During Community Service Learning and the three-week Practicum period, I gained a lot

of firsthand experience of what it means to be a teacher in and outside of the classroom. Not

only was I exposed to the duties of teaching in the classroom, but I also learned the ropes of

planning and I spent many hours after school planning with my associate teacher and then

spending my own time at home preparing materials for the next school day. I was also exposed

to the different roles that teachers play within the school such as preforming yard duties and

having to do things such as kitchen cleaning. This three-week period was eye opening for me

and has helped me affirm that I am going into the right profession for me. I feel that I have

grown as a teacher and a student during this practicum because I learned so much from my

associate teacher, but I was also given the reigns and was able to do the teaching which was

another great learning experience. I am looking forward to growing even more in my learning

and becoming a long-life learner.

During my practicum, I tried to keep the OCT standards of practice in the back of my

mind, I wanted to make sure that when being a teacher and interacting with the students that I

followed these standards. During my placement, I feel that I have done some growth in all five

of the OCT standards, but I have experienced the most growth in commitment to students and

student learning and ongoing professional learning. In terms of commitment to students and

student learning, I have learned how important it is to get to know your students and learn

things about them that extend beyond the classroom. My AT always told me to make it my goal

to learn something about each student so that I could connect with them on a deeper level. I

have found that the students are much more open to learning when they feel that the person

standing in front of them cares about their wellbeing. One particular example of a way that I
tried to implement this standard in the classroom was having a sharing circle every Monday

morning and Friday afternoon, as a way to give the students a voice and let them share details

about their life (that is, if they wanted to share, they were given the chance to pass). I found

that this was a great way to connect with the students because it gave each of the students an

opportunity to share something fun that they did on the weekend and then later I would have

small one-on-one conversations with the students where I could learn more about that fun

thing they did. I found that this was very helpful in creating those important relationships with

the students. Another way that I have grown in this standard is when teaching students who

have an IEP. I made it my goal to try and learn some of the basic accommodations that each of

these students were given so that when I was working with them, I would be able to give them

the best chance at succeeding and progressing their learning. I did not think it was fair for me to

come in unaware of their accommodations and expect each student to learn the same way so it

was very important to me to help each student reach their full potential no matter what that

might be.

Another standard that I have grown in during my CSL and practicum placements is

ongoing professional learning. As this is the beginning of my career, this is something that is

very prevalent, and I spend a lot of my time learning during my placement. I learned how to

properly research information for my lessons, and I was also tasked by my AT to do research

where she would tell me about a topic and asked me to research it and then have a talk with

her about it the next day. Some of these things were the Daily 5, Sharing Circles, Implementing

Literacy Centres, teaching visualization and questioning. I found that there are so many

resources on the internet to help with teaching, but you have to be very particular about what
you use and how you use it. I have attended workshops during my placements with the Ottawa

Catholic School Board about how to effectively teach children how to read and I have learned

some valuable information in these workshops that I will apply to my teaching. I also learned

about how valuable professional learning is in this career. Teaching is an ever-evolving

profession and there are always new ways that we can help children learn to the best of their

ability. Therefore, I have learned that keeping up with the current ways of teaching and

continually learning new things will help me be the best teacher that I can be.

I have also had some growth in the expansion of the communities that I belong to, not

only during practicum but also in the courses that I have taken. The courses that I was enrolled

in before practicum helped me build essential skills and gave me the knowledge that I will need

to be a successful educator. Not only have a learned a great deal from my professors and the

tasks that they assigned but I also learned a lot from my cohort community by hearing about all

their different experiences. Some of the biggest learning experiences for me during the months

that I was at the University came from going out into the community. For example, in my

courses I had the opportunity on two occasions to go into two Ottawa elementary schools and

run a math and science workshop with a specific grade level and I also had the opportunity to

go to an Ottawa school and see a loose parts playground in action. These were valuable

learning experiences where I was able to go out into the school community and learn firsthand

from teachers and students in action and test my own skills. These experiences helped me

prepare for practicum and realize the type of teacher I wanted and needed to be so that I can

help the students learn to the best of their ability.

 As much as I loved practicum and being in the classroom, I found it very beneficial for

my learning to be enrolled in courses. I have gained so much knowledge just from the classes

alone because I now know so much more about teaching and how to be an effective teacher.

Some of the specific topics that I helped me with my growth was learning about how to be an

effective planner such as how to make lesson, unit and daily plans. This was something that I

had no prior knowledge about, and I would have been lost during practicum without being

taught how to do these plans. I also learned a lot about assessment in my courses such as the

different types of assessment (as, of and for). This helped me greatly in practicum because

otherwise I would not have known how to properly assess student learning. It also helped me

come up with different ways to assess students so that I can ensure that I am not only assessing

students in one way (i.e. pencil and paper tasks). Another piece of information that I have

learned in my courses that helped me become a better educator comes from the health and

physical education class that I was in. I think health and physical education is one of those

subjects that many teachers fear because it is hard to come up with games/sports activities

to do on a daily basis which can be a daily struggle for many teachers. Taking this course and

having a great professor helped me learn how to properly run a gym class and I gained some

very helpful tips to make sure that a gym class runs smoothly. This became very

important in practicum because for the whole month of December, my AT had me plan and run

every gym class. Therefore, the community of people that I have met and the information that I

have learned during the program so far has had a large influence on my growth as a teacher.

In terms of Timperley’s “adaptive expert” model of teaching, I am starting to

understand the learning process that I currently going through and what it means to truly be
an adaptive expert. I came into this program as a novice, someone who did not have much

knowledge about teaching but ready to learn and develop into an expert. I had previous

experience working with children and volunteering in classrooms, but I was never exposed to

the teaching side of things as I was more in a caregiver role. I am now in the stage where I

am learning and on the pathway to becoming an adaptive expert. I feel this way because not

only have I had grown in my teaching skills, but this program has helped me learn how to

create relationships with specific students and how to teach to each and every type of

student. I know that with more learning, practice, and experience I can become one of

Timperley’s adaptive experts because I understand that teaching is not only about relying

information to students and then assessing how well they can reproduce or memorise a

concept but teaching is also about relationships with students. I have learned how to not

create assumptions about students and to not let these assumptions effect my teaching and

know when they may be getting in the way and when to let them go. I know that every

student is unique and that there are students in every class who may need to be taught a

concept differently than others and it is very important as a teacher that I do everything

possible to make sure that I am teaching to students in a way that makes the most sense to

that particular student. This is something that I have seen and learned first-hand in my

placement. For example, I know a student who needs help with writing and reading so

whenever she had to do a task where she had to write something, I would scribe what she

wanted to say on a whiteboard and then she would copy it because this was one of her IEP

accommodations. This was one of the biggest lessons that I have learned because teaching is

not a one size fits all approach, each student has their own strengths and weaknesses and a
teacher needs to be aware of that for every student and play to their strengths. Therefore, I

am definitely not an adaptive expert yet but I am on the road to becoming one and I am

proud of the growth that I have had so far in reaching this.