As I moved forward in the Bachelor of Education program, building student teacher relationships is a component that the majority of my courses have covered. Looking back on my reflection from my first practicum, I can see the value of this experience toward my outlook of teaching as I move forward. Continuing to reflect on all aspects of this program sheds light to the areas of growth, helping me better understand who I want to be as a teacher. As for the second part of this journal reflection, I am glad to have had a practicum experience that showed me many effective ways to manage classroom behaviours and the importance of establishing expectations and routines at the beginning of the school year. As for the second term of this program, hearing the perspectives and opinions of various educators about classroom management has helped me to build up my teacher toolkit.
Week 1 & 2 – Practicum Reflection
My first two weeks of practicum turned out to be a very rewarding and humbling experience. I noticed the relationships my TM had with the students and saw that these relationships helped the students feel comfortable in the classroom. The students gained a level of trust and respect toward my TM, which was developed at the beginning of the school year and continued to grow as time progressed. What I observed is that these relationships allowed for the classroom to run smoothly. I always thought I understood the importance of developing relationships with my students, however, before the Teaching and Learning course and my first experience in a classroom I never knew why.  I always assumed that this part of teaching was obvious.  When I look back at my past experiences as a student and the relationships I built with my teachers, I made connections and realized the challenges that come with being a teacher.  My Teaching and Learning professor mentioned that we may never know how students are being treated at home or at school and coming to our classroom may be the only place where students feel safe and comfortable.  Understanding that children’s behaviour and their ability to perform at school could potentially be linked to their home life and/or school experiences opened my eyes to the importance of building student relationships right from the beginning.  Realizing that my classroom might be the only place where a child may feel respected and/or safe is a troubling but important thought to understand and appreciate. This comment really spoke to me and I now understand why it is so important to be prepared and to have that relationship with your students when entering the classroom. During my first two weeks at practicum I made an effort to begin building student relationships, so when I teach them my first lesson I can better understand each child as an individual and give every student what it is they need to be successful.
Secondly, I was surprised on my first day in my TM’s classroom to see how well they were behaving and I recognized the hard work and devotion my TM put into creating a controlled and organized environment.  I think that my TM’s classroom management techniques are effective because of the expectations and routines that were established at the beginning of the year. My TM had mentioned that at the beginning of the school year the students and my TM came up with rules and expectations together. I believe that working on expectations together is an effective way to ensure that all students are clear on what is being asked of them and this is something that I would like to use in my future classrooms. All of the students know what is expected of them and what they should be doing because of continuous repetition.  I am aware of the importance of developing a space that provides all children an opportunity to perform to the best of their ability and I understand that this is not an easy task and many challenges were faced to create an environment that works best for everyone.  The classroom management techniques I observed from my TM during the first two weeks are methods I would like to incorporate into my classroom to ensure that all my students in the future will have the best environment to help them along their learning journey.  I believe that finding the best technique is important, however, I understand that it may not always work classroom to classroom and these methods may need to be adapted to ensure that all my classrooms have the potential for success.
Reflecting on this journal reminded me how important it is to thoroughly go over all areas of instruction prior to beginning the lesson. As I move forward and continue to have moments to reflect on the teaching and learning process, I realize the value of taking the time to reflect to provide insight on how to improve, grow, and learn as an educator. Furthermore, I am reminded to never ask all students to come up at once to grab a treat. More importantly, I am reminded of the pure joy and enlightenment I received from standing up in front of eager learners, teaching my very first lesson. I know for certain I have chosen a career path that will provide me with an everlasting opportunity to learn and grow.
Week 3 & 4 – Practicum Reflection
Prior to teaching my first lesson, I was feeling overwhelmed and unprepared to stand up in front of the class, however, once I began, everything came together effortlessly.  Overall, my first lesson went well and all the students thoroughly enjoyed the activity. My TM was a great support and helped with any questions that I came across while preparing for my lesson. The feedback I received after my lesson from my TM was very encouraging and supportive and it significantly helped me prepare for my second lesson. Even though everything ran relatively smooth, there were moments throughout my lesson that I would do differently the next time.  I felt my activity was too open ended. I noticed while I was circulating and observing the students, many of them were feeling lost and couldn’t narrow down their thoughts enough to begin. This really opened my eyes to the importance of guiding students in the direction that you would like them to go, prior to them beginning their work. From the experience I gained, I modified my second lesson to better fit the student’s needs and gave them a more structured lesson. One “aha” moment that really stood out was the closure of my lesson when I instructed the students to all come up and grab a chocolate bar, however, I did not thoroughly think through the outcome that all twenty students would ALL be coming up at the SAME time grabbing for their chocolate bar.  I now know how important it is to think about how your words will look in action prior to verbally addressing instruction to the student. Moreover, having no prior experience with teaching made it difficult for me to navigate through a thirty-minute lesson, I found that I was paying too much attention with trying to keep in the time frame that I was losing the flow of my lesson.  I know that this will get easier as I gain more experience.
