Smyth Reflection – Peyton Runciman

Practicum Three – Shelly Park Primary School

Describe:
In my first week of full responsibility, I had planned a series of reading lessons for the week. I had
used the same groupings that my Associate Teacher had used for the week before as certain groups
had not finished their reading tasks, so they needed to finish these before moving on. I went to the
reading room to choose texts for each group to read. For one group I chose a non-fiction text as
they had just finished reading a fiction text and for the other two groups, I chose fiction texts as
they had just completed reading non-fiction texts. I took the texts home over the weekend to do
my reading lesson planning for these groups based on the texts I had chosen. I planned out the
various tasks each group needed to do; however, I did not plan any other reading tasks that students
could do if they finished their work early. I did not prepare for some students to work through the
tasks within one day, I assumed that they would take the full week to work on them. After the
second day, towards the end of the literacy block, I had a few students approach me asking what
they should do now that they had finished their tasks. I marked their reading tasks that they had
finished and made up a few extra questions that they could answer until the end of the literacy
lesson. That night, I had to plan extra tasks for the students, but I struggled with linking it effectively
to their learning intentions.

Inform:
In the moment when I had students coming to me needing extra tasks and students that said, “What
do I do now?”, I felt very flustered as I thought I had planned the reading session with enough work
for the students. The reading tasks were enough for some students and it did take them to week to
complete, but for some reason, I did not think that there would be some students in the group that
had more student self-management than others and were able to complete their work to a high
standard and within a short amount of time. When I gave these students more work to do, I think
that they felt like the work wasn’t really worth anything or meant anything as they were able to see
that I was flustered and just coming up with extra work for them on the spot. This then took away
the strong student self-management these students had as they felt like the work was not
important, and this then took away the learning for them. I felt a little embarrassed that I had not
planned enough work, or took into account that some students have more student self-
management than others, I also felt awful that I had just lumped these students in with those that
had low student self-management just because the majority of that group did have low student
agency.

Confront:
The key issue related to this situation is that some students are early finishers and extra task for
these early finishers was not provided and therefore the students could have become disruptive to
others that were still working on their tasks. Roth (2015) states that the teacher needs to figure out
why those students are finishing their tasks early. The teacher needs to find out whether they are
finishing because they are rushing through the tasks, are they finishing early because the other
students are struggling with the concepts, are they finishing early because the work was too easy
for them, are they rushing and there are lots of mistakes? Roth (2015) also states that if those early
finishers have finished their work with accuracy and to a high standard, which in my case the
students had, the teacher needs to have a plan for extra learning experiences, but to also ensure
that the students understand the expectations for behaviour with the early finishers tasks.
However, the tasks cannot just be anything just to keep the early finishers busy while the others
finish their work, the tasks should still match the content and be challenging enough for the
students to enable them to reinforce and/or extend their learning.
 My own personal learning from this text is that as a teacher, I need to always be prepared for
students that may finish their work early and the tasks that I set for the early finishers need to be
matched effectively to the students to ensure the work is not meaningless. I have also realised that
it is highly important to figure out why the students are finishing early and to ensure that they are
not just rushing through the set tasks and making mistakes. I believe a lot of it is about knowing
your students and knowing who those students are that have high self-management and can
complete their work to a high standard in a short amount of time. This then will enable the teacher
to effectively plan for those students, so they do not become disruptive to the others and to ensure
that the students are still able to engage in valuable learning experiences.

Reconstruct:
Based on my new understandings, in a similar situation in the future, I will:
- before the situation arises, I will be recognising those students that do finish their work
early and to a high standard. I can do this by keeping a record of students and when they
complete their work and whether the work is completed to a high standard, or do they
need to be supported to slow down and check for mistakes instead of rushing.
- I will also with these observations, plan effectively for those students with valuable tasks
that will still relate to the content that they are learning and ensure that those tasks are
challenging and will extend/reinforce their learning.

Reference

Roth, J. T. (2015). Classroom management for successful instruction. Huntington Beach, CA:
Shell Educational Publishing.