Final Reflection

This practicum experience has been very valuable to me for several reasons.  The most important reason is that I got to observe in a class that used thinking maps and cognitive discussion for everything.  I really appreciated seeing this in action and it has affected the way that I think about and write lesson plans.  Over the summer we played around with writing metacognitive lessons in our assessment course, and I have included some of those components in lessons that I have written since, but this classroom showed me how to used them throughout instruction, not just at the beginning to introduce vocabulary or a new topic.  I feel like this is very valuable because student learn best when they are engaged in thinking and talking.  This type of lesson helps them generalize the knowledge that they are learning by using their child-centered language to communicate about it instead of the more teacher or adult oriented language that the instructor may use. 

Another reason that this practicum has been valuable is by giving me the opportunity to teach 4 lessons and play around with different evaluation methods.  I did two lessons that had oral assessment methods and the other two had written assessments.  It could just be me, but I feel like I taught more effectively or that the students got the point of a lesson when I incorporated writing.  Maybe I am not good at verbal assessment yet though and I need to rethink the way that I did the assessments.  One of the oral assessments was through a game and the other was by doing a KWL and getting feedback from the students about what they learned, I did not like the outcome of either.  If I were to do these assessments again, I would have used writing, or had the students create their own thinking map instead of doing a general KWL with the class. 

During my child study, I would have liked to have done a recording of my study subject reading a story and then done a running record with him as opposed to a concepts of print assessment.  I thought that I interacted with him very well.  I wanted to make him feel comfortable about the study, so I kind of let him guide it by picking out his own books and giving him a lot of information about what we were doing.  I let him know that he could ask me anything he wanted to about what we were doing.  I wish that I would have had the chance to explore more about the AR reading system that they use in the classroom.

My mentor teacher was very helpful and had a very respectful relationship with her students.  I loved the idea of having a class store once a month and letting the students buy something with the bucks that they earned for doing good work and displaying good behavior.  I thought this was probably one of the most effective classroom management techniques that she had and it taught the students about aspects of economy and made it fun for them.  I learned a great multiplication game that used skip counting called the magic circle, that I shared with my classmates at NAU.  Another one of her techniques that I think I will use is the magic cush ball that she throws around the room during group discussion that mimics a talking stick. 

Overall this experience has been very positive.  I can see how I have grown as a teacher candidate from the Spring semester.  I feel more confident that I can create meaningful, engaging curriculum for the grades at the older end of the early childhood spectrum.  I look forward to deepening my practice next Spring.