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Welcome to my PLP! - Alyssa
Practicum II
Practicum II
Goal: To plan to differentiate the many skills, needs, interests, and ideas my students have to support them in their learning. This will be done through student choice and exploration.
Goal: To plan to differentiate the many skills, needs, interests, and ideas my students have to support them in their learning. This will be done through student choice and exploration.
The focus of my Capstone was on student choice!
We always want students to be engaged in the content they are learning. By engaging students in work, they are focusing on they become more likely to care about and remember their learning. Schools are moving toward becoming places to explore and grow, not just sit at desks and learn off worksheets. Students need to learn critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills in order to be successful in their futures. If students are spending 8+ hours in school a day, it makes sense that their learning should be meaningful and something they care about. Otherwise, they will just discard their learning as soon as summer hits.
Having students be leaders creates some of the most exciting lessons. It can be hard to let go of control, but it was a blast EVERY SINGLE DAY!
The Small Things...
The Small Things...
What triggered me to pick this topic for my capstone? WELL, let me tell you!
In one of my first art lessons with my students I planned to create Dean Russo inspired tigers by following a tutorial. I pulled up some of Russo's art on Google Images and the students were enamored with the colors and different animals. They started asking me to look up different aninals and if they could pick their own animal.
I pivoted my lesson, pulled up reference images of their requested animals, and let them go for it! This ended up being one of my favorite art projects and I had it hung up behind my desk for 10 weeks of my practicum.
Shark Tank
Students watched a Shark Tank pitch from the TV Show. They then planned, built, and pitched their own invention to the class using a simple machine or type of energy. Here is a student with 6 cats presenting their Cat Playground.
Expository Writing
I gave the students guidelines on how to research and write an essay. I left the topic up to their interests. Guess what? A nine year asked me how to spell Gravitational Force so he could look up the spaghettification process of a black hole. When you give students a choice they learn so much more!
Playgrounds
The students had to build and design a playground with all of the simple machines we had learned about. They chose their groups, materials, size, everything! Look at what these amazing students managed to create and build!
The Day the Crayons Quit
When our supplies decided they were going on strike the students wrote letters to them asking them to come back to work! I let them pick the content of the letter. Look at what they managed to do! (They had to write in pencil crayon since our pencils were off limits!)
YES DAY!
YES DAY!
One of the last days I had with the students was a "Yes Day" which was inspired by the book. The students wrote me sticky notes indicating what they would like to do if I could not say no. I only gave them three guidelines:
Not too expensive
Realistic
Something we can do in school
This was a fun way for us to celebrate the end of my practicum.
The students had many suggestions. Some of which I had to say no to. Such as giving them all 20 dollar gift cards.
However, when giving students control for one whole day... what happened?
We played blookets, built blanket forts, played our favourite Just Dances, made slime, worked on our comics, and watched a movie.
Did we learn much? No. Did we have fun? Absolutely!
The students were able to make choices based on guidelines that were overall responsible and safe. This shows that with the proper scaffolding, students ARE and SHOULD be allowed to make choices about their learning! We just need to step back every once in a while.
I will link my Capstone Video HERE when it is completed for your viewing pleasure! I hope it helps to explain why giving students the choice is so vital to their learning!
Practicum I
Practicum I
Goal: To create and teach a less structured lesson or activity that still engages students but will foster student choice and autonomy. As they are first graders they will still need some direction to begin, but by the end, they should be working independently and creatively to make something new.
Goal: To create and teach a less structured lesson or activity that still engages students but will foster student choice and autonomy. As they are first graders they will still need some direction to begin, but by the end, they should be working independently and creatively to make something new.
Larry and The Classroom Bunny Hunt!
Larry and The Classroom Bunny Hunt!
Meet Larry, or now known as Larry Cottontail Hopperson! This little bunny had a big job! He helped me to teach my Grade Ones about why rabbits change colour depending on the season. He is a very sweet little guy, with a new home and new name as one student won him as a prize for doing extraordinary work in the lesson you are about to see!
You can see Larry joining his owner at lunchtime in one of the pictures. I had even heard during Parent-Teacher interviews that Larry has become a part of the student's household.
Larry helped the students to explain why rabbits are white in the winter and brown in the summer! They even used words such as camouflage, predator and prey. The students could explain that white rabbits can hide in the snow while brown rabbits can hide in the mud.
In our lesson, we started as a whole group discussion and ended as individuals showing off their best work!