As for my second lesson, even though I was being formally observed by my TM, I felt like I was mentally prepared and less anxious to go up in front of the class to teach my lesson.  Time management became easier to navigate once I had an idea of how long each section of the lesson plan takes to execute.  Once I was done teaching my second lesson I felt proud and was extremely happy with the outcome. Seeing the students engaged and behaving well helps immensely with how well the lesson flows. I’ve learned many valuable behaviour management techniques from my TM, which I have been incorporating into my lessons. The respect I receive from the students is incredible and makes my time at practicum that much more rewarding. The best moment by far happened after my second lesson when a little boy came up to me and thanked me for teaching him about similes and that he learned a lot. That particular moment was the most rewarding moment thus far.  Everything I experienced with teaching my first two lessons gave me a lot of valuable information and experience that I will be able to take with me as I move forward with my education.  I am always taking advantage of every opportunity that presents itself and I ask many questions while becoming more familiar with structuring my lessons.
I believe that pacing and time management is a component of teaching that will never be perfect, however, practicing will allow for the opportunity to grow. I remember how nervous I was to teach my first lesson compared to my second, and even noticed a substantial difference with my time management skills. Using positive feedback during my lesson proved to be effective; I noticed the difference in student attitudes and behaviours and most importantly, student engagement improved as well. When looking at my “one wish” about instructional objectives, these components have been covered further in our courses and I’m excited for the opportunity to practice them more during the last year of the Bachelor of Education program.
Week 6 – Final Practicum Reflection
Throughout the past 7-weeks, I have taken my practicum experience with a very open-mind, in that I wanted to gain the most out of my short time with my teacher and faculty mentor. Reflecting back on my time in the classroom, I feel very confident with my growth during practicum and am happy to report that I have learned a great deal from this experience.
As my first “star,” I would like to reflect on my growth with pacing. During my first lesson, I felt I did not understand how to properly time manage what I had set up for myself in my lesson plan. This made it difficult to navigate, considering I had never taught a lesson before and did not know how long everything would take. To better prepare for my first lesson, I went to Beverly, the professor who was teaching us about lesson planning and asked for help with pacing. This helped a lot in that I gained a better understanding with how much time each section of the lesson plan should take for a grade 3 class specifically. However, when it came to teaching the lesson, even though I had this basic understanding, I quickly came to realize that it is much different to hear someone tell me how long something should take in relation to actually implementing it. This stems from a lack of understanding about classroom and behaviour management, in that I did not account for trying to get students to pay attention and to transition students from one thing to the next.  It is important to understand that every little task in the classroom takes time, so accounting for this while planning a lesson is essential. Also, my nerves impacted my time management as I continued to forget to refer to the clock to see where I was at with time.  However, I was not overly worried about timing in my first lesson because I knew this was the perfect opportunity to gain an understanding around pacing. Furthermore, I understood that first practicum is geared toward our growth and understanding toward implementing our plans into a real classroom setting and to gain experience. Having this in mind, I knew that even if I didn’t follow my plans to every little detail, it was okay.  I believe to have a successful lesson one must adapt to any situation and things may not always go as planned so it is important to always be prepared for anything. However, when it came to teaching my last lesson, I had adapted to all these struggles.  I managed to successfully gain a better understanding about pacing which allowed me to better work through my lesson.  I was able to refer to the clock more and see where I needed to begin wrapping up and where I needed to add more time.  In the end, I was able to achieve a nearly seamless lesson. This was a very rewarding moment for me personally.
For my second “star” I chose to reflect on my tremendous growth I made in using positive management strategies and more importantly, I now understand the importance behind these strategies. Prior to teaching my first lesson, I felt nervous and unsure about how to properly address behaviours but had a general understanding that in order to have a successful lesson, I was going to need to incorporate techniques throughout my lessons. To grow as a future teacher, I wanted to make sure that I was utilizing my teacher mentor for my lessons in that I had observed her techniques and was aware that her classroom management was successful. All of her students respect her and are willing to participate because of the way she manages her classroom.  She had reiterated the importance of providing students with positive encouragement while circulating and acknowledging good behaviour. This helped immensely with my first lesson because I knew I needed to provide students with positive feedback on their work and acknowledge students who were on task and following expectations. During my first lesson, even though I knew what I should be doing, this was still very foreign to me and I felt uncomfortable calling out students who were paying attention and following expectations. When providing positive supporting learning throughout the activity, I would ask the student if they felt comfortable with me sharing their ideas to the class. This helped me ensure that I wasn’t putting anyone on the spot and making them feel uncomfortable. However, as I taught my last three lessons, behaviour and classroom management began to feel more natural rather than forced.  Overall, during my last lesson I felt comfortable in front of the class and had the confidence to properly address behaviour and expectations. Rather than focusing on the negatives and continually trying to manage students who were not behaving and following expectations, I focused on the good behaviour and acknowledged the students who were doing what was asked of them. By adapting to classroom and behaviour management techniques my last lesson was successful.
My “one wish” for my next practicum experience I want to be more proficient in following along with my instructional objectives. I know that this progressively got better from my first lesson to my last, however, I know this still needs some work. I felt that there were some students who were still left unclear about the activity, due to my instructions. I need to make sure that all students are clear, not only about the activity itself, but in regard to my instructional objectives as well.  For next time, to ensure that the students are understanding the instructions, I will break down my tasks in more specific terms and ensure that all students know what is being asked of them. Overall, I know I gained a lot of experience during my time in practicum and I am happy where I am leaving off.  However, I know that there is always room for improvement and I will continue to strive for better in all aspects of teaching that are yet to come.