Professional Knowledge & Experience
Planning and designing learning activities that consider student variables including:
My goal as a teacher is to not only teach the material to students but it is to know and understand each child and their individual learning needs as well as their unique personalities.
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For myself this includes planning effectively with each child in the back of my mind and continually asking myself "How can I effectively communicate and deliver information and material in a way that each student is able to understand it?"
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Having my first practicum in the months of November and December opened my eyes to the fact that I needed to take into consideration the religion of a student when teaching my lessons as well. Which meant differentiating my lessons based on .
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This is an activity that I prepared for the students after teaching them about the 5 senses, I wanted them to think about Christmas through their five senses. However, I quickly came to realization that some students did not celebrate Christmas, so I altered the activity slightly to meet the learning needs of my students and to respect their beliefs.
- demographics - religion
Planning and designing learning activities that:
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As a teacher it is important to let the Program of Studies and the General and Specific Learner Outcomes guide us in the creation of our activities.
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That is why when I was told that I would be teaching science, I headed straight to the program of studies and studied it in detail. Looking to see how I could make activities for the students that directly stem from the program of studies.
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This activity sheet is an idea that I got directly from the program of studies. The specific learner outcome was :
1. Faire des recherches sur les emplois des plantes et faire des rapprochements entre les besoins, la technologie, les produits et les effets constatés, c’est-à-dire :
• décrire l’utilisation des plantes par l’être humain comme source de nourriture et de matière première et donner des exemples d’autres emplois
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The activity that the students had to do was to research a medicinal plant. They had to provide a definition and describe it, state the environment the plant comes from as well as state the importance of the plant to humans and how it is used and include a picture of the product.
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-address the learning outcomes outlined in the programs of study
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-incorporate a range of instructional strategies. Including the appropriate use(s) of digital technology, according to the context, content, desired outcomes and the learning needs of the students.
This activity directly related back to the program of studies and the learning outcome for unit of Les plantes, source de nourriture et de fibre. It gave students an opportunity to research plants and the varrying aspects and uses of a plant for the human being.
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This activity not only got the students thinking about the diverse use of plants. It also worked to incorporate technology, giving the students an opportunity to do some research on their own. In order to prep them for this aspect of the activity. We did an example plant together as a class, where we went through each box together as a class. The students were then given the chance to go and do the research for themselves.
-reflect short, medium and long range planning :
Being a teacher means being ready long term and knowing where you want to go for the year, unit and day.
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This is a sample from my Grade 7 French Immersion Social Studies class. During my second practicum I took on social from beginning to end. In order to be prepared I had to ensure that I knew what my long term Unit plan would look like over 6 weeks. I split it up into three columns, the first being date, lesson number and time.
The second column were the specific learner outcomes I would be covering that day. Lastly the third column included a description of the lesson, activities and my evaluation for the day.
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Having a unit plan prepped and ready before I taught, enabled me to stay on track with my teaching timeline. This was critical considering I was only a student teacher and had 6 weeks.
Full Unit Plan : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-e8evHY6zLcavdVFFYq3QIPUlLF29m39/view?usp=sharing
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Unit plans help with the general outline of what the goal for each lesson is. However when it comes down to teaching day to day. Having a detailed lesson plan helps enormously in order to effectively communicate the desired outcomes and material.
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This is an example lesson plan from the Social Studies Unit that I taught in my PSII practicum.
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I included the GLO, SLO's as well as my student based learning objectives for that specific lesson, which were to focus on analyzing a political cartoon as well as being able to explain why Canada was considered a limited democracy.
It is important for me to know what I want my students to understand each lesson that is why making clear learner objectives is one of my continued goals that I want to continue to develop throughout my teaching career.
Full lesson plan : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MoX7UW_HHlxqQ2_KYCUEH7O7tPIoqzy4/view?usp=sharing
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Full lesson plan :
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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dYMry7-hz9Ii1hKecSyBK8DdPt4qAKPK/view?usp=sharing
However, I also believe that setting up detailed instructions for myself in my lesson plans is key. Not only making sure that I have clear learner outcomes but ensuring that my lesson has a beginning (introduction), middle (body) and end (conclusion).
