar with the each students various strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore by knowing the strengths and weakness of my learners I could easily identify which students would need support in a particular lesson. In conclusion I feel I had lots of areas of growth throughout my pre-intership and I can’t wait to continue teaching and learning.
Here is a picture of a mind map of myself I have created. I created this map as a representation of myself and the things I have been through. If you are interested in learning more about it I have created a short video explain each thing on my map and how it relates to me. Check out the video below!
In week one we did a informal activity to get to know the students. This allowed me and my teaching partner to get comfortable in the classroom. Here is a copy of the activity we gave the students
Week Two- Developing Problem Solving Strategies & Skills- Co- teaching
This lesson allows students to examine a decision-making process. We will start the lesson with an introductory book, “My Magical Choices” this will invite students to begin thinking about the choices they have and how their choices impact their life. Then we will move on to vocabulary where we will focus on “problems” and “choices” to help ensure that students understand the terms being used in the lesson and activity. We will also briefly discuss the process of making decisions. Then we will have the students cut and color to prepare for the activity. Then finally we move to the activity where students get the chance to practice decision making. To finish off the lesson we will quickly reflect on the decision-making process.
Week Three-Identifying Beginning, Middle, End and Setting- Co-teaching
This lesson allows students to practice identifying the 3 major areas of stories. We will start by identifying the 3 areas beginning, middle and end then go right into the book. After the book we will discuss as a class what things go into each area. Then students will work individually drawing and making a short sentence about each part. Finally, students will be given another sheet that focuses on examining the setting as an introduction to setting. Then will color the different houses and then make or complete a sentence about each house.
Week Four- Exploring Pumpkin Characteristics and Life Cycles- Independent Teaching
This lesson plan allows student to examine different parts of plant life while still being fun and relating to Halloween. In this lesson the students will be introduced to plant cycles and be able to examine the changes a plant goes through. Students will also learn about characterises. Then we will apply what we know about characteristics to characterizing a pumpkin.
Week Five, Six & Seven- Little Red Riding Hood Story Investigation- Independent Teaching
In this lesson student are going to get to investigate the three main areas of Little Red Riding Hood. The three main areas are setting, character and problem and solution. In the first day of the lesson students will focus on the setting of the story. When examining the setting we are going to be looking for elements like; location, time of day, what we see in the setting, what we hear in the setting and maybe what smells would we have in the setting. This will help students to develop a strong understanding of the setting in our story. Day 2 of the lesson will focus on character. In the character lesson student will get to be more hands on by using provided materials to create a visual representation of the main character Little Red Riding Hood. Students will also examine traits of the personality of the character. In the final day the students will be examining the problem and solutions in the story. They will also explore possible other solutions that character could have done. Overall this lesson will provide students with lots of time examine and explore the carious elements of a story.
In this activity students where introduced to self and began exploring traditions that shape our sense of self. Students shared traditions, stories or celebrations that make the unique. Then I shared a tradition that makes me unique which is Christmas cookie decorating. Then students got to take part in my unique tradition and make Christmas cookies. Tis was a very fun and interactive lesson for my last day of placement.
Google Earth Virtual Treaty Walk of Downtown Regina
A Conversation About Indigenous Entrepreneurship
Treaty 4 Family Feud
Micheal Lonechild Painting the Monarch Butterfly
Pesto From The Patch: Harvesting, Cooking and Reducing Food Waste
Treaty 4 Gathering Highlights
My favorite activity was the google earth virtual treaty walk of downtown Regina. I was hesitant to choose it at first but I really liked how it displayed a variety of locations throughout the city and demonstrated how they are related to treaties or the significance they have. I found this activity to be very knowledgeable. After taking part in this virtual treaty walk I feel I will be more aware of the signs of treaties I see in my everyday day to day.
Another thing I really liked about this activity was the lesson plan portion. There were a large number of questions and activity pages to follow that could be used to teach this in a classroom. The lesson plans were set in a way that allowed for a lot of adaptation making it easy to use for a large range of grade levels.
