Some reflections are easy to do, others are closer to our hearts and take longer to be written on paper. I will start my second student teaching experience in 10 days and in the two months since my first student teaching experience ended, I have had a lot of time to reflect on those 5 weeks. I have asked many of my friends about their time in class as well and some of these reflections can be found on my website – Peter’s reflection can be found here. Diana’s reflection is coming up and Ella’s experience will be available in the coming weeks too.
I am using the questions that I ask my friends to guide my reflection here though I have not organized this in a question-answer format since this is more of a self-interview. 🙂
There is so much that happened in those 5 weeks and I learned so much. Let’s begin the journey back in time.
Taking over someone else’s classroom
Coming in and taking over a teacher’s classroom is a daunting feeling. The field experiences at my university started in the middle of the semester, teaching Grades 7 and 8 in mid-November. Meantime, my students had spent all their time since September with my mentor teacher.
The main link that was missing was relationships – it is often said that the three r’s in teaching are relationships, relationships, relationships. And without those, we can’t teach anyone.
We grow up with relationships around us, whether it’s our parents or siblings, or making friends, but we never really put as much thought or effort into most of these relationships. We go with the flow. But when it comes to teaching, we can’t go anywhere without the bonds. It is one thing to analyze the classroom and figure out the classroom rules, but another to be a part of the classroom, to live and breathe those rules, manage the behaviors and be a role model. Until those relationships start to get established, neither learning nor classroom management will happen. I was fortunate to have spent time interacting with my students, helping them out, and co-teaching with my mentor before I started teaching them by myself.
The day before I started teaching, I did an introductory activity with the students. We played ‘Find a person who’ where students had about 12 minutes to get to know their peers and me. I was the answer to the question ‘Someone who has 2 Masters degrees’ and it was fun to watch the students go to my mentor teacher and ask her if she had 2 Masters. She would say no and then ask them, “Who else do we have in the classroom who could have 2 Masters?” This also gave me the chance to walk around the classroom and learn some names. When the 15 minutes were up, I went through each category and we learned fun facts about the students I was going to take over.
One class did not have any vegetarians. One of my Grade 8 classes had 3 ambidextrous students who could write with both hands. My students weren’t just students there to learn Math – some of them had been to other countries, others knew more than 2 languages, some were the oldest siblings or the only child, some had never sushi in their life, and some like me had a cat or loved books and writing. I was going to teach students who were like me in some ways.
The support a mentor teacher provides
My mentor teacher is the math lead at the school. She is a passionate math educator and we had many conversations about math, the classroom, books, professional development, twitter, our observations about students and much more. We both love stationary and she totally let me geek out with color-coding my lessons and her notes (my lesson plans were on white paper, her notes on green paper and the reflections I did after each lesson were on yellow sheets). She showed me her folders from her own student teaching terms, the folder she maintains for substitute teachers, the math manipulatives that she has and the things she did in the morning – writing on the white board what each of her classes are going to do today.
I taught a class of Grade 7 and two classes of Grade 8, and some Computers (3 lessons before the options changed), observed Grade 9 and the Business option. I reached school around the same time as her (7:45ish am), we went to heat up our beverages and breakfast, talking about what was coming up today and any reflections from the day before. We always discussed what I wanted to do for the lessons a week in advance. On the day of the lesson, I would print out the lesson plan. Her initial feedback was in the form of written notes and eventually, conversations became the main medium of giving feedback. I took notes on my iPad at these times.
With my classes, I tried exit slips, giving stamps to students who were on track and working away, and different classroom management techniques like proximity. The stamps were helpful because they let students know too that they were doing the right thing, instilling a sense of achievement. I remember one of my Grade 8 students insist to his friend to show me his work so that I could give him a stamp too.
Ultimately, I also had the opportunity to talk to some students one-on-one after some misbehaviour that had to be corrected. During my second last week, I was teaching multiplication of decimals. One of the students was talking on top of me and another was standing up when I would be writing on the SMART Board. Both were also encouraging each other. I warned them a couple of times and said I would send them to the office if this behavior continued. When they didn’t listen, I had to follow through on what I had said.
I would never forget the sense of exhilaration that I felt as I crossed the room, picked up the phone and called the office. They said I could send my two students and I told them they could go. They left and I tried to go back to teaching. Sometimes, I need a break from my students as much as they need it from me and the topic. I talked to the two students I had sent the next day about whether their behavior was appropriate and they realized it hadn’t been. My mentor teacher supported me and helped me get started in having these conversations.
Keeping Organized
I maintained two binders throughout my field experience. The first one was a Week Binder with everything for the week in it. The second one was a Cumulative Binder where I ultimately transferred everything.
The Week Binder had:
- my time table
- class list
- Growth Plan
- Lesson Plans and reflections for each week
- Notes for the lessons that I made
- Feedback from my mentor teacher for each lesson
My Cumulative Binder had:
- Teacher’s Code of Conduct
- program of studies for the Grades I was teaching (color coded by Grade, of course)
- Unit Plans
- Achievement indicators for the units I was teaching
- Extra readings
- Worksheets
- Any exams or tests that I made or were administered during my time at the school
From Theory of Practice
During the beginning of my practicum, we were talking about multiple intelligence theory. I had a book on the topic and decided to read it. Being in the classroom, observing students, thinking about the teaching styles I was observing and my own teaching style which I was experiencing, I reflected a lot on the multiple intelligence theory, often thinking of specific moments that happened during my time in the school.