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This is a sample taken from one of the Grade 8 English lessons that I taught about Graphic novels.
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I made sure to include in my introduction the specific techniques that I would be looking to discuss with the students and for review.
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In the body portion of my lesson plan, I made sure to include a step by step play of what I would be teaching or saying to the students. As well as indicating partner discussions and or group discussions. This enabled the lesson to stay student centered and ensure that I do not get carried away with teaching, which may happen if I do not have a detailed lesson plan in place.
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The conclusion for this lesson was a brainstorming activity, the students were asked to brainstorm potential ideas for a Graphic Novel that they would be creating.
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Brainstorm -
1. If you want a novel, movie, or an experience from your personal life to be the inspiration for your graphic novel.
2. Depending on your choice, what movie, novel, or experience from your life.
3. What adaptations would you make to the story in general and the characters.
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Applying student assessment and evaluation practices that :
-provide a variety of methods through which students can demonstrate their achievement of the learning outcomes
As a teacher it is crucial that students understand the material that you teach. A teacher can do this in multiple ways, through formative assessment or summative assessment.
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However, summative assessment does not simply mean tests or quizzes. Projects serve as a great way to judge a student's learning, project-based learning also gives students an opportunity to demonstrate their creativity.
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For my final project in my French Social Studies Unit, students were asked to create a political cartoon concerning the chapter that we had just covered in Social Studies.
I had a discussion with each student about their plan for their political cartoons and their thoughts and ideas blew me away. They were more creative than I ever could have imagined.
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The rubric for this Summative Assessment was also directly related to the specific learner and general learning outcomes.
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Before letting the students get started on the project, I went over the rubric and explained General Learner Outcome and what was required for the students to achieve a proficient.
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I believe that going over each learner expectation is critical for students being able to achieve such goals. If they do not know what they are working towards, how will they be able to reach an unknown goal.
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Formative assessment is another way to check in on students and their understanding. It helps you as a teacher understand what your students comprehend from the material you taught and what aspects they missed.
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In my Grade 7 French Immersion Science for example, I wanted to see if the students understood the concept of photosynthesis which I had previously taught the class before. So I asked the students to draw and label the process of photosynthesis.
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Many students got confused between photosynthesis and respiration(a process which is opposite of photosynthesis). This formative assessment allowed me to see that the students got confused between the two concepts. Thus giving me the opportunity to go back and review it before a Summative Assessment.
Using instructional strategies to engage students in meaningful learning activities, based on:
-an understanding of students' backgrounds, prior knowledge and experiences.
Starting off a new year as a teacher is often exciting, we are excited to get to know new students and their abilities.
Having an understanding of students' prior knowledge is key to planning short term and long term.
One way that I used in order to assess my students' prior knowledge in their written French was to have the students create their own monster or superhero and explain them in written form and orally to the class.
This activity gave students a chance to be creative and gave myself the opportunity to formatively assess their abilities in written and spoken French, allowing myself to get an idea of the student's prior knowledge in both these areas.
This formative assessment tool was critical considering that the students were grade 10 students who had just started at a new school and made the transition from middle school to high school. Therefore my prior knowledge of their French abilities were extremely limited. Furthermore, being a student teacher, my connections with other teachers is also slight.
Planning and designing learning activities that :
-foster student understanding of the link between the activity and the intended learning outcomes
Creating links between the activity and the learning outcomes is necessary as a teacher will often have students ask "why are we doing this" and if they cannot understand the importance or value of the activity and how it helps them. It is likely that their effort will be decrease for the activity.
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For one activity about irregular verbs, I had students create their own informational page based on one specific irregular verb, where they had to conjugate the verb, draw a picture representing the verb and find other verbs that were similar in conjugation. I then took each student's page and created a booklet with 15 irregular verbs that were made by their classmates. This served as a resource for the students to learn and study some of the irregular verbs.
