Teacher Extraordinaire - Portfolio of a Teacher and Lifelong Learner

In my first practicum, I created a book based on  Don't Need Friends by Carolyn Crimi. Since it was the first I'd ever created, I feel I learned a lot from it. Creating a unit involves flexibility, time management, organization and an ability to interpret what your students need to be successful. While going through the unit, I found that I frequently had to adjust to students and different situations arising. Since one of my peers was doing a unit based on the same book, we shared a lot of ideas. Our approach sometimes overlapped, however we designed our lessons with our teaching styles, and students in mind. In remaining responsive to students, I was best able meet their needs and teach to those.

"Friendship is" was the first of two lessons discussing the meaning of friendship. It is a lesson that was designed for the the unit Don't Need Friends, as it fits into the book's overall theme. During the lesson, children had the opportunity to think about what friendship meant to them, after a friendship themed read aloud. It was apparent during the think-pair-share that students were not thinking exactly along the same vein as me, and that it was okay. Despite the fact that some of their answers did not appear to answer the question I had posed, they had obviously understood the themes and were interpreting the book in their own way. This lesson shows Commitment to Students and Student Learning since it students were eager to learn. It also reinforced the meaning of certain peer relationships, and connected student experiences to their day to day life.

This portfolio entry is related to the I hate English read aloud, also outlined on this portfolio. It also makes mention of the modifications made for one ELL student. It explores a bullying situation and potential perspectives, both from the ELLs (English Language Learners) and other students involved. The names and place names have been changed, to protect the people involved. Safety of a learner in the environment is paramount, and this paper explores the situation and attempts that were made to alleviate it.

One of the Grade 5 Social Studies Curriculum Ancient Civilizations strand objectives is that students compare and respond to myths and legends from two or more early civilizations. To achieve this end, the class was separated into six different groups for paper theatre. Six creation myths were chosen from The Big Myth, including creation myths from Ancient China, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Babylon, Aztec and Maya. Given that students had only done two introductory classes on Ancient Civilizations, and many were not knowledgeable about the individual civilizations, I also included short descriptions of them. Myths were paired, if they contained three or more similar elements/themes/events/characters. The day the activity was launched, students were given instructions, put into groups and given an envelope containing their myth, and a props/backdrop/characters graphic organizer. Before students could receive their art kit, they had to read through the myth and fill in the g

After completing my practicum in November, I was given the opportunity to complete my first portfolio entry in class. This entry reflects my learnings from my grade one practicum. "The included artifact is one of the assessment methods that was used for the integrated unit based on the book Don't Need Friends. Students engaged in several role play activities, with an ongoing formative assessment. They did one dress rehearsal and then were given feedback, before a final performance. Final marks were based on this rubric and accompanying evaluation/comments sheet. This artifact constitutes Professional Knowledge , as it was developed after reading Growing Success with several models for assessment in mind. With regards to Professional Practice , this was the final assessment piece for the drama unit. It was developed with the curriculum in mind. Students were also told the success criteria for the performances, and "good audience member/good performer" anchor charts

From a young age, children must learn how to ask questions, in order to be inquisitive learners. As a part of the unit for Don't Need Friends by Carolyn Crimi, I taught a posing questions class to my grade one students. By using the strategy of "teacher in role" (and being enthusiastic while acting in the role), students responded curiously, wanting to ask many different questions. For students who struggled with arriving at a question on their own, they could use the questions on the brainstorm to guide them. Students asked several questions that were not originally on the brainstormed questions list, curious about the character 'Dog'. Several children wanted to tell 'Dog' what happens in the story, and had to be reminded that they were interacting with Dog before he became friends with Rat. Students respond to the power of enthusiasm, and ideally want to have fun and learn. As a result, this artifact adheres to the objective of Commitment to Students a

At my second practicum, I taught several lessons on fractions and decimals, including the connection between them. At the same time, I was reviewing world geography with the students, for the Social Studies Ancient Civilizations unit. As a result, I created a Math/Literacy Lesson based on the book If the World Were a Village by David Smith. The book asks the readers to suppose that the entire world is contained in a village of 100 people. The resulting lesson had students explore language, math, geography and social justice. Several of the read aloud questions were taken from a lesson plan on the website  The Society for Safe & Caring Schools & Communities . The lesson itself contains several steps/materials. It is designed to be implemented over long morning or afternoon block. When I completed this lesson, I found that the consolidation needed to be completed the following day. In order for students to be mindful and productive participators in the conversation, I gave them

One psychology class this year, involved learning about the Habits of Mind, which is “having a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems, the answers to which are not immediately known." I felt that teaching "Habits of Mind" when possible, would help in creating critical global minded citizens for the future. Below the cut, is a psychology reflection journal concerning this topic.  This reflection journal can be classified as Professional Practice  since the needs of individual students in the present day world/society are explored, as well as the feasibility of directly teaching these strategies to students. Sometimes students need to be explicitly led, in order to better develop desirable thinking skills which will aid them in learning and dealing with crises, both their everyday and academic life. 

