Reflections

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=401/402 Reflections=

Week 1
Wow!!! What a week. I am not quite sure where to start as I have had so many different feelings this week. I suppose that starting at the beginning of the week would make sense, oh how I love my linear thinking science minded brain. Getting a ride up the hill on Monday took me back to the first time my parents drove me up to move in to residence. Well we weren’t driving quite as slowly this time but the emotions were the same. I had a wonderful mix of nervousness and excitement. I had been waiting for this for a couple of years and the desire to learn was balanced only by the nervousness of meeting a group of people that I knew would be amazing. As I mentioned in class at the start of the week I was somewhat frustrated by a lack of understanding about what the semester would look like. I think a lot of this frustration stemmed from just having finished a job where I was the one that was conveying information to the group and consequently knew what would be happening months in advance. I can’t express how grateful I am that my request for clarity was respected and accommodated as much as possible. Once I had my mind settled I was able to embrace the fact that I was spending six hours a day surrounded by a group with a similar passion and that those six hours were spent exploring and learning more about that passion. It always amazes me how quickly a group that is together for a common goal can come together and bond. I heard a number of people mention it and I thought it myself a number of times during the retreat; ‘how has this group only been together for 4 day?’ Right now the overwhelming emotion that I am feeling is one of anticipation to learn and discover more and to get into a school and learn some lessons first hand. Thanks for a great first week!

Week 2
This was a good week and has helped me to really get into the semester and start to get excited about getting into a school. The field trip fair was excited but unfortunately in the end it was of limited use. I did find myself thinking of trips that I would like to do with various classes but the vast majority of the organizations did not offer programs for secondary classes. It was however a good afternoon to spend with a couple of classmates talking about our first week experience. Having the opportunity to go into a school and shadow a teacher for a day was great. Being able to see a great teacher in action was great. I was able to see many of the ideas that I have about education being applied in the classroom. By the end of the day I was wishing that I would be returning to school the next morning. I also found that the day was good to get an appreciation of what is included in a teacher’s day. I am feeling a lot of anticipation towards getting my practicum placement. I am not exactly sure what I would do if I knew where I was going to be but I think it would make it feel a bit more real. I have spent the past two years waiting to be in this program and now that I am in it I just can’t wait to get into a classroom and start learning there. I imagine that is because I am most comfortable when I am learning through hands on activities. I also found it insightful to revisit MBTI. While I did not feel that I learned that much more about myself through this I do feel that it was a good reminded of the importance of planning lessons to appeal to a variety of different learning preferences. This has made me a bit anxious about the complexity of planning a lesson so that the needs of all the students are being attended to or at the least are being considered in the planning process. I enjoyed that we took the time to participate in the Terry Fox run on Thursday. I think that it was a great example of how teachers are able to deviate from the curriculum in order to spend time on culturally important events and issues. I also feel that the it was a good opportunity for our class to support each other in an event outside of the classroom.

Week 3
This was a good week as I had what I would consider to be a fairly major shift in my mindset. I went from reflecting on the experience of being in PDP to be able to reflect on the experience that I am having within my journey to become a professional. I am finding that much of my time is now being spent thinking about my beliefs in education and the style that I want to bring to my classroom. This is in contrast to previous weeks where I was mainly focusing on adjusting to being part of a group, determining the identity of that group and establishing my own identity within that group. While I am pleased with this transition I am also finding very frustrating. My excitement for teaching has been growing each day as I have more ideas of the type of teacher that I want to be and the environment that I want to create with my students. Unfortunately the more that I dream about the type of teacher that I want to be the more I realize how far I have to go in order to get there. This week seemed to provide a number of good opportunities to think critically about what I am doing and how I am doing it. I have to keep reminding myself that I can’t start running before I have learned to crawl. Over the next few weeks I want to ensure that I am not getting too bogged down in focusing on a few aspects of my style as I discover areas that can be tweaked and worked on. While I obviously want to take the opportunity to improve in everyway that I can I don’t want to forget about the skills and passion that have brought me to this point in my life.

Week 5
I have started to gain a deeper understanding of the term pedagogical sensitivity this week. The school that I am placed in is only 3 years old and has a very diverse population of students. Some of the teens at this school are your average middle class students who have grown up with each other in the same neighborhood. Other students have just moved to Canada as refugees from other countries and have never attended formal schooling before. Of course there are also a plethora of other students that fill in the gaps between these two groups. The reality of day to day life that these students face is just as varied with some being on sports teams and student council and others being involved in crime drugs and even prostitution. The students are not just faced with finding their identity as young adults but also with finding their identities with in a group that has just recently formed and then working collectively to find an identity of the group itself. I was really impressed with how the teachers that I have observed this week know each individual student and use this knowledge to assess the needs of each student and create realistic goals and expectations of what school can and will provide these students. In some cases school is a place where these students are able to excel academically and for other students it is a safe place where they belong and are accepted. While it would be ideal if every student was able to be successful by government set academic standards it appears more important to these highly dedicated teachers that each student is given an opportunity to learn about themselves and the world around and in doing so gain skills that will help them throughout their lives. I think that the biggest lesson that I have learned is that the content set out in course outlines is only a small part of the education that these students gain, the bulk of what the seem to be learning is in the areas of personal and social responsibility.

