For my 4-week practicum, I was blessed with the incredible opportunity to teach in a grade 3 classroom at Cedars Christian School. This is such an answer to prayer as I was able to be apart of a community that shares in the same belief system, therefore allowing me to include such a large part of myself with my students and fellow colleagues.
During this practicum I learned a lot about myself, not only as a teacher but as a learner as well. The first thing that really stood out to me in my own learning is that certain styles of classroom management don’t necessarily work for every teacher. For example, a classroom management technique that my CT (coaching teacher) used, that the students responded to extremely well, did not work for me. It wasn’t that the students didn’t listen to me, because they did, it just didn’t feel like it reflected my teacher personality. My CT and myself were able to reflect on this and come up with different strategies that best suited my own style (using a chime). This helped me build my teacher presence so much as I became less tentative with my students, and became more comfortable being their teacher. This is such an important thing to learn during practicum as it helps me to not only be comfortable as a teacher, but confident in my role.
I also learned a lot about assessment during this practicum. It always stressed me out when I thought about what assessment I would be including in my lesson plan. Assessment was something I was still trying to figure out in my own mind, let alone applying to real life situations! My CT was so gracious by sharing her many different assessment strategies and making the idea more tangible for myself. I was able to figure out what best worked for me and my students, and understand this concept as a whole. I am so grateful to have had this learning from my CT because it is something that I will obviously be using throughout my teaching career.
As I go into my final practicum, something that I will continue working on is my assessment. I feel like I made a huge breakthrough in my learning, but I still have so much to learn! Assessment is such a large and important part of teaching and I believe that even within my first few years of teaching I will still be working on this! Practice makes permanent!
I am so thankful for this entire learning opportunity and am really looking forward to see where I am headed in EDUC 491!