Peer Reviews on Treaty 4 Gathering Activities – Click here
This week topic was rather broad and focused on a wide variety of topics all pertaining to inclusive learning. So, for the hook I decided to use videos to set the scene for our discussion. I chose videos to specifically highlight differences. The one video focused a lot on labels and how the things we here or the “labels” we receive can really have an impact on us. However positive comments or positive labels can completely change how we feel about ourselves. I feel like this relates to inclusive learning because we don’t know what our learners are bring with them to school we don’t know the labels they have in there home life or social worlds so we need to be positive and help all students have positive labels in there school lives. The second video was pretty similar but instead of “labels” it focused on putting people in “boxes” . It described how putting people in boxes creates division it makes an us and a them. When thinking about this in the classroom we can apply it to the groups or “boxes” we put our students in. DO we have different reading groups in our rooms? By grouping all weak readers together are we limiting their ability to learn? I really liked this video because it really got me thinking about the benefits and the limitations of grouping students. It also exhibits the “boxes” the students are in before they enter our classroom like income, race, religion ect. and how those boxes affect the student’s opportunities.
Prompts/questions I prepared to help lead the critical conversation:
“If there are no out transgender students at your school, it doesn’t mean they are not there. Rather, it means that they cannot come out and live who they are at school.” Lots of school are beginning to make the transition and they are becoming more and more accepting to LGBTQ2+ students. However not all schools can or will make this transition.
In some cases, LGBTQ2+ goes against the religion and core beliefs of the school. If you were placed in a school that did not support LGBTQ2+ students would you still be able to support those students? How would you support them without going against the cultural beliefs and norms of that school?
“The ways we organize classroom life should seek to make children feel significant and cared about—by the teacher and by each other. Unless students feel emotionally and physically safe, they won’t share real thoughts and feelings. Discussions will be tinny and dishonest. We need to design activities where students learn to trust and care for each other. Classroom life should, to the greatest extent possible, prefigure the kind of democratic and just society we envision and thus contribute to building that society.”
Your classroom can be anything you want it to be. As educators, we can create any society we choose. Your classroom society should be a world in which everyone wants to live in. What might you include in your classroom to have your “perfect society?”
Myth: You can tell who LGBTQ2 youth are “I once had a school principal say to me, “There are no gay or lesbian youth in my school.” What this principal didn’t realize is that there were no visible LGBTQ2 youth in the school, most likely because it was not a safe place. Visibility and safety are tightly interwoven together, especially in any school-related context.
The belief that you can tell who LGBTQ2 youth are by simply looking at or by listening to them is based in old, unfounded stereotypes and beliefs. Just as not all gay men are hairdressers, and not all lesbians are truck drivers, not all transgender kids are gender non-conforming or cross dress. These stereotypes are rooted in powerful beliefs about gender and how young people should express their gender identity in typically masculine or feminine ways. For example, little boys who like to dance or do ballet are often called “sissies” or “faggots.” Girls who like to play sports or climb trees are frequently called “lesbos” or “dykes.” In these examples, homophobic bullying is used as a weapon of sexism, targeting children who are deemed to be different from the norm. These kinds of stereotypical beliefs often keep young people trapped in “gender boxes,” which serve to regulate and limit the full expression of their identities, hopes, and dreams.”
Quite often, there is a nervousness around the idea of gender correcting. Has anyone ever used the article suggestions to openly correct one’s own mis-gendering etc., or to point out the lack of diversity in materials, situations, or otherwise?
Quick Summary of Critical Conversation:
Our conversation focused on the more practically and applied end of the topic. We talked a lot about creating a safe classroom space that allows you to build relationships with your students. We also discussed the importance of working alongside students in the classroom instead of guiding them and how a mutual relationship like this would impact the student’s overall value of themselves in our classrooms. Concepts like these really have a big effect in the student’s overall comfort within our classrooms. As future educators it’s important to work hard on creating a welcoming classroom in order to set all students up for success.Furthermore, we also discussed some boundaries you might have in trying to create an inclusive classroom. For example, I brought up how my current placement school doesn’t have any noticeable supports for LGBTQ2+ students because they are catholic and that goes against the religion. We discussed that although they may be catholic there is still likely going to be LGBTQ2= students there and students at this school are likely to need extra support because they likely aren’t going to receive that support in a catholic home. We also brought up that I would be tricky to support these students without going against your school. However, we talked about some idea like using basic resources within the classroom and asking questions to students that would support gender. The biggest thing that really came from this conversation was making ourselves the supports for our students.
