The 390 practicum solidified my dreams of wanting to become a teacher. Finally, being able to put into practice the theory that we have been learning for over 4+ months now was the best experience. I believe that I got so lucky with getting placed with an amazing coaching teacher who helped me realize that the grade I got placed with, while I had my hesitations at first because it was not exactly what I wanted, turned out to be the best experience for my teaching career.
What went well for myself was the connections I was able to make with my placement class and the creation and building of relationships between myself and them. From the beginning I was able to gain their attention and was able to then deliver my lessons due to being able to have a strong relationship with the class. My connections to them grew over the three weeks and this continued to support my ability to teach them as I was able to find ways that I knew would resonate with them to make connections to each lesson. Also, by having a connection with them it allowed them to give me respect and their attention during these three weeks. There was no questioning the lessons I was doing or how I was teaching because they knew that I was there, and my goal was to teach them the lessons that they needed in order to meet the criteria for the grade. This is something that I will continuously work on doing while in practicums and in my teaching career to allow for students to respect and trust me, but also to know what the students’ needs are and the methods that each one needs to succeed.
One goal I set for myself during practicum was time management. This was a struggle for me during the first week trying to find the right amount of time to allocate for my teaching, student-teacher discussion, student-student discussion, and student work time. The first lesson I talked to much and did not let the students talk enough; this then created a need for the students to talk with each other when they should have been working. A tip that my coaching teacher gave me was that students need time during the lesson to talk to each other to share ideas, view classmates’ ideas, and also bounce answers back and forth. This then allows for the students to work more independently. This was something that I continuously worked on during practicum to produce correct times for each part to occur for a successful lesson.
My next steps for practicum will be to continue working on making connections, time manage efficiently but also work on transitions and differentiated learning. While I lesson planned for multiple levels of work ability, I think my coaching teacher set me up for success in always helping and supporting me in differentiated learning. I would also like to work on transition from lesson to lesson as that was not something that I had to do much with teaching limited lessons, but did observe and it is a skill that I want to become efficient at.
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