Practicum Reflection #3 (Thursday, October 22, 2015)

Alan Lam
SA: Dameon Lorensen
FA : David Brook

Day 3 of my Thursday Practicum visits. In our brief half-hour meeting, you answered all the questions
that I had in my previous practicum that I struggled with before I even had a chance to ask them. These
are:

1) What are your expectations for me during this practicum?

2) What happens if I feel like I taught a lesson poorly?
3) What steps should I take to be successful?

My previous practicum Faculty Advisor did make his expectations fairly clear. He said many similar
things, where the focus was not what was being taught but the depth of it. Instead of Prescribed
Learning Outcomes, the focus should be the Big Ideas. It is as was taught in our LLED 430 class with
Roxanne Madryga, that even as adults we need to learn how to listen, even after years of education
under our belts. Dameon said this in class during a lesson as well and to paraphrase him,

‘When we are listening to someone, often times we are thinking about what we are going to say next, to
the point that we forget to finish listening. Students do this, and even adults will do this.’

Like the Big Ideas, I believe in so much that communication is key to being successful in any situation,
whether it be academic, in a workplace or simply in forming positive relationships with others. The way
that Dameon projects such a confident tone and creates such a respectful environment is what I can
only hope to achieve someday. It is definitely what I want my classroom to look like.

Like any good teacher, I want to be several steps ahead of a student to be able to properly guide them
towards success. During my tutoring lessons outside of the practicum, I feel that I am taking steps in
identifying where I want to teach a student to, the steps in which the student can progress through, and
I feel more and more confident as I can visualize and accurately predict a student’s success.