School Experience - Reflection 4

The most transformative lesson I learned this week is that I need to plan lesson with the purpose of fully engaging as many students as possible (Goal #10).

Goal # 3: Classroom Management:

This week, to reinforce my visual about “no talking when the teacher talks” (traffic light), I decided to develop a point system. When I want to achieve silence in the classroom, I give the students a signal (hand up with a finger on my mouth / clapping / hand on head, nose, chin, show me good listening). Once the signal is given, the students have five seconds to be silent: under 5 s, they win a point, over 5 s, I win a point. I created a visual (thermometer) where the students’ points are added everyday toward a prize (50 points = movie / 75 points = movie and treats / 100 points = movie, treats and goodie bags). The party will be on Friday and I am giving lots of chance to the group to earn points and be successful because I believe that a reward system only works if the students earn the reward in a timely manner.

So far, my point system is working well, and the group holds ownership for it. One student asked if some “unquiet” students will not have a party. I answered that the whole class needs to work together. Some chatty students are now being reminded kindly to be quiet by their peers.

This week, I had an incident with a student who is a “justice fighter”. He felt that I was not picking him enough, and that I was giving other students extra attention when asking for volunteers. This made me realize that I was not totally fair to my students, and I was not giving everyone a chance to participate equally. I therefore decided to use the Popsicle stick system to call for volunteers (with an option to say “no” or ask a friend for help). This was great and it increased the participation of students who rarely put their hand up. It also increased attention because anybody could be asked to answer a question. I will not use the Popsicle sticks all the time, and I will have to find a system to avoid calling out the same students (using a check list might help).  

Goal # 10: Effective Teaching Practice:

My most transformative moment relates to the importance of planning lessons with the purpose of fully engaging students. I taught two math lessons last week on T-tables. During the first lesson, I mostly lectured and asked volunteers to come up to the main board and to share their answers. While it worked for a while and helped scaffold the learning, it became counterproductive in the second half of my lesson, and students lost focus and became confused. At the end of my lesson, about half the students did not fully understand the concept of T-table.

For my second lesson on T-table, I followed my Teacher Mentor’s advice and used individual white board and A/B partners to maximize students’ engagement. I still asked for volunteers to come up to the main white board and share their answers, but I also asked every student to answer on their own board. I also incorporated movement to maintain focus and optimize the attention of my students. 

The second lesson went well and after reviewing the final worksheet filled by students, I was pleased to see that most students had understood the concept of T-table. This truly opened my mind to the need of generating movement and planning lessons with the goal to have every single student thinks as much as possible (either alone or in a small group).

Goal # 14: School Culture and Community (and Professionalism)

Central School hosted a family gathering after school with a focus on Aboriginal and Métis People. I enjoyed listening to the Aboriginal stories and dancing traditional Métis steps with staff members and families from the school community. This reinforced my understanding that the impact of a school goes beyond the walls of a single classroom, and that Central is an important keystone in the neighbourhood where families feel supported, valuable and welcome.