Reflection
From this host guest I learned a lot about myself as a teacher. I have always seen the importance of teacher students in the classroom but this week’s learning and being the host has really reaffirmed the importance of creating a strong relationship with your students. Being the hist also encouraged me to think about how to reach all my students and our group discussion about boundaries really gave me a lot of helpful tips for my future teaching practice. I feel like I did a really good job of introducing the topic and helping get the initial conversation set. However next time I would improve on time management. It was tricky to know how many questions I would need so I created 4 and we didn’t get to the last one which was a bit disappointing because it had great conversation potential.
This week’s reading really had a lot of strong themes that already are included in my teaching philosophy. Like creating strong teacher student relationships. This is important to me because it will allow me to see what supports my students need from me. Also, it allows me to learn alongside my students and have them direct there learning through a mutual relationship which is also and important concept in my teaching philosophy.
In the reading Creating Classrooms for equity and social justice it talked about not focusing on the things we can’t change but rather turning our time and attention to the things we can change. This isn’t really evident in my teaching philosophy, but it thinks it is important aspect of my learning this week, so I plan to add it. In my teaching philosophy it will act as a reminder to focus on practicality rather than the things we can’t control.
Questions
How can we make an inclusive and adaptable environment for students without making them feel different?
We can’t take part in all cultural celebrations in our classes because there is so many. So, how do we choose what cultural things we engage with in the classroom?
These week I was challenged to explore coding. I was originally just going to code a short scratch problem someone else created. However I wanted to challenge myself and be creative so I choose to do some coding of my own. I choose to use Code and the extension “dance party”. I choose dance party because I thought it would be easier to learn as a first time coder. I decided to challenge myself and not watch any how to videos and just learn through experience. It took me a few tries but once I got things figured out it was surprisingly easier then I thought.
Throughout this experience I had two main learnings. The first thing that I learned is it’s important to create and alter the set up function of the code before trying to add actions. On my first attempt I was so excited to get the characters doing actions that I skipped this step and it made it very confusing to add actions when I just had one animal in the centre was a setup. The second thing I learned is the best product will come from trial and error. The resource makes it super easy to add and delete things so don’t be afraid to test out different options then choose what you like best.
Here’s what I created
I would say my overall experience of coding was very good. In my future as an educator I would like to explore coding so I am able to use it to its full capacity in my classroom. I think coding has the potential to be a great classroom or virtual learning tool for students of all ages. The wide variety of variations for creating different codes would make it easy for a teacher to create an activity that accommodates many different levels of students. As a future educator I would defiantly like to incorporate coding into my classroom as a learning resource. If coding is something new too you I would defiantly recommend checking it out!
In todays world your digital identity plays a critical role in your identity as an individual on and off the internet. People create the identity they want others to see which is often the ideal moments of their life. The article Split Images discusses how people form a digital identity that often portrays a false image. The article says, “Everyone presents an edited version of life on social media. People share moments that reflect an ideal life, an ideal self.”. I feel like this is a really powerful quote because it is so so true. Social media allows people to control the way others see there lives. As we discussed in our EDTC 300 community its important to Crete a digital image for ourselves before someone else does. However people get so caught up in creating this image or digital identity that they can become consumed. The article also discussed how digital identities effect peoples overall view of themselves. People mostly post about the good things in their lives which makes comparing your life to the ideal life of another person very dangerous for a persons confidence and overall health.
This week I was challenged to cybersleuth a fellow classmate. I started the process by simply searching Karlee Andres into google. This lead me directly to her Facebook and to her Pinterest. Her Facebook was pretty open to me because we share a mutual friend. However I dint gather much from pintrest. All said and done I was actually expecting to find a lot more information about Karlee then I did. However after connecting back with her she examined that she has various other media accounts like instagram, twitter etc. So I concluded that these accounts aren’t under her full name so they don’t come up when I am searching for her. Overall I would say Karlee’s digital footprint is very private and what is public is super professional.
