Category: ECS 303

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.

Week One- Informal Introduction Activity – Co- teaching

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.

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.

Resources from my placement.

Field placement resources

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!

Virtual Treaty 4 Gathering

Activities I tried at the Treaty Gathering

• 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

My Hook/Connection for this topic:

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?