Reflections from Week 1

I had a Unit Plan conceived, and upon sharing it with my T.A., have tailored it down to the 50-minute unit, and adjusted some of the activities to be more relatable and familiar with the students.

I have two lesson plans approved with a few handouts ready to go to kick off literacy on Monday, and will have Lessons 3 and 4 prepped before Monday. I’ll take some notes on the Math classes which I’ll likely be leading the activities in, as well.

Reflections from Week 2

I’ve prepared a few lesson plans, but “Guidance” and a concert, for example, have required that some lessons extend beyond the regularly scheduled expectations. I’m also finding that the work requires more time than I expected – first, the classes are only 50 minutes (sometimes only 40 minutes) and that’s restricting the work time.

So extended work periods are being required. I’m finding Exit Tickets have been required to get students on task and make them accountable for getting to work. The Unit Plan I’ve prepared is fairy straightforward, but I’ve required some guidance from my T.A. to get a grading rubric created and solidify what I aim to teach the students.

One of the lessons this week set the students up for a sizeable task, which extended beyond a single lesson. To resume the work period in the next lesson, I designed new Minds On activities that imparted a lesson or activity which reinforced the tasks expected during the class i.e,. providing positive feedback or categorization and transposition from a brainstorming phase into a drafting phase.

I spoke with one of the E.A.s about the student he supports with an I.E.P., and he discussed the strategies and regular day for that student. I’m probably jinxing myself, but that student has been managed very well in the time I’ve been with the class.

Reflections from Week 3

Audience Analysis and the Phys. Ed. Class (Dec. 2), followed by Document Planning and introduction of final assignment. I finalized my grading rubric and learning objectives for my unit plan – it took some paring down to adjust to my new expectations of what’s do-able and what there isn’t time for.

One lesson incorporated a Minds On activity that relied on a map, for the purposes of demonstrating how reliable directions improve one’s experience in performing an activity – but the map and directions on it weren’t as clear as I’d hoped. Hiding a “treasure” in the classroom where the students wouldn’t spot it immediately led me to make it a bit too complicated. The lesson would have been improved had I just hid it in a drawer, for example.

I was able to adapt a worksheet I prepared for my Spec.Ed. 4233 assignment. My Spec.Ed. student had no interest in it, but my son of approximately the same age thought it was awesome, so I’m hoping these two classes of Grade 7s and 8s have enjoyed Minions enough to be interested in the assignment.

The buses were cancelled on Dec. 4.

Reflections from Week 4

The buses were cancelled Dec. 9. I ran the Editing and Revisions lesson plan and a “recap” to pick up after where we’d left off the week before (due to bus cancellations and a volleyball tournament, it had been a full week since I’d seen some of the students).

We had a Teacher Development meeting or something, I’m not sure what it was called, on Tuesday after classes; and Brittiny Stephenson from the school board gave a presentation on incorporating more Indigenous Studies into our lessons, and shared some resources with the teachers.

I emailed her some questions about the curriculum, but more importantly, as I was wrapping up my unit plan on User Guides I thought there might be some students who are ready to move on Friday – and so I prepared a lesson that was based on one of the poems featured in the Dreaming in Indian text we had – I made a Lumio game with multiple choice answers that we could play in teams; after reading and discussing the poem. I think it was a good one, and an opportunity to say that I tried incorporating Indigenous materials into my lessons. The big discussion in the break-out meeting we had (which I sort of spurred indirectly through a conversation with my T.A.) was that one of the board’s principles re: Indigenous studies is the “Nothing about us, without us” principle. Ms. Stephenson offered some input and ultimately said that discussing poetry by Indigenous artists is entirely fine – so … that’s what I’ve done. We covered “The Power of the Land” by Dale Redbird.

In application, I couldn’t quite get the “teams” on the same page and interacting together on the Lumio link … though they were able to access game I designed for them. So we had to do it at the front of the room, and that got a bit more unruly that I’d anticipated.

But the conversation and lesson went well, with many of the meanings and interpretations I’d hope to cover being provided by the class. It felt a bit rushed, because there was still a work period for students who hadn’t completed their unit assignments. But I’m glad I was able to use a Lumio lesson, and do some work with the Indigenous learning objectives and the Dreaming in Indian text.

Navigation / Table of Contents

Focus areas:

• Teacher Plan Book homepage (link)
• lesson planning (link)
• student observations (link)
• classroom and school context summaries (link)
• reflections for each lesson (link)
• weekly and overall reflections (link)
• reflections on the associate teacher’s classroom management, lesson implementation and assessment & evaluation (link)