This May I completed my second teaching practicum under a highly experienced teacher who was getting close to his retirement in the following weeks. I had the pleasure of teaching Science 10 and Biology 12 classes. During this time I learned more things about teaching than I could fit into a single blog post. Still, I wanted to include a couple of practical things that I took with me and would like to remember for future classrooms.
What did I learn:
- Organization (built on from my last practicum)
It was amazing having a coaching teacher who had been in the profession for over 30 years. Some of the best things I learned during this practicum were some of his different tips and tricks for organizing and doing things more efficiently in the classroom. One of these things that he had established in this class was an attendance binder. In this binder, he had his seating plan and attendance sheets. Having an organized format for taking attendance significantly reduced my chances of forgetting to take attendance which I struggled with a little bit during my first practicum. The seating chart made it easy for me to learn student’s names quickly and would be great for a substitute teacher.
This teacher had also established a way of collecting and storing students’ tests throughout the year so that he could give them all back at the end of the year when they were studying for finals. I liked that at the end of each unit the students would take their tests, the teacher would mark them, the teacher would then give the tests back to the students for review, and then the students would place their tests in their folder. The system made it simple for students to have a safe place to store their tests and also ensured that they had a chance to look through their tests and ask any questions before filing them away.
- Preparing ahead (you may cover more material than you think!)
As with my last practicum I found that preparing multiple days in advance was super helpful. Not only was this good for students who had planned absences, but it was also fantastic for instances where we covered more material than I expected, especially at the start of the practicum. Early on, before I had a good flow with the class, I tended to work through the material much faster than I originally anticipated and it was good to have notes and work prepared in advance.
- Giving out a review sheet on day 1 of the unit
Another one of my favourite tips that I learned from my coaching teacher was the day one review handout. At the beginning of each unit, my coaching teacher hands out a review sheet that shows all of the material that students will potentially be expected to know for the test. I like that this is a form of front-loading that gives students a way to study throughout the unit and also lines up expectations for what they will be learning. At the end of the unit right before the test, my coaching teacher dedicates an entire class to going through this review sheet, clarifying if the questions on it will or will not be on the test based on what was covered, and then giving students time to do their own studying in class.
- PowerPoint slides (adding visuals to lecture notes)
The format for instruction that my coaching teacher prefers to use with the grade 10 class is a fill in the blank note set. He would put the answers up on the board in the form of the master copy of the notes [the Word document containing the master copy]. I wanted to add my own work to the resources that he provided to me, so I put together PowerPoint slides containing a lot of visuals and videos that I wanted to show students in class. For some of the physics concepts and science concepts I liked being able to include the visuals for the students in my class that were more visual learners and I was able to do some really fun things. For example, when we were covering the planets in our solar system I asked the students to collectively name out all of the planets and I had previously put together a slide that allowed me to click on circles across the slide as they answered them and reveal the planets. I had some other fun interactive visuals that I utilized throughout the lectures that I found helpful. My coaching teacher is a very animated storyteller and he relies heavily on this during his teaching so I found that having the PowerPoints and the visuals to go off of helped me fill in where I lack in some of the storytelling aspects. It also helps provide a level of structure to my lesson and some flow. for example, I was able to include written instructions on the board and reminders for both me and my class.
- ProD days in Terrace (they are different from PG!)
During this practicum, we had a professional development day which was cool to experience. I liked that the education program in Prince George encouraged us to attend professional development sessions while in PG, but I found that Terrace was a very different experience. Initially it was really difficult to find any events or sessions for professional development that were being held in Terrace. School District 57 has a lot more established professional development sessions and events happening so it was easier to find things to do when I was in Prince George. For my professional development, I ended up working on some school work and reading through the resources that I had been given by my coaching teachers and the principle.
- Work-life balance
Something I found funny in my first practicum was the number of times that I had teachers and other staff talking to me about work-life balance. I dedicated a lot of time to my practicum and spent a lot of time at the school. I found I was still receiving some of these chats from teachers at the beginning of the second practicum, however, I was able to strike a much better balance eventually. My coaching teacher during this practicum had a routine of coming into school at 7:30 in the morning and then leaving almost right away after school ended. I enjoyed coming in early to do printing for the days ahead and to finalize any preparation I needed for the day’s classes. I also found a lot more freedom in leaving earlier this practicum than I did in my previous one [I still adhered to the guidelines for this practicum and never left earlier than half an hour after class had ended].
- RESOURCESSSSSS (lil gremlin laugh)….. also how to adapt resources to make them my own
I was really really fortunate to have a coaching teacher in his final semester of teaching before retirement. He was incredibly supportive and knowledgeable about mentoring a student teacher (I was his 7th teacher candidate). He also had a ton of resources that he willingly shared with me for use in this practicum and in my future teaching. I wanted to use a lot of his resources when teaching in his classroom for the purpose of maintaining some familiarity for the students and so that the students were adequately prepared for his final exam. Still, I wanted to adapt the resources and make them my own. I really enjoyed working through materials, making changes and trying to find ways to make the curriculum and the work my own. I have literally thousands and thousands of resources from him that I look forward to sifting through and adapting throughout the years as I find my own way of doing things.
- Trying out new actvities (they went well!)
This practicum I also wanted to try out some new activities because it was a science class and I am a little more familiar with the material. I also found that it was a little bit easier to try out new activities than it was in a math class. I did some group activities, some hands-on activities and some demos that I integrated into the courses. I also tried to connect the learning to “real life”. For example, in Biology 12 (The Reproductive System) I was covering STI’s and I did a simulation to show how they spread. I also gave out a reflection sheets to my students as a form of formative feedback [for myself] and I was very pleased with the things that they wrote. It seemed to leave an impact and I hope it stuck with them more than a basic note set or slideshow.
- Preparing for student absences
This practicum also opened me up to student absences and how to prepare for them. I found that keeping a file folder with all of my notes and worksheets was the best way to catch students up when they returned or prepare students in advance if they knew they were going to be absent. I always made sure to print out extra master copies of the note sets so that students who returned after an absence were not missing any information.
- I DONT KNOW THINGS!! (and it is ok, I promise)
Sciences, especially Biology are my most comfortable area of study. However, when I was teaching grade 10 the unit was astronomy and I had never covered astronomy in any of my education previously. The fun thing about this is that I got to learn the content immediately before my students did. It was fascinating to learn all that I did and I hoped to transfer some of that fascination and excitement into the materials when I presented it to the students. I found some of this excitement also in my grade 12 biology especially because I find Anatomy and Physiology are extremely relevant sciences to study for anybody. Your body is a cool thing to learn about and using this knowledge to make healthy decisions for yourself is important!
- Do I have bias? Marking in a fair way.
Another little trick I learned from my coaching teacher is how to reduce bias when marking. I like to think that I am without bias and completely fair when I am marking assignments however science can be tricky because students are writing out answers and there is a level of teacher autonomy when grading (a bit more complexity than the clear right and wrong of math). The best way to prevent bias and protect myself from any claims of bias is to establish a clear key beforehand and mark all assignments back to front. Another thing I did was mark all of the assignments page by page so that I was not looking at names or working through a whole assignment at a time. I found that by doing this I was able to simply look at the answer and make the clearest decision about marks as I could. I would never want unwanted bias to affect the grades I give a student and I always strive to be as fair and equitable as possible.
Overall it was a fantastic practicum filled with so much learning and I am extremely grateful to my coaching teacher and everyone else who helped support me through it. I’m looking forward now to my last practicum and then the teaching that I hope to be doing afterwards!
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