After cybersleuth Karlee I became interested in explore my digital identity. To my surprise I found that my digital identity was much more public then I had predicted. With this in mind I can’t help but think about how my digital identity will effect me as a future educator? Or how my future students will be effected by the digital identity they create? As a future educator I think it is critical to explore the role a digital identity will play in students lives. digital identities will not only effect how students view one and other but it can also have effects on how the students see themselves. It is critical to teach students ways to create a positive digital identity in order to set them up for success in the future. it is also important to educate students on the “ideal lives” people portray on their social media. It is important for myself and other educators to stay current on topics like digital identity so we can teach our students about this important concept.
Believe it or not we are all digital citizens in todays world of advancing technology. According to Ribble digital citizenship can be defined as the “continuously developing norms of appropriate, responsible, and empowered technology use.” Understanding this definition is a critical aspect that allows us to explore the role digital citizen ship and technology will play in the different areas of our life, like the education system for example. Technology has become increasingly prominent in the last few years so as future educators it’s important to understand what to teach students about being a digital citizen and when to teach it to them.
Based on Ribble’s 9 elements of digital citizenship I have picked out 2 elements and tried to connect them to certain areas of the curriculum. When initially looking through the curriculum it was evident that digital citizenship could possibly relate to many areas of learning because one of the broad areas of learning within the K-12 curriculum is “Sense of self, community and place”. However after reading though different sections of curriculum I felt that learning about digital citizenship best fit into the health aspects of the curriculum because in health students are asked to examine interaction, sense of self and how to treat others which I feel all directly relate to digital citizenship.
Digital Etiquette
I think it is important to start teaching about these nine principles a soon as possible. Students are exposed to technology at a young age the the sooner they can understand technology and its effects on their digital citizenship the better. Digital etiquette is the best element to start with when introducing students to digital citizenship. Digital etiquette can be described as the standards for individuals in these various online spaces. Digital etiquette’s could be introduced to students through the Grade 1 health curriculum. The Grade 1 health curriculum talks a lot about behaviour, interaction and relationships which are all directly related to digital etiquette and the behaviour we want to promote in cyberspaces. I would say that this learning could continue into Grade 2 and even Grade 3 but it’s a really good idea if possible to introduce it in Grade 1. While teaching about digital citizenship I would recommend if possible creating a professional online space for students to interact. This will ensure the students can put the content they learned into use right away. Eventually this aspect of digital citizenship would lead into learning about various digital rights and responsibilities.
The last element that I think is also really important is digital rights and responsibilities. This element is focused on discussing the different rights, privileges and responsibilities students have within the cyber world. Although it seems like this element is easy to understand and should be taught much younger I feel Grade 9 is the correct area to discuss the different rights and responsibilities in the digital world. This element digital literacy also means that students need to understand other individuals rights which is a bit trickier of a concept. While teaching about digital rights and responsibilities I feel it is important to allow students to communicate on various platforms where they can practice their rights while viewing and understanding others. A great way to do this would be getting students involved in some kind of online debate. This would allow students to practice their rights by express their optinions but also encourage them to practice their online responsibilities to respect others individuals rights and opinions. Having students participate in the online debate would fit perfectly into the Grade 9 English curriculum. One of the indicators in the curriculum is focused on having student “View, listen to, read, and respond to a variety of visual, oral, print and multimedia (including digital) texts that address the grade-level themes and issues related to identity, social responsibility, and efficacy including those that reflect diverse personal identities, world-views, and backgrounds”. Having students view and respond to others in a digital debate would cover this curriculum indicator and also allow students to develop an understanding for digital responsibility and respect. Furthermore the teacher could also easily incorporate digital laws by showing students the proper way to make citations and encourage them to do research and cite their sources within the debate.
As a future K-5 educator I plan to incorporate digital citizenship as much as possible. I will incorporate the use of technology within my classroom on a daily basis to allow students to explore and practice the different elements of digital citizenship. Students are always going to interact in the digital world. It’s important to realize that although you may not think that it’s ideal it’s important as a teacher to teach the students what they need to know for life. So teach them about digital literacy they will thank you for it!
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