Week 1

9/2/2020 - 12/9/2020

This semester, as part of our development as trainee teachers, we were required to come up with three goals that we want to achieve, or come close to achieving during this semester’s teaching practice. My three goals include planning for challenging activities for the high achievers in the classroom, implementing transition techniques between activities, and controlling students’ noise levels in the classroom. These goals all require that I study student’s behavior in order to anticipate their reactions to the strategies that I will be using. For the past week, I have been observing students during the entirety of the lessons that were taught by my MST (Mentoring School Teacher), and checking for things like what noise levels are occurring during various activity types (group work, individual, etc..), and what activities students partake in. What I noticed was that students did not seem to have strict rules on when talking was allowed, and when it was prohibited, therefore I need to begin my strategy of introducing appropriate voice levels and examining student’s responsiveness. Also, most of the students in the class were working on activities in their workbooks so it was difficult to tell whether they were working in the appropriate level of challenge, or whether it was not suitable for their strengths. During the following weeks, I plan on getting to know the high achievers better and introducing activities that will stretch their abilities.