I cannot believe that I am
officially done half of my placement and only have two weeks left with my grade
5’s. I have learned so much in the past
two weeks and have found out so much about myself as a teacher and have grown
as a teacher because of this experience.
I know now, more than ever how passionate I am about teaching and how
wonderful it will be to one day have my very own classroom.
My first day had a lot of eye
opening experiences that really introduced me to what teaching is all about and
how personalities in the classroom can turn a great day to a more challenging
day. I also learned that I knew my
lesson plan a lot better than I thought, barely glancing at it during my
lessons. As my placement has progressed,
I have found growing confidence in my teaching voice and my “disciplinary”
voice. Surprisingly, it was a lot easier
to develop this “disciplinary” voice than I thought. Classroom management also came a lot easier
to me than I thought it would and I feel a lot more confident waiting for
students to be ready to listen before I continue speaking. Since I did not have my assessment and
evaluation course before this placement, I was worried about implementing
assessment in the grade 5 class, however, my associate teacher has been an
excellent resource and has given me confidence in creating rubrics and shown me
ways to implement a checklist and anecdotal notes in such a large class. I cannot believe that two weeks have gone by
and I only have two more left with my class, I have learned so much and
implemented so many things that I learned in my first two months at Brock. Unfortunately there is no SMART board in my
classroom yet, but I have been able to implement 21st century teaching
in so many other ways. The students are
now in groups and collaborate in math, science and physical education. They are also learning how to reflect on
their own learning and self-assess their learning. But I am still hoping that the SMART board
will arrive within the next two weeks so I can help my associate learn how to
use it!
I know that December 9th is going
to be a tough day for me because I already feel that I have become a part of
the grade 5 classroom and cannot imagine leaving the fabulous school, community
of teachers, associate teacher and all of the wonderful grade 5 students
behind.
