“Members are dedicated in their care, commitment, equitable treatment and respect to students. They are sensitive to factors that influence individual student learning. Members facilitate the development of students as contributing citizens of Canadian society.”
Ontario College of Teachers
Practicum 1 – Fall 2021 – SNC1P (Space)
During my first practicum block, I was asked to assist with the space unit. This was an exciting challenge for me as my primary teachable subjects are biology and chemistry. My hope when designing this unit was to cater to different learning styles, and present the information in a fun and engaging way.
This was the slide-show that I designed for this lesson. I included many different videos explaining the phenomena that were talking about, as well as example videos of what solar and lunar eclipses look like.
Gravity Explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRlB6TuMOU
Why Do We Only See One Side of the Moon?: https://youtu.be/csd_rOZPkik
Solar Eclipse: https://youtu.be/G10m2ZZRH4U
Lunar Eclipse: https://youtu.be/CtOWKIduGKo
The activity aligned with this lesson was the creation of “phases of the moon” manipulatives which required the use of two clear plastic cups, a sheet of black paper, a small yellow circle, and a permanent marker. Once the paper and cups were assembled, students were to draw the phases of the moon on the outer cup, and label them so that as you turn the cup, it displays the different phases. The students seemed to really enjoy this activity, although it was a little chaotic at some points. For the future, I would get bigger plastic cups for the students as some had trouble fitting all eight phases.
I believe that this fits best with this particular standard of practice, as it shows sensitivity to individual student learning. This lesson included a presentation that catered to audio and visual learners, and a manipulative activity that catered to kinesthetic learners. In addition, there were ‘skeleton’ (fill-in-blank) notes that accompanied the presentation with the answers in yellow on the slideshow.
This lesson also aligns with my teaching philosophy as I want to be able to create engaging and enjoyable lessons that cater to different learning styles so that everyone feels comfortable and respected in the learning environment.
Practicum 2 – Grade 7/8 Classes
During this placement, I had the opportunity to take over teaching completely for the Grade 7 and 8s. The grade 7s were learning about Pure Substances and Mixtures, and the Grade 8s were learning about fluids. I had so much fun with the students during this time, and we got to do some pretty cool labs. The unit was set to end the week after I finished my practicum, but my AT and I wanted to determine what the students had learned while I was with them. Therefore, I wrote up a test for both grades, but I included a bonus question that stated:
“Thank you so much for being so welcoming and allowing me to help teach you science for the last 4 weeks. You are all wonderful, and I had so much fun! For one bonus mark, use this space to leave me a piece of advice, or write anything you want me to know. If you can’t think of anything, draw a smiley face!”
I wanted to remind the students how wonderful they were, and thank them for allowing me to come into their environment, and help them to learn for 4 weeks.
While there were a bunch of students who just left smiley faces, I did get some pretty amazing comments from the students. I was so grateful and humbled that some students actually took the time to write me a comment. This serves not only as a reminder of why I got into teaching and how special it is, but also that there is so much more to learn and ways to improve. It is so important that teachers build positive relationships with their students, and I was so grateful to have that opportunity this placement.