Week Three: Teachers & Knowledge: You will focus on the teachers & knowledge.
Core Questions: How do you see teachers honouring different ways of knowing? How do you see teachers promoting knowledge in the classroom? What are the key supports that teachers rely on? How do teachers build their own professional knowledge?

 

 

 

This week at the school we got to experience a different schedule than the other two times. First, the children read to themselves. Following this activity, the teacher read them a story without showing them the pictures in order for them to learn how to visualize pictures. Then to really get them to learn visualizing, the teacher had them go and draw in their notebooks what they thought the image looked like that the story was describing. During this time, the teacher had me and my partner walk from student to student and have them read sight words. It was interesting to see the variations in the student’s level of reading. It was also fun to help them sound out the words and see their excitement when they got a word correct.

Another activity the teacher had was to teach the students about the sense of touch. She had several paper bags with a different item in them and the students took turns reaching into the bag to feel it and then writing down what they believed the item was. The students then had recess and the teacher talked to us about how prepping for a substitute teacher is a lot more work than prepping for yourself. Also, she discussed with us how students do have varying levels of abilities. There was a new student in her class who does not speak very much English, so they had a teaching assistant one on one with this student to try and help their understanding of what tasks they are to do.

When the students got back from recess, the children prepared all their stuff for home time and then we go to go help in their French class. In their French class, they were having their first test about seasons and weather. Each student received a test paper with eight different images representing a season or weather type. The teacher would read out loud a season or weather type in French to the class and their task was to write the number of the word next to the image. For example, when they teacher read ‘hot day’ in French she would say ‘number 1’ before so the students knew what number it was. It was fun to see the students take part in their first test and learn how tests work, such as no looking at others papers, no asking the teacher for the answer, etc. Some students were running late to the class and to get the students caught up, the teacher had myself, my partner, and a teaching assistant tell them the questions and she kept the rest of the class quiet.

Overall the teachers in both the homeroom and the French class explained things in a way the all students of different learning styles would understand. In the French test, the teacher first explained that the students would only be writing numbers and then she visually showed this to the students by writing all the numbers on the whiteboard. Some key supports that I noticed the teacher relies on is the teaching assistant as well as students own knowledge. Teachers can build their own professional knowledge by realizing what areas most students seem to struggle with that way they can focus on those areas and make things easier for them to understand.