THIRD YEAR PROFESSIONAL SEMINAR
Fall 2023
PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES
This third field experience has allowed me to develop my professional competencies and, thus, improve my practice. I will specifically showcase the following competencies:
1 - Act as a cultural facilitator when carrying out duties.
3 - Plan teaching and learning situations.
4 - Implement teaching and learning situations.
6 - Manage how the class operates.
15 - Steps towards Reconciliation
COMPETENCY 1
Act as a cultural facilitator when carrying out duties
It would be hard for me to showcase cultural classroom discussions that we have had in my classroom over the past months. So, here are some activities that I did with students to explore Quebec's culture as well as the Mexican culture. It was fun to explore these with students and allow for everyone to compare to their own culture and their costumes, at home.
LES LÉGENDES DU QUÉBEC
French
I designed for my students reading activities about legends from Quebec. I took the stories from the book "Légendes du Québec, Un héritage culturel" by Jean-Claude Dupont and adapted them to meet my students' grade 4 level. I had a very multicultural classroom and so, this allowed us to discuss the legends and to learn more about our province altogether.
Link to texts and activities:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HkhZSYC-O9LL6OqBDbAzMHORVQQk3WoU?usp=drive_link
EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS
Visual arts
I did this activity with my students right after Halloween. My goal with this activity was to explore Mexican culture by comparing our Halloween to El día de los muertos. I introduced students to "las Calaveras" and presented pictures of "las ofrendas". This was a great opportunity for students to open themselves to the world around them. We used pointillism and bright colours to paint our own "calaveras".
Link for the presentation about El día de los muertos:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HkhZSYC-O9LL6OqBDbAzMHORVQQk3WoU?usp=drive_link
COMPETENCY 3
Plan teaching and learning situations
I planned a variety of teaching and learning situations throughout my Third Field Experience. I chose to showcase two lessons that were particularly important to me and which showcase my growth as a student-teacher. These lessons are well aligned with the QEP and the Progression of Learning for Grade 4 elementary.
LÉO, LE LUTIN COURAGEUX
French
I chose to showcase this activity because it demonstrates my ability to differentiate in my planning and preparation phase.
This activity was meant to work on the narrative structure with the students. I had prepared one same text, which I have read to the students and with them, but there were two different answer documents. Students had to identify the different parts of the text and fill in the template. Students with challenges were offered a template which had clues to help them in the completion of their activity.
Link to activity plan, and documents:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Kz4n5PLyVgxznTXEOUEAM9DWQl9btsP3?usp=drive_link
BINGO MATHÉMATIQUE
Mathematics
I chose to showcase this activity because it demonstrates my ability to use gamification in my planning and teaching.
This activity was meant to review missing terms in mathematics. Students learned strategies to help them find a missing term and this activity was an opportunity for them to practice. I prepared a bingo game for the students. I had prepared both harder and easier equations to challenge my expert students and to reach my novice students.
Link to activity plan and documents:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14LITueBaSSwen1L_Gp8JyKcvGnNMmAY6?usp=drive_link
COMPETENCY 4
Implement teaching and learning situations
I implemented a variety of activities in my classroom. I decided to showcase two specific activities; one was done in teams without the use of technology and the other was done individually with the use of technology. These two have allowed me to learn how to properly implement teaching and learning situations in the classroom.
LE ROI
French
The goal of this activity was for students to discover the differences between physical description and personality description. I read a story to the students and, in teams, they had to classify the words. This activity was an introduction to the theme of adjectives and was student-centred as they were actively discovering the new notions.
Link to access documents:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13bXZd3h_XQ6QpujS7mI2p8MPdvLGLeiC?usp=sharing
LES QUADRILATÈRES
Mathematics
The goal of this activity was for students to practice their skills at differentiating shapes. Students had learned about the properties of the different shapes. I had prepared a practice quiz on the Quizizz platform. Students all had an iPad and were invited to complete association, multiple-choice, and drawing questions at their pace.
