November 13th, 2019 Grade 5B Gym Class

What I thought didn’t go well

- Some instances while talking to the students, I might be, talking down to the students.
Might be rushing while demonstrating with the students.
- I needed to emphasis some of the safety issues with the students. One example was
students were tossing the ball over the net instead of rolling the ball underneath.
- Not being prepared enough, I made the mistake of assuming students knew something. I
needed to be more thorough on students prior knowledge either before moving on in the
lesson or before starting the class.
- Making sure I am equally working with each group. Some groups might need more
attention based on skill level but still making sure I am checking in on each group before
moving on.
- When bring the students, have a consistent attention grabber to help students recognize
when I will bring them together.
- I am struggling with figuring out ways to for students to hold the ball.
What went well
- Engagement of the class was high, students seemed to enjoy every activity.
- Students were willing to help each other because of the competitive aspect of each game.
- Having the students say what I said back to me what I said to validate they have learned.
- Making the activities have a game element would helped the students be supportive of
each other because each game had a form of teamwork needed to “win”.
- Each activity was safe, engaging, and help students progression to becoming better
athletes.
- Using attention grabs to get their attention rather than yelling helps.
- Having the students help clean up after made it easy for myself when cleaning.
What would I change
- I would spend an extra a minute or two explaining some of the rules and safety of the
activities.
- The beginning activity my teacher associate recommended that I make two of the game. I
agree, I think this will allow more activity time for the students, but have them more
engaged as well.
- Could have the bump over the net game, have the person catching the ball catch it above
the head to mimic a set for the students.
- At the end of the lesson, have a quick exit slip where students show me what the serving
position looks like rather than a bumping position.
November 13, 2019 Grade 5 Science – Surface Tension
What I thought didn’t go well
- The videos were too long and had some irrelevant information that the students didn’t
know. Needed to make them shorter and more engaging for the students.
- When moving from videos to power point the student seemed disengaged.
- Not walking around the room enough while talking or discussing ideas I think disengaged
students.
- The hypothesis and conclusion near the end of the lesson were heavily rushed. Some of the
instruction with the hypothesis and conclusion should have been easily understood.
- Having the students show me their work before putting their books away was not the best.
When helping with students I wold have a line of students who would want me to check
their work, so I feel the pressure of helping the student and checking the students work.
- At the end, I didn’t have time to go over what the students learned for the period and
validate or reinforce what we learned.
What I thought went well
- The hook with the pin on the water really captured the attention of students and had them
critical think about what they are going to learn when they returned to their desks.
- The students were excited about the videos off the start of the lesson but the videos were
too long resulting in students disengaging.
- Bring the students together as a large group allows a form of cooperation they might not
recognize.
- Using the attention grabbers like high five or if you hear me touch your head, were
effective way to bring the students back to the task at hand.
- The class seemed to be in a controlled chaos state that allowed effective learning.
- Whenever I was asked a question outside the topic of discussion, I acknowledged the
question, answered the question, but steered the mind back to the task at hand.
- When students forgot, encouraged them to figure out the thought, so I could return to
them after asking the question again.
What I would change
- With the videos I would try and shorten the khan academy video to allow an opportunity
for the students to talk with an elbow buddy about the importance of the videos.
- I want to shorten the amount of time discussing the information on the power point. Have
more partner discussions, possible have the students stand up and write on the white
boards.
- I would allocate for more time with discussing hypothesis and conclusion. Could have a
worksheet that creates a Teacher show, we do, I do, where students would watch the
teacher do a hypothesis, than with the worksheet create hypothesis as a class, and develop
their own as a final assessment.
- I would also be more fluent with how to draw the penny, this would provide examples for
struggling students to lean on while others can create their own.
- At the end of the lesson have a select group of students collect the books so there is some
form of organization when transitioning to the next class.
November 14, 2019 – Grade 5 Gym with 5B
What I thought didn’t go well
- I was rushed for time, as I am struggling with time management.
- I had to change the beginning activity because I was pressed of time. It was a game
students were familiar with a game but modification of the rules caused the students to be
confused.
- I tried to have the activities less game like and some students were not as engaged when I
switched to more game like.
- Explanation was really long and didn’t have to be. Possibly being too specific and
micromanaging the students.
- I feel like I wasn’t as enthusiastic.
What I thought went well
- Beside the slight confusion with the beginning activity students were engaged from the
start of the start.
- The first activity students were not as engaged because I didn’t mention it was a game but
students were progressing a little better.
- Having both activities more like games allowed to students the opportunity for the
students to get more supportive.
- Students were communicating to each other about what the proper position and where to
stand.
- Students listened well even with the excess amount of instruction
What would I change
- Less instruction, the students listen fairly well.
- Clearly state I am changing the rules of a game they are familiar with.
- Physically demo the drill so the students will understand.
November 14, 2019 Chemistry -> heterogenous vs homogeneous
What I thought didn’t go well
- Time management, I am consistently running out of time. Need to be smarter with my
lesson plans.
- Kahoot was not running properly, had to spend a couple minutes figuring that out.
o Maybe have each person rotate on who gets the mouse.
- The question after the study jam video “What did we notice about the mixtures?”
What I thought went well
- Having the agenda on the bored helps students see what is going on.
- Had the students talk to their shoulder buddy helped them develop ideas and noticing
differences of the students.
- Walking through all the aisles helped the students focus on what I was saying.
- When reviewing the questions that were incorrect, spend some time having the students
talk to their shoulder buddy.
- Fist to five was a good indication of where students were at with understanding the
material.
- During Kahoot lots of conversation and debate about what was the right answer.
What I would like to change
- Having a better hook question for the students. Something more around “how can we tell
the difference between homogenous and heterogeneous?”
- Better time management, was cutting into the students gym time.
- Making sure the Kahoot worked before testing it in class.
- I need to shorten my lesson plans and being more realistic about time =.
Week Reflection November 18-22, 2019
Starting off the week with a topic of struggle that constantly occurred in the class was

