For my second practicum with the Faculty of Education, I was given the opportunity for an alternative observational placement. While this experience was meant to be observational, due to a lack of available placements, my associate teacher welcomed her student teachers with open arms and gave an abundance of resources, teaching opportunities, and student-teacher interaction. While this year lacked what other years typically do, this virtual practicum experience certainly made up for it, thanks to my wonderful associate teacher and her grade 7 students!

Fortunately, this placement allowed me to make valuable connections in the education field. My associate teacher has written me a letter of reference and I have included it down below. Feel free to have a look!

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Mathematics

A rare experience I was able to have during my virtual observational practicum, was actually working one-on-one with a student!

During my 4 weeks, I spent each morning with this student who has an IEP for mathematics. I was particularly drawn to this task, as I grew up struggling with the subject, and believed the perspective and skills I’ve gained from the obstacles I faced, could be applied and used to help this student.

While this alternative practicum posed its challenges, it did teach me a very valuable lesson. I’ve learned that when obstacles come your way, especially ones you are not in control of, it is important to look for other areas you can put in the work. For example, in this first practicum, I was unable to gain in-person experience. Still, with hard work, I learned the ins and outs of digital literacy and tools, and have created a whole folder of resources for my future placements.

To start, I knew using a wide variety of learning tools and ways of knowledge communication would help me to convey a concept as effectively as possible. Therefore we watched videos, read textbooks and website posts, played interactive games, completed booklets, and did hands-on work as much as we could. Despite the borders of virtual learning, I was able to adapt and find alternative ways to get hands-on!

One educational tool that particularly stood out was SplashLearn. The student was able to test their knowledge in a fun way and get immediate results in order to learn and improve on mistakes.

I additionally created a worksheet to help track this student’s progress. Understanding the lack of communication the virtual platform brings, I wanted to make sure the student was on track with their Learning Cluster.

Overall, this one-on-one experience was extremely beneficial to my growth as an educator and its need for adaptability forced me to think on my toes and has prepped me for future scenarios of similar context.

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Literacy

When my associate teacher asked me if I wanted to teach a few lessons on literary devices, I jumped at the chance! As an English minor, literary devices are near and dear to my heart, and I was more than excited to share them with my class of grade 7s! In the second week, I taught a lesson on Imagery, and in the 3rd week, I taught a lesson on hyperbole. Down below you can reference both the lesson plan and the slides I used to teach the lesson!

Literary Devices – Imagery Lesson

https://uwin365-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/ryan122_uwindsor_ca/ERSDg0XuSypKsm0AuoVQHYgB8jsCweHO1TmZ8XyQUjTRmQ?e=w26ghJ

Student Work:

Literary Devices – Hyperbole Lesson

https://uwin365-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/ryan122_uwindsor_ca/EeCLMDmHme5JnBAUg8HSk2gBVR57pIibUtBLxUquqLO3CA?e=To7cHb

Creating, executing, and grading these lessons/assessments not only taught me an abundance about myself as an educator but introduced me to the first-hand experience of grading. I learned how to pace myself when teaching, how to engage students in lecture-style lessons, and how to grade each student fairly and with an opportunity to improve!