My favourite lessons that I taught were mostly my science lessons from my seasonal changes unit. We learned about seasonal changes in trees, hibernation, adaptation, migration, and the historical seasonal living of Inuit people in Canada. My lessons were led by visuals and discussion based, so that I could follow my students inquiry. We did crafts to solidify their learning, after which I would conduct individual interviews with each of my students, to assess where their learning had taken them, and where I needed to guide them to next. We finger painted, we stuffed paper bags with recycled paper to make geese, we built our own versions of igloos out in the snow, and above all we learned. Our learning was reflected throughout the classroom, as I took over every bulletin board to display my students work – including the class bulletin board in the hallway! I thoroughly enjoyed the energy and chaos of teaching gym, and the creativity and joy of teaching language arts. In my final language arts lesson, I had my students draw pictures of their favourite memories from my practicum. The students have been working on creating detailed work – using five colours and five unique details in their images. These pictures are so special to me! I plan to make a binder of the images so that I may keep them near and dear to me. I also thoroughly enjoyed teaching math. I took basic math lessons from my coaching teachers math resource, and added manipulatives and personalized visuals to make my students learning so much more interactive and fun. I had multiple students who expressed to me that our math lessons were their favourite part of practicum! The math assessments that I did also proved their effectiveness. My personal favourite math lesson was a lesson on patterns and Indigenous beading. My students – and myself – all made our own necklaces that we wore proudly throughout the school. We explored the meaning of each colour of bead, and every necklace in that classroom told a different story. It was beautiful!
I am very proud of my ability to take “bare bones” lessons and make them into something interactive and exciting. Any lesson that my coaching teacher gave to me, I was able to put my own spin on and turn into personalized fun learning. This is something my coaching teacher expressed admiration for, and something I hope to continue to work on. I incorporated myself into each of my lessons, making learning personal, and showing vulnerability to my learners, which made them so much more eager to share themselves with me.
