Today was a completely new experience in my practicum. Mr. Scott was absent, so the daily routine was thrown off as we had a substitute teacher. Thankfully, the special educator who works with the team came in and assisted during our advisory block because students were expected to complete what could be a difficult assignment. In preparing and developing their PLP, they were provided with a handout that has sixteen habits of mind listed and described. They included things like perseverance, finding the humor in situations, creating and innovating, striving for accuracy, etc. They were required to choose one of these habits of mind and describe three examples of how they have worked toward it this year. In other words, they begin the process of gathering evidence that they are meeting a proficiency - which in this case is a habit of mind. By the end of the class session (about 40 minutes), they should have completed this process for two habits of mind.
Some students really excelled with this and other students really struggled. I am happy to say that I was able to step in and really provide assistance since I have been in the classroom so long. I've gotten to know some students well enough that I could point toward extra-curricular examples that they hadn't considered. For instance, there is one habit of mind that essentially boils down to being able to work in groups and think with others to come to one good idea. I was able to mention that he plays a sport and that he should think of an instance related to that. Once I opened his eyes to the potential outside of just classroom curriculum, the entire process became much easier and came more naturally to him.
After that, I actually spent time watching one of my peers teach a lesson. On Monday I will be teaching about the Declaration of Independence, so it was actually twice as valuable for me to watch because she was teaching about the Declaration as well. It gave me with ideas on things that could really work well with my own students as well as seeing things that probably wouldn't work in my classroom.
As a whole, watching my peer teach a lesson was an incredibly valuable lesson. Something that I personally struggle with is classroom management when students are working in small groups and I'm going around the room helping them. I noticed that she also may have struggled with this as she spent time with one group and the students on the other side of the room became louder and less productive as time passed. Mostly, I recognized a lot of strengths and what she did well. It provided me with a nice reminder that we may not feel the best about a lesson when we walk away from it, but the people who are watching it may see it a different way. I know she didn't walk away from the lesson feeling spectacular about it but I thought it was a good lesson and she tried a lot of different teaching methods and at the end of the lesson, the students certainly had learned something. It's nice to get a little perspective on this.
It was a great day in my placement and I'm definitely feeling a little disappointed that I'm going to be away from the classroom for over a month. Thank goodness I will be returning for the spring semester!
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