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When I was asked "why are we doing this", I informed the students that they need to be able to conjugate and "apply knowledge of conjugation patterns of irregular verbs in the present tense in structured, guided and sometimes in nonguided situations (30 R 2.5b)". As well once I explained that I would use the specific verbs from this booklet to test them on irregular verbs, they put more effort in as they understood that they were creating a resource for not only themselves but their classmates as well.
Applying student assessments and evaluation practices that :
-generate evidence of student learning to inform teaching practice through a balance of formative and summative assessment experiences
The balance between formative and summative assessments is key for not only student learning but teacher practices as well. Teachers also need to be flexible in their summative and formative assessments. Sometimes a summative assessment may need to become formative if there seems to be a common general misunderstanding with the majority of the class.
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In my FSL 20 class, I anticipated to have their first quiz of the unit be a summative assessment. However, after I went over the quizzes, I realized that the students did not fully grasp the concept. So instead of keeping it as a summative assessment, I decided to switch it to a formative assessment and use it as a time to review the concept more and explain where mistakes were made. '
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As well, in order to motivate the students to study for their next quiz, they had a Summative assignment to make a review page. This allowed them to be creative and to create a study resource for themselves for the next quiz.
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Since this was a small summative assignment, they took their time on their work and went through their notes to insure they were looking for the right information about "le passé composé".
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The quiz was the evidence of student learning that I needed in order to alter my teaching practice and review the concept more before another quiz or test. Although I had to switch my original plan, these small assessments were key in ensuring the success of the students in my class.
Planning and designing learning activities that :
-address the learning outcomes outlines in programs of study
In FSL 30 some of the specific learner outcomes stated in the program of study have to do with Public Context and interactions, specifically in FSL 30 with Tourism and Traveling.
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Specific Learner Outcomes :
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language experiences in the public context, including
− identifying, describing and recommending tourist destinations within one’s own community as well as in selected Francophone communities (30 C 3.1)
− discussing weather conditions associated with the geography and seasonal climate of selected tourist destinations (30 C 3.2)
− participating in typical travel interactions; e.g., seeking and providing tourist information, navigating within a community, using foreign currency, seeking accommodations (30 C 3.3)
− comparing the nature, design and availability of public spaces, facilities, and/or institutions within one’s own community and selected Francophone communities (30 C 3.4)
− others that meet their needs and interests (30 C 3.5)
A fun way that I could address multiple of these outcomes concerning tourism and traveling was to have the students create their own travel brochures about a destination that they wished to travel to one day.
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These activity worked out so well, and they achieved the learning outcomes such as :
− identifying, describing and recommending tourist destinations within one’s own community as well as in selected Francophone communities (30 C 3.1)
− discussing weather conditions associated with the geography and seasonal climate of selected tourist destinations (30 C 3.2)
− participating in typical travel interactions; e.g., seeking and providing tourist information, navigating within a community, using foreign currency, seeking accommodations (30 C 3.3)
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This was their final project to the Tourism Unit and they loved it. They were also able to practice multiple forms of grammar that we had studied in that Unit into their Brochures.
-reflect short, medium and long range planning
Having a full semester practicum gave me the opportunity to create a long range plan for the first time. Long range planning was important because it forced me as a teacher to think about exactly what units I was going to teach and to create an estimated timeline for each unit.
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Having this year plan in place forced me to keep to my approximated timeline. Without this key piece of planning I may have not been able to fit all these units in. It also allowed me to predict in a small manner of the material that I was going to cover in each unit. Giving me a starting point in planning units.
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Each form of planning allowed me to feel prepared and ready to go for each lesson that I taught throughout the semester. Long range planning set me up to create a unit plan and a plan set up me up for success in the creation of daily lessons. I then had every day of every week of the whole semester planned out. To think it all started out with a general year plan demonstrates how important it is to do that initial planning before the start of the year.
