This placement was completely virtual. During this placement, I was placed in a first-grade classroom with about 19 students who were fully virtual. I was given the opportunity to engage with the students in small group time. One activity I did with the students was their read-aloud. During this time the students would read a portion of their storybook of choice for the teacher. In the second week of my placement, I was put into a small group breakout room with six students to listen to their reading and provide assistance when needed. I also took observations of their reading to report back to my associate teacher. I continued to do these small groups every day for the remainder of my placement with a different group of students every day. In these small groups, I also worked with the students on their word bank words. I was provided by my associate teacher with the grade one Dolch sight words the students were expected to know. I went through these words with the students, beginning with sounding out the word slowly using the correct phonics, then moving on to the word as a whole and the spelling.
During this placement, I was able to observe multiple teaching strategies, assessment strategies, classroom management strategies, etc. I learned how to engage students in many different ways. This placement provided me with the knowledge I would not have received if the placement was in-person. An example of this is how to engage students over video calls. I also learned multiple different online resources that can be used in both online and in-person classrooms. While this placement was virtual, my associate teacher provided me with in-person scenarios she has experienced the past to help me understand the strategies she used in her in-person classrooms.