Gillian Shields
P LAN Reflection My PLAN program was done at the Red Deer College through the Move Your Mood program. Instead of Elementary school children, I had the privilege to work with Junior High School students. Some of these students were faced with behavioral problems, this definitely made it a challenge to instruct. Thanks to the great advice from my instructor Rob Waddell, my teaching partner Dru and I were able to gain an invaluable experience. Dru and I had a great advantage because we also had some KNSS students assist us with our lessons.
Most of our lesson plan’s were designed from the Move Your Mood booklet. The games we mostly played were either tag games, dodgeball games, or drills. All of these games were very effective in getting the kids active, especially the tag games. One thing I learned the hard way, is you can never have a lesson plan that is too detailed. As we went on in the Move your Mood program, we definitely made sure we new the games better, but at times we still could have shortened and simplified our instructions. We also could have had more back-up games. The day where I taught the kids without Dru was really tricky. It became a challenge when the students did not like the games I had chosen for them to play. I would make sure that as a teacher, to never run out of games and activities in case this happens. Generally, it was a blast to learn and teach these games, I will certainly use them down the road.
Gillian Shields
Throughout my PLAN placement I learned many useful things. What really helped was Rob’s advice after each class. The advice allowed me to improve as each lesson came. I think that it was good that by the end of my experience, I could provide good and clear instructions, figure out how to get the instructions across, and keep a good relationship with the students. I feel that for the challenging group that we had, we did a good job at keeping them active, and were not afraid to move onto a new activity if things got dull. I would like to improve on my ability to improvise, especially if the students are dissatisfied with the activity. I also think I would like to improve on being able to keep the students ears and eyes on me always. I think that the student could sometimes see when I was not confident, and lead them to not always take me seriously. I also feel that I could improve on being more confident with my judgement. I think I was asking everyone else’s opinion on what to do next, where I should have just decided and assessed that myself. That is definitely the one thing I want to improve on the most, to trust that I can make those kinds of decisions. I think that this experience has opened up my eyes, but also has convinced me that teaching is what I want to do.
The Move Your Mood group was an unpredictable group. Some days we had almost everyone active, but there were still a few that would give up, or refuse to participate. It always depended oh how we delivered the activity, what activity it was, and the boundaries we gave for the activity. This group’s attention was very difficult to attain. We had to bring them to the middle and sit them down every time to get their attention. This was the case even when we were doing progressions. Some of the students were also very uncooperative with rules, and would sometimes talk back to us. We had to remain professional and just try to get the students into the activity, as fast as possible. I think we had a great rapport with them, especially since we got
Gillian Shields
involved in the activities with them. Sometimes it seemed that the kids were quite excited that I was doing the activity with them. I also shared a few laughs with some of them one on one between activities, and I always tried to encourage the kids to be active in a positive manner. When I saw some of these kids warm up to me with excitement, I really felt that I had the power to bring out the good in any student. If this particular group had things done right teaching wise, all the time, I think it would be extremely easy to see a change in their attitudes.
Even though I want to become an Elementary school teacher, I was really excited to work with these Junior High students. They taught me so much about the essentials of teaching, and reminded me why I love teaching as well. In ways they have showed me how worse it can get, but how great it can get, and how rewarding too. That is what teaching is all about.