Lessons from Practicum 5/5

Behaviour and Classroom Management
This final practicum has turned out to be the most difficult (and closest to making me question if I really want to do this!). But, now that I’m through ‘survival mode’, and have time to reflect once again, it has probably contained some of the richest learning that I will take with me as I begin establishing my own classroom next year – Yes, I still have a desire to be a teacher :-)

I’m aware that I still don’t have all the answers (will I ever?), but as the saying goes ‘forearmed is forewarned’. This brings me to my determination to make the best possible start I can to establish a classroom culture of learning. Easier said than done!

What I do know is that my priority in term one will be to establish routines and expectations that will support such a culture of learning. What these are need to be strategically considered before I start. They need to cover issues such as routines, student accountability, ‘stand-by’ resources, and personal reflection.

The following is a reference to a book that covers issues relating to much of this. Particularly classroom culture, managing the learning environment, assessment and evaluation, and beginning teachers.

McGee, C., & Fraser, D. (2005). The professional practice of teaching (2nd ed.). Southbank, Victoria: Thomson Dunmore Press.

Some of my general thoughts at this stage about practical things I need to do are:

• Clear routines including:
• Class rules that promote a learning community and personal responsibility/accountability for learning
• Introducing, reflecting/concluding, and transitioning of lessons
• Start of school day, after interval and lunchtimes
• Tidy classroom organisation
• Continued reflection on teaching programme and timetable to improve personal practice and student engagement
• Establishing a regular means of marking/reviewing student work, both for formative assessment and student accountability
• ‘Stand-by’ resources for various curriculum areas
• Research and list/store references to books & websites
• Make up ‘packs’ of resources that can be reused
• Design a system of storing/filing these for easy/quick access
• Discuss with various teachers/lecturers what they do to ‘fill spaces’

Any ideas of things that you may have done, that have worked well in establishing a positive learning environment, feel free to add as a comment to this entry.

Lessons from Practicum 4/5

Planning Individual Lessons – How Much, How Little?
Following an observation of a lesson I taught, the benefits of having more written planning of individual lessons, including clear steps and questions was discussed. This may reduce the need for teacher intervention in ‘trivial’ management issues and be useful for teacher reflection.

During my observed math lesson I spent a lot of time answering questions regarding what students needed to do, which indicated students weren’t 100% sure of their learning intentions/tasks. The feedback suggested that under more pressured circumstances planning that is too brief could lead to unnecessary management issues.

I feel that the difficulty is finding the appropriate balance between detailed written planning for single lessons and working from a detailed unit plan. Maybe I was concentrating, during this practicum, on aspects of executing lessons without the need to ‘read’ so much from a lesson plan as I had done on previous practicum. Having less planning though may contribute to a greater need for behaviour management during lesson execution? Also, as the ‘observer’ suggested, things may run ok for a time, but under more stressed circumstances I may need more to fall back on. Also, through our education assessment paper, much has been said about setting clear learning intentions and communicating with students how we will know when these have been achieved. Maybe this is part of the solution?

Maybe I can work on a simplified plan for individual lessons that takes from the unit plan and details concisely but clearly the intent and steps for the lesson as well as some focussed questions that may be used as part of the lesson? This may be more so the case for me as a beginning teacher, I’m not sure?

But in any case, having a clear idea of the purpose of each and every lesson (and communicating this clearly with students) is a key aspect of maximising purposeful learning.

Lessons from Practicum 3/5

Class Routines - Key foundation to building a positive learning community
Being with a new-entrance class is a great way of noticing, in a more obvious fashion, what is often regular teacher practice throughout all primary age classrooms. One of the most amplified examples of effective practice observed on this occasion was that of consistent class routines - although this was not fully apparent until after my stint at full control, when things sometimes became a little ‘undone’ :-) …

During my three days sole duty it became quickly evident that class routines were crucial in helping class management and establishing an effective learning environment.

When planning for my three days, I had prepared all the lessons needed. However, on the first day I found it more difficult than expected to ‘run’ the class in the same way as the associate teacher. After some interactions and discussion with the associate teacher, I realised that I hadn’t been fully aware of many of the seemingly small & incidental aspects of her teaching, which were in fact very measured and considered routines and instructions which she had established over time.

I didn’t really have a full realisation, or prior practical experience of the value of established routines. Therefore, in addition to this, my first-week observations were not focussed on this area. Maybe because I didn’t know what I was actually seeing, or the reasons behind it. I also probably had assumptions that the children were in some aspects managing themselves, when in fact they were operating in the comfort or familiarity of established routines.

When I become a teacher of my own class, if I want to create a better learning environment (and make life easier for myself), it will be important for me to establish routines right from day one. These routines, whatever shape they take, need to be measured, considered, and clear.

Lessons from Practicum 2/5

Sharing Learning Intentions and Student Reflections on Learning
Often, when comparing my time at university with actual school teaching experiences, I have found a lack of links between theory and practice. On this occasion however I saw a fine example of what I had heard talked about, actually being done!

My associate teacher was a firm proponent of sharing ‘targets’ or learning intentions at the beginning of each lesson. He then ensured that students regularly involved themselves in reflective questioning as part of his plenary (ending of a lesson).

I have since read more research about the sharing of learning intentions as part of formative assessment. An excellent book for this is:

Clarke, S., Timperley, H., & Hattie, J. (2003). Unlocking formative assessment: Practical strategies for enhancing students' learning in the primary and intermediate classroom (1st NZ ed.). Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett Publishers Ltd.

Seven possible reflective questions used were:

• What was your learning intention today?
• What’s something new you learnt today?
• Did you ask inquisitive questions?
• What skills could you improve?
• What did you find difficult?
• What did you enjoy about the session?
• What would you change if we repeated the activity/lesson?

These were often used in the form of students first thinking about the answer to themselves, and then sharing back

1. Think (to self) 30seconds
2. Pair (tell partner) 60seconds
3. Share (whole class) 90seconds

Lessons from Practicum 1/5

YES - This is me!
This practicum was just a few weeks into the beginning of my study. In all honesty, there would have been a lot going on that I wasn’t even capable of seriously observing due to my lack of understanding about what to really look for.

However, the one key thing I gained from this particular experience (with a year 4/5 class) was that YES! This is what I want to do. And that is obviously a very important conclusion to come to early on in my training.

Lessons from Practicum: Intro

I have now completed all five teaching experiences that my education degree course requires. Not only do these provide a multitude of opportunities to both observe and practise teaching and learning, I have found each one has had one significant aspect of teaching that has come to the forefront of my thinking and personal reflection.

So, following this introduction will be a description of one key thing I gained from each of my five practicum.