Link to access documents:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13bXZd3h_XQ6QpujS7mI2p8MPdvLGLeiC?usp=sharing
COMPETENCY 6
Manage how the class operates
My classroom management was mostly bonding with my students with their interests and using positive reinforcement with them. I would congratulate them on their good behaviour or their good initiatives to encourage other students to reproduce the good behaviour. Here are three additional things that helped me manage how my class operates.
Link to pictures:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1x55tBuiw0XI4h8GnPZsaBwhjWsEhLVn8?usp=sharing
CLASSROOM MONEY
The classroom money helps me reinforce good behaviours. When students ask a good question, when they take positive initiatives, or when they demonstrate effort in their work; I pay them with classroom money to encourage them to pursue in this positive direction. With the classroom money, students can buy themselves privileges. These privileges are chosen by the students, with the students, as a group and act as motivation for students. These privileges must be relevant and interesting to them to ensure the constant motivation.
COMMUNITY RULES
I decided to try to have classroom rules and have students participate in the choice and implementation of these rules based on the values that we identified to be important as a classroom community. I also made my students sign the poster of rules as their engagement to respect the rules. This made the classroom interventions and behavior management easier because I would tell them to take a look at the rules they chose and reflect on whether their current behavior is promoting a good classroom environment or not.
BRAIN BREAK GAME
My students were very passionate about the brain break game: La balle silencieuse. The goal of this game was to throw the ball across the classroom silently. When a student talks or drops the ball, they are eliminated and must sit at their chair. My students loved this game and so, I used it as motivation for them to work. When they worked hard and well, I would give them a two minutes game of Balle Silencieuse.
COMPETENCY 15
Steps to Reconciliation
During my Field Experience, I have talked to my students about the Code Talkers during the World Wars, but here are some other activities I wish to integrate in my future classroom.
There are so many things that I haven't been able to do in this Third Field Experience that I will do in my future classroom.
Reconciliation is more than speaking about Indigenous people on September 30th. Reconciliation is speaking about Indigenous people, their history, and their present conditions.
USE INDIGENOUS LITERATURE
BLANKET EXERCISE
HAVE A GUEST SPEAKER
The culture of people is often well illustrated through stories and literature. Using indigenous literature in the classroom serves as a great tool for all subjects, but is also a great introduction for difficult and essential conversations that we must have with our students.
The blanket exercise is one that I think should be done with all our classes. It allows for everyone to revisit the history of mistreatment that our Canadian Indigenous peoples have endured. Is is visual and spatial because everyone participates in the activity and "lives" the events at a smaller scale.
I believe that it is always important to have Indigenous representatives come into our classrooms and talk about their culture or history. With elementary groups, guest speakers can be authors or people who come and present some of the Indigenous traditions. The goal is for children to familiarize with Indigenous cultures and discover them in the most respectful manner.
ARTIFACTS
MY GROWTH
My first lesson vs my last
FIRST LESSON
French
This first lesson I taught was rather unofficial. It was an opportunity for me to get in front of the class and start taking on some responsibilities. I was teaching "le nom" to my grade 4 students and I used their ZigZag book to help.
LAST LESSON
French
For this last lesson, I taught an introductory lesson about "le sujet et le prédicat dans la phrase de base". This lesson was planned and prepared entirely by myself and I created my own materials. I used "la grammaire 3D" which is a strategy to make information more visual for students. It allows them to manipulate the plates and understand better the components of a basic sentence.
Documents for my last lesson:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KiI2JWrA7XsNc8Jr7Z1nEKz4pvTnnkGl?usp=sharing
USE OF MICROSCOPE OR CAMERA
Science
I chose to showcase this tool because it has really impressed me. I observed my cooperating teacher use a microscope which was connected to the smart board. Thus, students could make observations while staying at their desk. The use of this tool generated great conversations and I see myself using it in my future classroom to teach sciences.
USING BODILY-KINAESTHETIC TO LEARN VOCABULARY
Social Studies
In this Field Experience, I learned to use my body to represent some vocabulary words. Teaching in students' second language poses a challenge for many of them when it comes to remembering specific vocabulary words; therefore, using their body to remember these difficult words has helped us all throughout our weeks together.
CHANGES IN MY DEVELOPMENT
Between my Second and Third field experiences