All of my practicum placements have been so amazing, and my 491 placement was no different. While I was admittedly a bit nervous about being placed in a 3/4 split class, I have to say that I can’t imagine having had a better placement for my final practicum.
While I hadn’t taught in either grade 3 or 4 classes before this practicum, it wasn’t so much the content that made me nervous. I’d done my previous two practicums in grades 2 and 5, and I enjoyed both, so I figured that grades 3 and 4 would fall in the middle in terms of content and I’d be able to adapt. And I did. My nervousness came more from the idea of having to differentiate so much of my content. In my 391 and 490 practicums, aside from a few exceptions, the ability level of most students in the classes was on a similar enough level that most of my differentiation was pretty minimal. Having a split class, though, I knew even before being told that there were high fours and low threes that I would have to be practicing a lot more differentiation in my teaching. I think that this split class placement really helped build my confidence in that differentiation, and I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to experience that in a monitored, “practice” environment before being thrown straight into a split class on my first teaching placement.
The biggest challenge for me during this practicum was probably what lead to the most growth. My CT went home sick with the flu at the end of Week 6, and her flu then developed into pneumonia, and she didn’t return to the classroom until the beginning of Week 9. This left me entirely alone in the classroom for two full weeks. I know there were struggles during this period on both of our parts – for me, having to adapt to not being able to run my lessons by her each morning; for her, having to be away from her classroom for so long – but I definitely benefited from the freedom that came from essentially having the class entirely to myself. I was able to connect more with the rest of the staff at the school for resources and collaboration, and I was also able to better my classroom management over this period. To the students, I was just their teacher, not secondary to their regular teacher watching from the side of the room. I definitely created deeper relationships with the students during this period, and, as much as I wouldn’t wish sickness on my CT or anyone else, I am grateful for the opportunities that this gave me.
Throughout this practicum and my past practicums, I’ve always tried to incorporate different ways of learning and presenting learning into my teaching. I try to teach in multiple different ways – verbally, visually, hands on. Through this practicum, I had students learn about pre-colonial Indigenous peoples through research. I split students into groups, and they looked through multiple different books in order to find the relevant information to answer a series of questions about their chosen Indigenous group. After they finished collecting their research, they then used the information they’d gathered to build a diorama representing their Indigenous group. This project both combined learning about pre-colonial Indigenous groups with learning different research skills, and left students with a deeper knowledge about the different aspects of these Indigenous peoples’ lives than if I’d just verbally taught them. While students were building their dioramas, I circulated the class and asked them questions about what they were building and they were all able to give me detailed descriptions about what the object was they were making, why it was important to their chosen Indigenous group, and how it was used.
I really enjoyed this placement. All of the students in class were such lovely kids, and they were always eager to help me and (for the most part) to learn. I already miss being a part of this class, and I know that I’d feel lucky to teach any of them again in the future.
