Practicum+Reflections

Hey guys!

Can't believe our 4 weeks of practicum is over. I don't know about you all but this experience confirmed my teaching career. My classroom experience has just grown from strength to strength. I learnt to much throughout this 4 weeks. I learnt about classroom management, the importance of timing when teaching and how explicit teaching and clear instructions are so important in the children being able to engage and indulge in a prepared activity. From the second day I began teaching and in the last week I had developed my skills where literacy rotations become a routine and the name Miss Beed was becoming easier to accept. In the last week i almost felt like i was ready to teach, i was doing Yard Duty and running the grade for the day. It was tiring but most enjoyable and i knew from this opportunity that i couldnt wait to begin a classroom of my own and implement my thoughts and ideas. I hope that all your experiences were just as enjoyable and that you guys are all nearly ready to begin your journey in the teaching world. I realised that teaching is a journey full of excitement, challenge and unexpected twists and turns but an experience that will continue to enrich the children with knowledge, wisdom and understanding.

Brent Plowright 24/06/2009 Practicum Reflection Well what an experience our teaching rounds were. I have to say that I had an absolute ball out at Boey North Primary in grade 5T. The staff were so fantastic and welcoming, and the kids were great. After hearing some of the negative stories that came back from other people's experiences I realise how well behaved the kids really were. The atmosphere in the staff-room was unbelievable with staff constantly laughing and joking around, nothing was ever too much trouble for them when helping one another and helping me. It was interesting to hear from other non-Latrobe student teachers that were there at the time how much they preferred being at Boey North than other schools they had been at previously. I certainly understand why. I was lucky enough to be able do a week and a half of fieldwork assisting in the class where I was doing my practicum and it really helped by the time I started teaching. It was a massive advantage just knowing all the students' names from day one of teaching. I was actually really worried about remembering all the names as I am just one of those people that is terrible with names, but I was surprised how easily I found it. After 3 days I reckon I had all the names sorted. It was obvious how important this was to the kids too, as it was quite evident in those first couple of days how disappointed the students were when I couldn't remember their name after just remembering one of their peers names. It's so weird, I absolutely HATE public speaking but in front of the students I felt completely at ease. I felt I established a good rapport with the students by asking about their interests when I had a chance and letting them ask questions about me. I used humour and a friendly tone in my voice, so when I wanted them to quieten down or give their full attention I would simply change the tone of my voice and that was quite often enough to obtain the desired result. I did find that the strategy given to me by my mentor of asking them all to look at me, put down their pens and and close their mouths worked well in conjunction with a change in tone. My mentor was fantastic and is pretty much the epitome of everything we have learnt an effective teacher should be. Just observing the way she went about teaching her class was like seeing the lectures about catering for different learning styles, managing behaviour, managing, identifying multiple intelligences and managing different ability levels all manifest in reality. She was so helpful with assisting me in finding resources that could help me teach using my own style. Perhaps the best advice she gave to me was 'don't try and reinvent the wheel'. I remember having ideas lessons and planning to make class materials or buying a book I wanted to use, but she always knew of a resource that could be used just as effectively, if not more so, that was available in the school. It really illustrated to me just how important it is to get to know the resources that you have available to you. It will not only make our first year of teaching much more manageable, but it you are really doing an injustice to your students by not knowing what is available. This undoubtedly takes time but I know I will endeavour to search out and know the resources I can get my hands on from the get go. I was lucky enough to teach a range a of different domains. As well as literacy and numeracy I taught science, art, PE and ICT. This was great as it ensured I had to collaborate with a range of different teachers and specialists and not just my assigned mentor. I had a lot of fun mixing up the subjects taught, and it enabled me to become more familiar with VELS standards other than the ones we all refer to constantly (literacy and numeracy) So I can definitely say that my rounds were an extremely positive experience. I still have no doubt that I have areas I can improve on but this experience has only impassioned my desire to continue to pursue my teaching career.

Amy McLean 25/06/09

I absolutely loved my teaching rounds! Like Bec, it has confirmed my choice of choosing a career in education. I was pretty nervous on my first day, not knowing what to expect, but my mentor teacher made me feel so relaxed and welcome in her classroom. I found the first few days of observation very beneficial as it let me get a feel for the class dynamics, a chance to learn all the kids names and I had the chance to get to know the kids without being their 'teacher'. My mentor teacher was also the schools Reading Recovery co-ordinator so I was lucky enough to be able to sit in with her on more than one occasion and observe the students in the program. I was in a Prep/1 composite and from the 2nd week I was taking full control of the 2 hour literacy block in the mornings. I also helped in art, PMP (perceptual motor performance) and taught the developmental curriculum in the last hour of the day. Composite classes are very interesting as not only do you cater for different learning needs over the 2 grades, you are also catering for different needs within each grade(hope that makes sense!). Modelling of each task/activity was so important and at the start I took for granted that these kids are still only learning to read and write. You need to explain everything explicitly and make sure each and everyone of them knows what they are doing. It was fantastic that everyday there was at least one helper (other than my mentor) to help out. I feel that this help is so important, as Preps are all over the place and keeping them on task is sometimes a challenge! One of my biggest learning experiences was definitely time management and how important it is. I found that what I thought may fit into a 45min block quite often went over time and then times when I thought a task may take longer it didn't! I also learnt a lot about classroom management which was good, as this was an area that I was worried about. Most strategies like the clapping or hands on heads worked and the kids knew that it meant to stop what they were doing and listen. If I was to take away one negative from my placement experience, it would be that I didn't get to do as much teaching as I would have liked. After recess the preps went to the other prep class and the grade 1's went to the other grade 1 classes for their maths lessons. My mentor spent the 2 hours between recess and lunch doing Reading Recovery which meant that she did not teach any numeracy. I did sit in with the preps while they did maths, so was able to observe and help the teacher, but as she had a student teacher of her own I did not get to teach any maths lessons at all. Overall, a positive experience and I cannot wait to continue on my journey!

Jake Gordon 25/06/09

Hey all, fantastic relflections! Well like you guys I absolutely loved my practicum and thought it was an amazing experience. Due to a crowded timetable with swimming lessons and also production practice. I was pretty much teaching every lesson from the moment I stepped into the classroom. I was a little aprehensive at first with this but, looking back I wouldn't have changed it all. My apporach was to just set small goals to help me progress, the first was learning all the students name and a class of 28, I was pleased I had this done by the end of the second day! The teaching was great, all students seemed to respond well to me and I really enjoyed teaching them about Gallipoli, area & perimeter and also their guided reading and creative writing pieces.

I was able to participate in a PD day which was on the curriculum day and was able to listen to Dr Richard Eisenmajer who is an expert on autism and asperger's syndrome. We also had a seminar on restorical practices which game me a wealth of knowledge about how the modern day disciplining of children is done, very interesting! My mentor teacher was fantastic and gave me plenty of constructive feedback and made me feel very welcome. There were a couple of hairy moments in there but all in all I loved the experience and am looking forward to the next round to build on my four week experience!

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Names: Brent Plowright Rebecca Beed Amy Mclean Jake Gordon