Feature Photo by Kimon Maritz on Unsplash
When thinking about my experiences in education and learning, I always remember – because I seem to forget – that I have never been out of a school setting. When I was five years old, I started kindergarten and continued through each grade level until I was seventeen years old, when I graduated from high school. Although I finished grade school, my education continued as I went straight into the Teacher Education program, graduated in four years, and immediately became a certified teacher. I have been teaching, and in a classroom, ever since. Although I am a ‘sponge’ who wants to know how everything works and learn things on a deeper level to be able to teach certain concepts, the one structured learning experience that I have had the best learning outcome was the shift from ‘theory’ to ‘practice’ in my practica.
My final practicum was in the seventh grade for nine weeks in the Victoria School District. A particular aspect of this learning environment that I found special was that it was unique in the sense that I taught all subjects to my students. In middle schools, it is typical for teachers to switch classes to teach certain subjects to students. The opportunity to teach all subjects to students, provided me with the support to gain experience in teaching all content areas – which I have found beneficial since leaving the practicum. At the beginning of the practicum, I was nervous, excited, and restless to get going. This was the final nine weeks of my Teacher Education program. Through the practicum, I experienced challenges (dealing with attitude from students), setbacks (restarting unit and lesson plants), and difficult emotions (through exhaustion), but it turned out to be my best learning experience to date because of the learning experience, direct feedback, support, and the new techniques and strategies which I gained. I had lots of personal and professional growth which provided me a strong foundation of teacher experience, knowledge, and ability to be an effective teacher.
Through my Teacher Education program, we learned about theory, how to write a detailed unit/lesson plan, and why certain ideas are effective if you can implement them in the classroom. Although those are important to have a foundation of knowledge of because our practical skills are built upon those theories, we did not learn about or fully experience the day-to-day life of a teacher. We were not able to build upon our classroom management, conflict-management, time management, or communication with parents skills in the university classroom. This practicum was a ‘jump in the deep end of a pool’ experience regarding those specific skills. It was a lot of learning from what the mentor teacher did, what worked well, and learning from what did not work well before. In my experience, I had to quickly learn different ways in which I could get students’ attention and manage classroom noise. Lots of my learning came from trying out certain techniques and building on those which worked well and then reflecting on those which did not work and having an understanding of why.
What made this learning experience effective, special, and memorable, was the immediate feedback that I received. Whether this feedback was from the reaction of students to new strategies or my mentor teacher’s feedback on what went well in the lesson and which areas could be improved, was effective, immediate, and well-scaffolded. It started with an observation week, then teaching 40%, 60%, 80%, and then 100% of all subjects until the final week of practicum. Through this model, I was able to build up to my potential of teaching and get experience, confidence, and guidance through each of these steps. I’ll be forever grateful for the mentorship that I gained along the way through this learning experience as I know that I was supported to reach my potential during those weeks and there are moments in my teaching now where I reflect as to where I learned my strategies, and it was from those nine weeks. It was an effective hands-on, experiential, scaffolded, guided, and structured learning experience and I had the most impactful learning outcomes through those nine weeks.