In my first practicum, I learned so much and now have an insight of what my day to day will look like in my future classroom. I thoroughly my classroom and the student and Mr. Allan have been so supportive as I start my teaching career. 

Throughout the first practicum, I made excellent growth in developing my lessons. For the first lesson I taught, I found it very difficult to figure out a lesson that will interest all the students while also allowing them to learn and work on new skills. My first lesson felt very choppy and rushed. Since I was unaware of the students, I wasn’t sure how long the lesson on idioms would take. Parts of the lesson that I thought would go really quickly took more time and vice versa. But since my first lesson, I have found it easier in developing lesson plans. Knowing the students more has also really helped me in creating lessons, since I am aware of their needs and interests more than I was when I first started. Mr. Allan was always very supportive and would help us whenever needed.

Throughout my time in Mr.Allan’s class, I worked hard to observe his classroom management and organizational strategies. Personally, I think that strong classroom management is the key to teaching. Mr. Allan had very strong routines and you could tell. His students were very responsive to him. Some transitions got noisy as the students got up and moved around but Mr. Allan always remained calm. I also found it beneficial to watch the students and see different behaviours within the classroom. By watching students, I found it easier to understand the classroom dynamics and it made it easier for me when I would teach. I could pick out the students that liked to fidget or students that took a bit more time to get started with their task at hand. Moving forward, it helped me when I was creating lesson plans. 

For the next practicum, I want to become more efficient in the directions I am giving to students. I found that in a few of my lessons that I taught, I went to quickly and didn’t give directions that were not detailed enough. Thankfully, the lessons I did teach were really set up for the student’s success. But moving forward, I need to become more mindful of the delivery of my directions for each assignment. I need to explain in better detail the expectations and steps students need to follow in order to be successful with the assignment. To improve on this, I will make sure my instructions are very clear and make sure the students completely understand before moving on. I could also check for understanding by getting the students to repeat the instructions back to me. Without clear instructions, students are unaware of my expectations throughout the assignment.