Week 6
This week was a very interesting one as I felt much more comfortable being in the school and the students seemed to feel more comfortable having me there. I was particularly interested to look at the area of choices and power balance in the class room. I had a couple of opportunities where I was alone with the class while the teacher ran out to take care of a few issues outside the room. The first day I had a bit of a struggle with one of the students who would not take his iPod off while I was reading to them. After asking him to remove it a couple of times explaining how I did not feel that he was listening to me I decided to change tactics. I let him know that I was having trouble concentrating on the reading when I knew that he had his music on. I explained to him that as I am knew at teaching I would really appreciate it if he would remove his earphones so that I could concentrate. I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed and put the music away for the rest of class. The next day the students were working on assignments that they had and the boy from the previous day decided that he was not going to work at his desk and would instead try to talk to other students. Having gained a bit of insight on this student the day before I decided to tell him that while I did not mind if he chose not to do his work I would really appreciate it if he respected his classmates choices to do their work. It would seem that having the opportunity to make a choice involved demonstrating his social responsibility was something that he responded to well. After these two interactions I started to pay attention to how teachers were dealing with students who did not want to do what they had been asked to. In most cases teachers were providing the students with the opportunity to choose what they would do. When I started to reflect on this I realized that these students are give very little power to make choices in their lives so when a teacher provides them with this power they make the most of it. I think that the next challenge will be to find a balance and fine tune the choices that I am presenting my students with.

Week 10
This week’s lesson was unquestionably on the importance of subject knowledge. So far I have not taught in any areas that I have felt that I have a solid knowledge base in. In PE our dance unit has been a fairly intimidating to me as I have never enjoyed dancing or even felt comfortable doing it. To now be in a position where I am trying to teach students various social dances and get them excited about the unit is very difficult. I am finding that this experience is putting me in a position where my personal experiences are leaving me with a lack of confidence. I believe that this lack of confidence is being compounded by the fact that I am novice teacher and I am still trying to build my confidence in so many areas. I have also been having similar feelings in my socials studies and English classes. It has been a good seven years since I last took an English course and the last time I was in social studies was in high school. Most of my prep time at night has been spent on becoming familiar with what I was going to teach rather than on how I was going to teach it and what strategies would help individual students. While this has been frustrating I believe that it will benefit me when it comes to preparing for my 405 practicum and my first number of years of teaching. I am hoping that this experience will give me the good sense to use the six weeks that we have off to review the curriculum of the courses that I will be teaching.

Week 11
Well I feel a whole lot more confident at the end of this week when compared to last week. This week has been the first time that I have really felt like a teacher. Most of this feeling is not related to any of the lessons that I taught but more to the way that the students are responding to me. I feel that I am being recognized as a teacher and a member of the staff at the school. This recognition seems to go beyond the classes that I am teaching and into the classes that are in the gym at the same time as my classes and also into the halls. I have found that most times that I am in the halls there are students that are saying “Hi Mr. Cameron” and asking me what questions about school or letting me know about how their day is going. On Thursday I was walking through the smoke pit to get to the sky train and a group of students stopped me to ask me some personal questions. I felt very accepted to have students socialize with me in such a nonacademic space. I am also finding it hard that we only have a week to go at this practicum. I feel that I have finally gained the trust of my students and am having some form of impact on their experience at school (a positive impact I hope) and now it is time to say good bye and move on to another school and a different group of students. While it is hard to think about leaving Byrne Creek I am excited to take many of the lessons that I have learned here and apply them to my next placement. I feel that I have really found a style that I am comfortable and more importantly I have an idea of what having a style means to me. I had previously thought that your style was about the type of lessons that you create and the way the you deliver them but I am now starting to believe that it has much more to do with the personality that you bring to your students that shapes how you help students learn.

=405 Reflections=

Reflection 1
It is hard to believe that we have only been back for two weeks. It feels that in that time so much has happened and my confidence has been on a roller coaster the entire time. Every time I feel that I have really started to make steps in an area of my planning and preparation I realize that it has only served to reveal another area that I still need to discover and develop in.

I have been very excited to learn some ways that technology can be used in the classroom and I am looking forward to trying some of these ways. I believe that the key to finding new technology and ways to reach the students is to have the students teach me what technology they are using while I try to get an idea of what technology is going to be coming into use in the near future. I have created a wiki-space and think that it will be an effective way to have my students interact with myself, each other and the curriculum on their terms and in a way that they are comfortable. One of the most frustrating things I remember from high school is having a question at night when I was doing homework. I did not have a way of contacting my teacher and unless it was an essential question of understanding it went unasked the next day. By having an online space for students to ask questions and help each other it is possible for questions to be posed and possibly answered right when they are thought of. I am hopeful that this will not only increase the level of understanding of the curriculum but will also create an environment where students are thinking at a level that goes beyond the work that they are doing in the classroom.

