This was an Open Parachute lesson where each of the students would connect themselves to each other and the teachers. The biggest win for me was the participation factor from all the students and how each student was able to relate to one another.

I learned many things during my 490 practicum. One of the biggest struggles for me was the lesson planning, in particular, the writing of lesson plans. I had gotten quite good at it, but the main struggle was the time it took to write them. I talked to many of my fellow cohort members and they agreed that they were spending an average of eight to ten hours planning, researching and writing lesson plans.

One of the main units I did was a cross-curricular unit of Social Studies and English Language Arts where the students had to create a country. Monkeys were a common theme, I do not understand why.

During 490 I was in a split grade class and I had to research lesson that fit both the grade 5 and grade 6 curriculum. This was an interesting learning experience because I found that there was a lot of overlap in most of the subjects, with the least exception in Math. Math is an interesting subject for me because I do not consider it one of my strengths; I am able to do it, but it does not come easily. This practicum I was lucky because my coaching teacher handled most of the Math lessons, so I would work on this subject more closely in 491.

For the unit, a created a rubric to which all the students had an opportunity to go above and beyond to represent their country and show their creativity. I was very impressed with the different ideas that the students came up with. This student’s country was shaped like a monkey and he decided to do a clay diorama of what his island country would look like.

My main focus during the practicum was to establish relationships with the students and just as importantly, the staff. I knew that if I did not establish these relationships, I would have less of a chance at success in the classroom and in the practicum as a whole. I came into the classroom a whole week earlier than I was supposed to (with the permission of the coaching teacher and the principal, of course) so I could start establishing these connections.

This student was very proud of their creation. Again, the biggest win for me was the buy-in that all the students had with the project. No matter what level each student was learning at, they all were fully immersed in their creations.

I focused most of attention on the highest needs students first. There were a number of classified G (Autism Spectrum) students, and a few classified H (Behaviour) students. The main goal with the G students was to encourage them to participate in the learning that was taking place in the classroom because these students were either low, or refused to stay in the class at all. With the H students, the goal was to simply have relationships with them so that I did not have management issues while I was teaching. These students were all quite high, but because of this they would get bored easily and distract other students.

The week that I came in early, I spent giving the BAS reading assessment. This gave me one-on-one time with each student in the class, and allowed me to start to build relationships with each student. Because of this extra time spent, I not only had a rough idea of where the students were at academically (at least based off their reading level), but also had already established relationships for when I started teaching. This strategy proved successful and I had a wonderful practicum as a result.