First semester, I completed a kindergarten inquiry project. I was curious about the way that children communicated while playing with the Big Blocks, as at that centre they were both building structures and role playing. My choice of this particular topic, in large part reflects on my belief that play is necessary for young children to learn. This inquiry project/observation correlates to the OCT's Standard of Professional Practice as it involved research, communication and observation, and will  inform my future teaching practices. Focus statement : The way children play with Big Blocks is considerably different from the way they play with smaller sized blocks. The Big Blocks are located near the role playing centres, and are used in the creation of settings/props. Students use these centres to facilitate role play. While watching the children play, I noticed how the children were compromising and creating role play settings collaboratively. Question : The kindergarten cu

At my Grade 1 practicum, I taught several lessons that were a part of a drama, art and language unit for the book Don't Need Friends by Carolyn Crimi. This book took place in a junk yard, so at the beginning of the unit I asked students to start collecting their garbage wrappers. As the culminating task was to perform a puppet show, three art lessons took place over the course of my practicum. Students made paper bag puppets, while exploring different textures. Next they drew their reactions to garbage and art made out of garbage. Those reactions were then pasted onto a three sided piece of cardboard, which they then got to make into their personal garbage dumps. The garbage dumps were used as their stages (or what they hid behind) for their puppet show. The lesson I am going to discuss, is the one that surprised me the most. During the art lesson where students drew their reaction to garbage dumps and garbage art, students surprised me with their knowledge about the environment,

During my lovely year at teacher's college, I took a fantastic math workshop every Wednesday for twelve weeks. Below is the resulting certificate!  This workshop involved a lot of hands on strategies for teaching math and solving math problems. It enabled us students to explore different methods of problem solving, both individually and among small groups. Through exploring different math problems and discussing them, I was better able to understand multiple mathematical problem solving perspectives and conceptualize how to respond to student difficulties/alternative ways of thinking. As this workshop was optional (yet also amazing)!

At my second practicum school, every Wednesday at lunchtime certain Grade 5 female students meet for Girls Club. I was involved in this club, for the duration of my practicum. The Girls Club often contains fun/community building activities, however sometimes more serious issues are addressed. Serious issues are usually addressed in a way that is not too heavy, given that the club is seen primarily as a place to go, socialize and engage in fun and/or interesting activities and games. The third week I was attending the club, I did an activity with them called  Jelly Beans Feed the World , found on a Girl Guides Activities website, and originally from the Red Cross. To quote the activity: " Goals: To show that there is enough food for everyone but food is not distributed evenly. To help girls understand how it feel not have enough food. Directions: Each girl picks a slip of paper from a can. Eighty per cent will say "poor" and twenty per cent will say "r

There was an issue with the bullying of ELLs (English Language Learners) in my grade 5 practicum classroom. While most of my students spoke languages other than English, twenty five of the twenty seven were second generation. If they had ever been English Language Learners, by grade 5 all of the second generation students were fluent. As a result of the bullying issue, a community circle was held while the ELL were in ESL class one morning, so they would not feel put on the spot. Later that week, this read aloud was completed. Many questions from this read aloud were originally written by a peer, who designed this lesson for a grade two or three class. While reading picture books may seem 'childish', I have found that many fifth graders enjoy them, if they age appropriate and used with a purpose in mind. Read Aloud – I Hate English Social Justice/Equity This book tackles the issue of alienation as a result of being unable to speak English. This book was chosen for

For my March 2012 practicum, I was in a grade 5 classroom, at a school in North York. A large portion of my practicum was spent teaching a Social Studies, Ancient Civilizations inquiry unit. The unit began with a read aloud, followed by a class on defining what an ancient civilization is. We then completed toy theatre (with a compare and contrast). Mapping lessons and research methods lessons followed, before finally "selling" the students different civilizations they could study. This led to a research paper and their culminating task. Essentially, I trekked to two different public libraries and tried to determine which civilizations contained enough resources for students to be able to effectively research in class (as computer time was limited). The civilizations they could choose from included: Inca, Maya, Aztec, Mesopotamian, Ancient India/Indus Valley, Ancient China, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt. When 'selling' the civilizations, I pitched th