spelling. This was a great way to open up my eyes or walk a mile in the shoes of the student. I

was originally going to have the students do individual work but I thought to myself, “Is this the

best way to engage my students learning?”. So I took a non-conventional approach and I

attempt to work with the class to understand the words. Using a regular white board, I created

this massive grid that has suffix, prefix, root, meaning, synonym, and syllable. With guidance of

the teacher, the class slowly but surely filled out the board. After the lesson I think half the

students were engaged, and the other half were bored. Looking back at the lesson, something

that I would want to change would be splitting the students into 5 groups, and have them

create their own grid. Have the students focus only on 3three things like suffix, prefix, and root

word. Than have students do a gallery walk to other groups areas and see what they see

different. I think this would be an opportunity to have students extend their knowledge of the

words. The biggest challenge I found this week, while teaching, was time management. In

majority of the lessons that I have taught, I seemed to get caught up in the lesson and forgot

about the time. This bothers me because I am usually organized, I know what I want the

students to do but it seems my time is up before I get through everything. The student seem to

not notice when I go over but I think that is because I am showing enthusiasm and excitement

when I teach. In a positive way the students seem to feed off my energy giving me an increased

boost of energy when teaching. I find that when writing lesson plans in the class my energy is

slowly disappearing, compared to when I am teaching my body feels energized. When I teach

and gain that energy back the students seem to respond by being more engaged and actively

listening in the class. Something to work towards next week is to maintain level energy to keep
the students engaged. Work on my time management, have my lesson plans accurately reflect

how much time I might have in the class.

November 25-29, 2019

This is my third week being in the class and teaching my grade 5 students. It was a my first full

week of classes, as the previous two weeks were both four day weekdays. I was teaching about

forty-five percent of the time this week compare to the minimum requirement of thirty-three

percent. A big focus, and a common theme, is my time management but also creating realistic

lesson plans. My time management skills are slowly developing but that comes with familiarity

of the time. I seem to struggle remembering little things that occur throughout the class, like:

getting the students attention, how long to explain a topic, encouraging the students to work,

or the Epson/Smart board not working properly. Small factors, similar to the ones mention, that

occur during the lesson may seem like insignificant at the time but, all those little things can

build up resulting in lost learning time. This than ties into my lesson planning, where I need to

work on creating realistic lesson plans. I believe that many of my lesson plans were student led

but required a lot of meticulous planning that I slightly over looked. I forgot to take into

account the little factors that I mentioned above, and that would eat into learning time. It was

frustrating for myself when I was going over time because I would have to rush forcing the

learning to switch from student based learning to more direct teaching to get the students the

information they needed. Even though direct teaching is a more efficient for the teacher

because the teacher is in constant control of class, but with student based learning is when

students to have more responsibility for their learning. During my University Consultant visits,

they told me that student dendrites activity will increase by forty percent if they are talking or
engaged in the topic of discussion. So switching from a teaching that is efficient from one

where the students are more engaged is quiet discouraging and discontented the students from

the learning is what I thought.

The best lesson of the week was a dodgeball lesson for both of my grade 5 classes. Both

lessons the students had to tell me the rules they knew about dodgeball, if the I had to modify a

rule then I would make sure all the students knew. Instead of using the length of the gym,

where some students would hide in the back of the gym, I used the width to encourage

everyone to participate. To keep the explanation to a minimum I used the game revenge ball or

almost never ending dodgeball game, where if a student gets hit they have to keep track who

got them. When the student who hit them goes out, they can now return. Modification that

were made was students were not allowed to catch the ball or block with a ball for different

games. Another modification was using floor mats as blockades during the game allowing

students the opportunity to practice adapting to their surroundings. I found the kids were

engaged and were learning how to problem solve while playing dodgeball.

Something to work on for next week is being more understanding about what is actually

feasible when teaching. Having realistic expectations of how long the teaching could potential

take. Being more accurate on how long could take in the class while taking into account of the

other factors that could potential take away from the learning material.
December 2-6, 2019

This week I tried to focus on having realistic expectations on how much the students

could get done. I found this a difficult process because I would try and fight natural instinct of

having the end in mind, however I cut down, slightly, on how much I wanted to get done. This

really helped with my teaching as I could spend extra time on topics I felt where students were

struggling. Not only was this beneficial for my teaching but the students learning as well. The

students seemed to be more engaged and I could put more of the learning on the students,

making majority of my lessons student-based learning. I thought this was beneficial because the

students felt comfortable about the expectations and avoided excess stress. This, to me, made

it easier to teach because students didn’t feel over whelmed with the amount of work.

Something I want to work on for my next practicum is having smoother transitions

within my lessons. I found that some of my transitions were choppy and had ‘lay-over’ time for

the students to discuss. My teacher associate explains that transitions is something minor and

is something teachers are constantly working on throughout the careers. As I move forward I

want to work on the things I struggle with to become a better teacher for my students.