Year Four
Webster Niblock
For my final practicum, I spent 12 weeks in Cheryl Scholly's grade 3/4 classroom at Webster Niblock School. This practicum focused on professional responsibilities, planning for learning, facilitating learning, assessment, and fostering a safe and engaging classroom environment. I taught 100% of the course load for six of the twelve weeks of this practicum. During my time at Webster Niblock, I enjoyed creating long-term plans and project-based learning opportunities for students. This practicum encouraged my professional growth as a teacher by allowing me the freedom to execute lessons, practice classroom management, and develop my own teaching strategies while under the expert guidance of a master teacher. Click below to see my long-range unit plan for Social Studies.
Learning Experiences
I enjoyed creating long-range plans that allowed students to work towards a final project they could be proud of. Our Language Arts unit allowed students to listen and respond to a number of poems by various authors. Students also create unique poems of their own and practiced their writing skills. At the end of our unit students presented one of their own poems during a classroom poetry slam. Click below to enjoy a slide deck of student poems.
Year Three
Herald School
In my five-week year three practicum at Herald School, I taught Kindergarten in Mrs. Pollards class. During this time, I taught 50% of the course load for two weeks and 100% of the Kindergarten course load for three weeks. This practicum focused heavily on planning and implementing detailed lesson plans in math, ELA, physical education, social and health. This experience also included a voluntary 30hr extended practicum from September to November during which I focused on relationship building and teacher observation.
Learning Experiences
Detailed lesson plans for ELA often centred around book. I read engaging books to students and then tied curriculum outcomes to the stories and learning activities that followed. One such lesson was centred around the book "Be Who You Are". Following a read aloud students completed self portraits that highlighted their uniqueness.
Centres
Planning play based learning centres for kindergarten allowed me to practice time management, lesson planning, organization and creative learning. Three days a week, kindergarten students rotated through centres focused on math and literacy skills. Each of these centres worked to achieve curriculum goals in fun and engaging ways.
Year Two Literacy Practicum
Ross Glen School
This literacy based practicum was completed in Mrs Heidi Ast"s grade two classroom. This practicum allowed me the opportunity to observe and implement literacy based instruction.
Learning Opportunity
During this practicum I designed and implemented literacy based lessons for my students. During this lesson, students worked to identify and retell the beginning, middle and end of a modern retelling of the classic story The Three Little Pigs.
Fun with Literacy
During my time in Mrs. Ast's class I learned fun and engaging ways to implement literacy in the classroom. Each day class began with a cloze reading activity. Students enjoyed these riddles that were often based around monthly themes like St. Patricks Day.
Year Two ARED practicum
River Heights
This five week art education practicum was completed at River Heights School in Mrs. Elaine Willock's grade 1 classroom. Learning experiences for this practicum spanned five weeks and combined exploration and creation based in art and science.
Experiencial Learning
Students created this Eric Carle inspired mural over five weeks. The process of creating this project combined art and science curriculum that allowed students to explore colour mixing, appreciate art and art creation and take ownership of their learning. The outcome was a beautiful representation of their growth and understanding.
Year One
Crescent Heights High School
This fifty-two hour practicum focused heavily on teacher observation. My time was split between grade 7 and 8 science and math in french immersion. During this time I learned to write lesson plans, manage a classroom and to think and reflect critically.
Learning Experiences
During this practicum I developed and implemented lesson plans that allowed my students to participate in experiential learning. Together as a class we achieved curriculum goals by building structures out of spaghetti.