I added a component of which learning style/intelligence I was targeting for each of my activities in my lesson plans. This was a very helpful exercise to be able to implement the theory I was reading.
Thinking back to other courses I had taken at university, the math curriculum course was very useful. We talked a lot about growth mindset and the fear of math that students have. My mentor teacher always started new sections with ‘I can’ statements and I started incorporating those in my lessons as well.
The Expected and the Unexpected
Thoughts that crossed my mind when I was just starting out was what if students don’t understand or don’t want to learn from me. Building relationships takes time and effort. What I learned about my students had to do with how much I was open to knowing them as well as how much they wanted to know me. I can never expect to know everything that has been going on when I arrive in the middle of a term.
When a student called me out in front of the class that he wasn’t understanding what was teaching, my heart sank but I was the teacher and a professional. I had never even rehearsed let alone thought of a confrontation! So, I did what I could best: I said I was sorry to hear that and asked him to tell me where I lost him.
On another day, when the same student said this again and added that no one else was getting anything either, my heart sank deeper. Did I want to hide under the table? Little bit. Did I look around puzzled at the rest of my class and wished I could read their mind, because they clearly seemed to nod their head, telling me they got it when I had asked earlier? I told him the others could speak for themselves and I repeated what I was doing, slower this time, checking in even more than I had before.
Another time, a student wanted my mentor teacher to explain the concept. I think it was my first or second time teaching the class. I didn’t want to give up and I asked my students to give me the numbers to work with so that we could try learning the concept anew.
Thinking back at it now, in those moments, I was terrified but now I am thankful for those experiences. I want to thank these students for testing me and voicing their questions and concerns. I went to school in India and I am teaching in Canada now. The classrooms and the students are a totally new experience and I am learning as I spend more time with them.
There will always be situations that I will not be prepared for and would have to think and act professionally on the spot. That will never go away but for every such experience that takes place, it makes me stronger and better at handling this if it comes up again another time.
It makes me more reflective of my practice and my confidence in the subject area that I am teaching. The best part about this happening during student teaching is that it’s a safe environment and my mentor teacher supported me through thick and thin.
Looking back now
Going in, I was worried if I would be able to connect with junior high kids. I don’t have any family in that age group that I have interacted with recently. I have taught at university previously so this was going to be a different experience all together. By the end of the 5 weeks, I had finally started to enjoy teaching, without stressing as much as I used to in the beginning. The routines of the classroom like giving precise instructions about opening notes, washroom breaks, calling on students to answer, walking around the classroom and checking in on them individually – these little things were getting more and more internalized. I didn’t have to think about taking these steps anymore. I didn’t have to tell myself to go stand next to a student so that they start writing notes or stop looking at their phone. The students were also getting used to me being the teacher. Some still didn’t connect with me and I was learning to be okay with that.
Overall, I had a great time. I got my first note from a student saying he would miss me when I was gone – hence starting my box of positive notes and messages. I collected feedback voluntarily and anonymously from all the classes I taught and it was nice to see that they knew I cared for them and they liked how I taught. They told me I needed to give them more time to write notes and that I should speak more loudly – something I know I have to work on. Some noteworthy ones:
U WERE AMAZING THX FOR BEING MY TEACHER FOR IDK HOW LONG
Thank you for teaching us. I learned some few new things. Take care and keep teaching. I’m sorry if sometimes were kinda noisy and annoying, but hey you can make us be quit haha. Byee. THANK YOU
I will never forget the one-on-one conversations I had on my last day with my Grade 8s, asking them about where they thought they needed to work on fractions, reviewing concepts I knew they were struggling with, and not worrying about anything – only communicating I wanted to help them the best I could.
Adapting the next time
In the coming weeks, I will be teaching Grade 8 and 9 math. I am excited about continuing my development with junior high students and in math too. I will be teaching Integers and polynomials – two of my favorite areas of math. Last time, I had notes up on the board and gave students time to write them. This time, I want to make notes with my students, gauging better how much time it would take to write them – it can’t be a lot more than mine 🙂 I would learn about their pace of learning this way. I tried graphical organizers with my Grade 7s and this time am looking forward to trying out student learning guides.
My friends have shared ideas from their own field experiences and some of them are new tricks to pull out of my teacher’s hat. My friend Ella told me about turn-and-talk to your partner for 2 minutes to discuss a question as a way of checking if students are getting a concept and listening in on these conversations to get more participation in class.
I am a better teacher because of my mentor teacher and the support she provided. The students have played a huge role in this as well with their openness. They let me come in and be with them and learn with them. I had the support of my family who were there for me every day to listen to what happened in class, to encourage me to continue doing good and lift my spirits when I was feeling down.
I had teacher friends, Valerie, Dan, Deepan who listened and advised me when I needed them the most. At one point of time, I also reached out to Tara Martin, the author of Be REAL. My Grade 7s had to do a re-write for the first quiz and I was struggling to clear the doubts I could see from the quizzes that they had but didn’t say. Tara encouraged me to have small group conversations with them and have them reflect on what they needed to work on. With so many people to turn to, what else can I ask for?
Featured Photo by salvatore ventura on Unsplash
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