Reflection 2
For much of my adult life I have had my share of problems with my head. Over the past few years I have had daily symptoms that vary from a mild headache to migraines that stop me in my tracks as well as occasional confusion and forgetting what I was talking about half way through a sentence. Needless to say this has had an impact on my life and at times prevents me from enjoying many of my favorite activities. After a number of CT scans, MRIs, EEGs, a spinal tap, and far too many trips to the hospital I was told that the root of my problems was head trauma that I have had at various points. I have now had 4 concussions, the worst of these came in grade 11 PE during a wrestling unit. A classmate flipped me upside down, I landed on my head I was unconscious for several minutes.

A couple of days ago a boy in my class suffered a mild concussion while we were playing a game for wrestling. It seems that he is ok and with luck in a couple of days he will not have any symptoms again. However I can’t help but wonder if he will have an experience similar to my own.

This brings me to a question, why do we teach wrestling in PE? Most new teachers lack experience in wrestling beyond what we learned in our own high school PE classes. From what I can tell the same is true for most PE teachers. While I have no doubt that my status as a novice teacher contributed this accident I do not feel that it alone led to this student being injured. If it was just a lack of teaching experience then I am not sure how to explain my own accident as my teacher had 20+ years of teaching under his belt. Wrestling involves a certain number of risks and when an individual decides to participate in this sport they accept those risks. However in a system where grades are largely determined by participation we remove the realistic option of choice from the students and impose those risks on them. In a subject with as general a curriculum as PE I find it concerning that we choose to have our students take part in an activity that presents such a risk for injury. I can’t help but feel that we are not honouring our responsibility to our students by doing this.

Reflection 3
Over the past couple of weeks I have undergone what I consider to be a fairly major transformation in my psyche regarding my teaching. I am now finding that rather than considering myself to be a student teacher in another person’s class I look at myself as a teacher who is sharing a class with another teacher. In my day to day activities I feel much more confident that the strategies I am using to teach my class. Part of what has built this confidence has been the experience of having other teachers comment on some of my lessons and mention that they would like to try similar activities in their classes. A week ago another teacher was looking for a review game that he could use with his next class. I had made a Jeopardy game the previous week and told him that he could use it. During the next block I was across the hall from this class and could hear the excitement of the students participating in this review activity. When I talked to the teacher after the class he said that the game was great and really helped his students to apply some of the knowledge that they had learned.

Another major boost for my confidence came at the parent teacher interview night. For a number of the interviews that I had I had parents tell me that that their child had mentioned that I was teaching and that they really enjoyed having me as their teacher. I was also quite pleased to be given the opportunity by my SAs to lead the interviews and answer parents’ questions. I feel that I have not only increased the confidence that I have in my self but that I have also built the confidence of my colleagues in my departments. On the last day of class before break I received a phone call from a parent who had questions about his son’s marks. In this conversation I was able to not only talk to the parent about the trend of this students marks and his work habits in class but also about where he had lost marks on his most recent assignments. After the conversation ended a number of members of the department mentioned that they were impressed with not only how I handled the conversation but also that I was able to readily recall the areas that a student had lost marks on.

I am pleased that I am approaching the end of my practicum in a position where I feel confident in my style of teaching as well as my ability to build healthy and meaningful relationships with the different groups within the school community.

Reflection 4
As my practicum is coming to an end I am amazed to look back at my experiences over the past 7 months. While I don’t think that my general teaching style has changed that much I have been finding that my confidence in that style and ability to convey quality lessons that connect to the varied learners in my classes has grown immensely. In a conversation that I had yesterday I found myself feeling a bit overwhelmed by the journey that is still ahead of me. While chatting with another teacher I realized how much growth is required and how much more experience I will need to become a master teacher. In this conversation the other teacher was expressing his disappointment that all he got done in the day was teaching his lessons. He followed this up by explaining that teaching his lessons was a very small part of his day, the rest is normally filled with finding ways to connect with his students and personalize their education. He explained that he tries to maximize his time at school so that he is able to spend his time away from school focusing on the rest of his life. He said that doing this allows him to bring his best to the classroom each day. I mentioned that I was generally happy if I left the school feeling that I had actually taught my students. He immediately came back with the following response, “And that’s all you should be doing right now my young grasshopper.” His words left me feeling that while I still have an incredibly long journey ahead of me I am at least on the right road to becoming a good teacher. As I thought about this more I took comfort in knowing that there are so many skills required to be master teacher and it is not possible to work on all of them at once. While I have times where I want to be able teach in the same way that my mentors do I appreciate that the only way to get there is by working on my practice piece by piece.