We had to write three reflection from EDPR 3100, and they were all a different topic each time we were tasked with looking at different thing each week and trying to learn as much as we could about those particular pieces of teaching. In my first reflection I wrote about a lockdown drill that occurred on the second day that we were there. This was an excellent learning experience because they happen throughout the year and it is important as a teacher to have expectations of what it is supposed to look like and how students are to conduct themselves. It was very well handled at the school we were at and the music teacher was strict about her expectations but handled it in a way that didn’t scare the students but made it clear that this drill needed to be taken seriously.
The next reflection I wrote focused on something that wasn’t education or curriculum focused, I talked about one of the students in the classroom I was in, and how he had just been diagnosed with type one diabetes. When he returned to school it was very interesting to see how his whole classroom came around him and even other teachers and students from different classroom had come around to support him. This was very cool to experience because sometimes we can forget that relationships and supports for students are just as important as getting through the curriculum.
The last reflection I wrote for EDPR 3100 was about noise and classroom management. Something I learned in this practicum was that noise does not always mean that students are working. Sometimes the noise means they are asking questions or working together to understand something. I often think of noise as being off topic but that might be because I am a quiet person and student, and noise distracts me. But noise isn’t always a bad thing, it needs to be monitored and maintained at an appropriate level, but it can be beneficial to students and that was a learning curve for me.