Reflection for EDUC 4271

Taylor Murie

0521182

January 5, 2016

Pages: 4
 I was lucky enough to have a fantastic practicum teaching Grade 9, 11 and 12

Mathematics classes at a public high school in Thunder Bay. Although it was not a Chemistry

placement (my first teachable), I feel like I learned a lot and was able to develop my teaching

skills greatly. I was able to relate a lot of the science content we discussed in class to the

math content as there is quite a bit of overlap between the two subjects. However, there

were some aspects of the placement that were specific to math that were not extremely

relatable to science.

Throughout my placement, I was teaching mostly academic/university level courses

with one college course, and I was also able to observe a Grade 9 Applied Math class. In

terms of student engagement, I used some strategies that we talking about in class, like

hand on learning, group work and other technological strategies. I found success using

group work and having technology integrated into my lessons. My Grade 12 College class

was very quiet and reserved, and I only really saw them come out of their shells when I

started integrating their electronic devices into the lesson. One particular website, Nearpod,

was one that I had great success with. I would design a lesson, and we would do practice

questions from the lesson using Nearpod. On this website, students are able to write on their

screen using their finger as a stylus, and I found I had increased engagement this way,

especially in the more quiet, reserved classes. I believe this happened as students from this

generation have such an attachment to their electronics, and this gave them a reason to use

them in class. It also had an element of competition, however, it was anonymous

competition, which still helped eliminate that judgemental fear of wrong answers that

sometimes arises in high school classrooms (especially math and science). While these

responses are anonymous to the rest of the class, they are not anonymous to the teacher,

and reports can be generated, which I found very useful for formative assessment.

The methods classes in the first term somewhat prepared me for placement. I had

great information given to me in my curriculum and instruction classes and my classroom

management and planning course. I learned about the different types of assessment and

evaluation and what the differences were as well as assessment tools that I could bring with
me into placement. I also learned more about the benefits of problem based learning in

courses like math and science, which I found to be useful when planning lessons. Of course

there are always things that you cannot prepare for, like those surprises and scenarios that

seem unbelievable until they actually happen. Overall, I feel that many of the methods and

tools discussed in my courses were very relevant to placement.

My experience fit with my ideas about growth as a teacher of science and math very

well. Of course, there were some surprises when I entered the classroom, like the extreme

use of electronic devices, and the lack of discipline for students, however, it was mostly as I

anticipated it would be. This experience helped me grow in terms of my interpersonal skills,

classroom management skills and planning skills. I am very excited for second practicum so

that I can learn and develop my skills even further to become a stronger educator.

During my observation week in the classroom, I did not see a lot of evidence of 21st

century learning. I mostly saw very traditional lessons being taught through a lecture-style

environment with little to no investigative or group learning. The only real evidence I saw of

21st century learning was the use of the Smartboard. Throughout placement, I made a

strong effort to integrate more technology, formative assessment techniques and group work

with investigative aspects to try and work towards modern learning. I also used

manipulatives and other physical hands-on materials to help reinforce the concepts in the

courses. This can be related back to science teaching in terms of setting up labs as the

hands-on component to reinforce class concepts. I also had the chance to work a little bit on

mathematical literacy with the kids, which was quite similar to our work on scientific literacy

that we did in class.

For my next placement, I would like to work harder to form and build meaningful

relationships with the students. I found this to be a little bit difficult in a high school setting as

I was only seeing the students each day for 70 minutes. I also would like to focus more on

group work. This is a concept that seems to be foreign in some more traditional math

classrooms, and it is something that I would like to integrate more of. I would also like to

improve more on developing methods to engage more students. Although most of the class
was engaged when I integrated technology, there were still a few students who were not

interested. I want to find some strategies that help motivate those students who just dont

seem to care. I would also like to try more group work with an investigative approach,

however, this would be dependent on my Associate Teacher for the next practicum. Before

the spring practicum, I would like to talk to my peers and other educators to see what

strategies work for them on how to maintain classroom management and engage many

different types of learners at different levels.

Overall, I had a great first placement experience and it helped reassure me that I am

in the right field. I learned a lot about planning, organization, classroom management, and

the importance of building a rapport with your students. I am very much looking forward to

the spring practicum so that I can further develop my skills as a teacher, and I am also very

much hoping for a science placement!