Take a look! (CLICK HERE FOR THE LESSON PLAN)
Whole Group Start!
Whole Group Start!
To start the students engaged in an interactive slideshow that encouraged the students to explain why brown rabbits hide better in mud and white rabbits in snow. The students examined pictures and discussed their ideas.
Next, the students became Bunny Detectives by searching for the camouflaged bunnies hidden in the slides. Using ten pictures students would come up the board and point out the hidden bunny. Five of the pictures were taken in summer while the other five were representing winter rabbits!
I challenge you to find the eight hidden bunnies in the image carousel below!
Individual Successes!
Individual Successes!
In the picture above, you can see my example!
Larry enlisted his Grade One friends to camouflage the paper bunnies from the big bad wolf, ironically me and my Mentor Teacher!
Each student would get one bunny and could do another if they were an early finisher, and was given 20 minutes and free reign of the classroom to hide their bunny. Their only rule was that they had to tape their bunny in plain sight. Otherwise, the students worked independently to colour, cut, and tape their rabbit camouflaged in the classroom.
If you look below I have included some students' examples! However, every single bunny was hidden appropriately and knew what successful camouflage should look like!
I know the students understood the content of the lesson because I received multiple requests from students to do the lesson again. The students requests even included the words like camouflage and hiding! One of the most impressive requests I received was when a student asked if we could hide artic foxes. We had briefly spoken about winter animals before as a class, and this student was able to connect the idea that artic foxes also change color and camouflage together! I was so proud!
Where Next...?
A goal for the future would be having students work individually on a project bigger than just colouring bunnies. It would have been so amazing to have taken out books on rabbits and encouraging these students to read and write about them before the lesson. In the older grades, the students could even use computers to research ideas to share. The students still had my guidance in the beginning, but I would love to instead give the students expectations and guidelines in order to create their own student-led masterpiece or project that they designed. For example, I could have the students look up animals that camouflage, draw their own animal template, and share their own ideas with the class. This is more individualized because the students will have done their own research instead of me handing it to them.
Year Two
Year Two
Goals, Growth, Strategy
Goals, Growth, Strategy
Given that this semester was completely online, it was challenging to teach a lesson. Instead of teaching a lesson to seven-year-old students, I taught my lesson to my peers. It was difficult teaching to a group of adults as if they were children but super informative. Having my peers give feedback and listen was highly critical to my learning. They targeted and discussed my differentiation, "I can..." statements, and how my expression was during reading. These are all super helpful points and will take into consideration if I ever get to teach my lesson.
Goal: My goal is to learn how to differentiate for ELL students or students with Autism effectively. In the past two years, I only had students that were below grade level. I am curious if it is much different and what I should consider.
Action Plan: I will be sure to discuss with my Mentor Teacher and members in my discussion group this semester who taught ELL students last year. I can get advice from my peers, professor, and mentor teacher. Practice and resources will make perfect.
"ELL students will be given small slips of paper that have a word and picture. The word scaly would have a picture of a lizard while words such as massive will have a picture of a heavy weight. This will allow ELL students to describe how the object looks and feels while using the universal language of pictures."
Meeting My Goals
Meeting My Goals
This semester we were unable to have any sort of field placement due to the pandemic. Instead, we focused on learning and attempting to make several lessons while receiving feedback from professors and students. One piece of feedback I took last semester was the idea of using pictures for students who may not use English as their first language. I decided to try and differentiate a lesson to fit an ELL student. By focusing solely on making differentiation for many types of learners, including ELL students, I was able to make a lesson with "[...] multiple paths to learning for individuals and groups of learners" (PL 8).
I look forward to next semester in which we will be placed in classrooms. I hope I get the opportunity to work with an ELL student and receive coaching from my mentor teacher. In the future, my goal would be to learn more strategies for teaching not only ELL students but also students who require differentiation. I think it would be interesting to find out how teachers differentiate projects such as novel studies or book groups. I wonder how teachers are able to plan all of these different types of students without becoming overwhelmed.
TQS #3: are varied, engaging and relevant to students
TQS 3B: Demonstrates knowledge of learner development and differences and uses this knowledge to plan learning experiences.
It is crucial that teachers create relevant and engaging lessons that are varied and differentiated to fit all kinds of learners. Using knowledge from past lessons, IPPs, and student developments, teachers should be able to plan future lessons and activities to fit each of these learners. Not all students learn the same, and thus we can not teach the same for everyone.
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