It’s the end of week 4 and I’m having a great time but since we are only at practicum on Wednesday’s, I haven’t made a relationship with the whole class but it’s a working process. I’m enjoying my time at Westmount Elementary in the grade 5 classroom with Barb Primus. She has been a great teacher mentor since the beginning, I am learning so much from her, and she gives great feedback that will help me grow as a future teacher.

    On my fourth week of practicum I had my first language arts lesson on paragraph editing. The lesson plan itself wasn’t hard at all because Roxanne has taught us very well but when it came to doing the lesson I found myself finding faults in my teaching. One of the things I forgot to do was set my expectations for the class before we started the lesson so I’ll remember that for next week when I do my second lesson. I also didn’t plan on what to do when the class got too loud or if some students finished early so I ended up winging it. When the class was starting to get loud after circulating the room and telling them to stay on task I gave the room a strike 1 which is a classroom management tool Mrs. Primus uses for her class. The strike method is used for noise level and to keep the students on task so when the students get a strike 1 or 2 the students can work it off by showing progress in their work and behaving. But when the students would continue getting too loud and not working then they would get a strike 3, then the students would have to stay in at lunch for a 5 minute detention. Moving on,  I also went around the room and circulated as they were working and if they were done I asked them to do silent reading or to help a friend. One student also came in late and he was already upset that he missed part of the lesson so I just let him know what we were working on. At this point, the students were working on this for 20 minutes already and gave them a 5 minute warning before he came walking into the room and most of the students were done and the rest were almost done. I could tell that he was anxious because he just started so I went down to his level and asked him what he needs at this moment and he replied, “I would just like to get this done” so I decided to let him get it done and not worry about the marking so he was able to calm down and not worry about anything else except his work. That was my highlight of my lesson because I knew that he would be a tough one to form a relationship with so this was a great but risky way to form a relationship with.

    As I end my week 4 of practicum I am already working on the things I need to improve on and remembering to always be myself even though I am in the Bachelor of Education program because I believe being yourself is the most important trait as a teacher. I’m mentioning this because as I’m nearing the end of my first semester I am learning so much important things that will help me as a teacher and a person but I shouldn’t confuse this as changing who I am and who Ive been raised to be. I am looking forward to week 5 to see how much I improve.