Over the 6 weeks of my practicum, I have learned so much. I was so happy to be able to work with such amazing students - each with their own struggles, stregths and goofy personalities. I am also so thankful for the amazing support from all the staff members at St.Matthew. I never felt afraid to participate fully in their school community.
I love that I was given the oppotunity to grow so much as an educator - to practice my teaching philophy; to develop a complete vision for how I want to interact, present myself and communicate as a teacher; to better envision my ideal physical classroom space, community and atmosphere I hope to help build in furure years; to get just a little bit closer to knowing what works well and what doesn't (and that this will depend on the group you are working with, individuals within that group and who ate breakfast that morning); to learn how I want to come across to my students in the future and how to build more meaningful relationships with the students I interact with. I have read about varying strateiges, philophies, theories and tools relating to education, and I think I am finally beginning to see how this sometimes overwhelming amount of content and information can really help individual educators create their own personal, special and influential experiences in their classrooms. On my last day, I recived many thank-yous. The best feeling in the world happened when a student - one who was struggling in the class and with myself on some days - came up to me on my last day and thanked me for helping them through the course and for being there for him. He became sad when I informed him I may not teach him again. Now, I know he will be fine wihtout me. I know there will be others that will help him find his way. I am just so honored to know that some students, even if its just one, will be able to look back upon my time as their teacher and know that I have helped them positively in the course and in their lives. That impact is real. That feeling is irreplacable.
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Since entering the school in September, I have been able to make some amazing connections with students, staff and others in the school community. I find my experience has been so positive and I have been very warmly welcomed back to St.Matts. Here are just some of the amazing things I have been a part of during my time at St.Matts...
Literacy Test Workshops I was lucky enough to work along side many english department teachers to create a literacy test workshop. This workshop was run for 4 weeks, with a variety of students taking advantage of the great opportunity presented. During these workshops, I worked with students with varying degrees of readiness and abilities relating to the literacy test. Some came just to review, others came as part of an initiative designed by the resource centre, while others came to prepare for writing the test a second time. I ran the newpaper article station. Here, students could preactice finding important facts from titles and pictures, as well as practicing writing a blueprint of a possible newspaper article that could be found on their test. Although the tests did not end up happening in the first semester, I found the students felt much more comfortable and confident with the content after attending the workshops. It was also a wonderful opportunity to build relationships with students outside of my own classroom. We Day and Anti-Bullying Week Getting involved with We Day was a very rewarding part of my practicum. Along with attending We Day, I became involved with the Me to We group, where we worked together to design posters and activities around anti-bullying week. Here is an article I wrote for the school newspaper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18eeE-WWVHe7BkLgPYKlI5eRttC27hW-S6ysA2qSh64o/edit EQAO Math Workshops / Math Help Sessions Along with literacy test workshop preparations, I also helped with a few math and science EQAO prep and help sessions. Here, I worked along side math teachers as well as Laura, a fellow student teacher, to help students prepare for the EQAO test, or get any additional math or science help they needed. These sessions ran after school and during lunch time. Students seemed to be very grateful for having a drop-in style help session for whenever they have any problems. New Pedagogoies of Deep Learning During one of my grade 10 science classes, a large group of researchers came to interview myself, my AT and other students regarding the integration of new pedagogies for deep learning into day-to-day activities in the classroom. Here, the researchers pushed me to think about how my lessons incorporated and assessed important skills such as communication, collaboration and critical thinking. Researchers were also able to see how these skills were specifically incorporated into a project the students were working on (creating a graphic organizer for animal system interactions). |
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December 2016
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