Standard, a complex term in the world of teaching, swarmed my mind like a greedy bunch of consumers buying Teaching in practicum 390 for me is an experience that is unparalleled: a magical experience of both learning and relationship-building, in such a short span of time. The learning curve sky-rocketed into a whole new world of thinking that I have never encountered before because of, aside from already going through the system as a student, the educator perspective. With this different perspective, came the responsibility and standard that we, as educators, set for ourselves in order to develop a thorough education for the general public. In particular, standard 1: “Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interest”. I believe that all of my cohort has placed an emphasis on this standard, specifically the aspect of care and best interest for the students that were being taught. By having students in my class that were looking for intellectual development, I, as an educator, facilitated their needs with text, Animal Farm by George Orwell, with their interests at the forefront of my first teaching experience. Adapting to a wide variety and diverse range of student abilities, I was able to see creativity in the classroom come to fruition through several different projects: a black out poem, notebook boxes, and propaganda posters.

With students highly engaged, their needs were met by taking an ADST approach to creating and making in the classroom. The students, as well as the educator, were given the time and space to “play”, with a four-point rubric that was clear, and concise to lead them in a direction that allowed them to create, analyze, and demonstrate their learning of the novel.

Another aspect of the professional standards that I found particularly relevant in my 390 practicum experience, along with many other areas I felt were necessary that contributed to the profession, was standard 3: “Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development”. Admittedly, not everything went to plan and learning didn’t always occur as more than iterating type of situation. However, there also came those situations of joy, learning, and growth and they were as rich as possible because of those iterating moments. As an educator, I found that learning and growth happened in many different ways. One of the best ways to get students out of their comfort zones, in this class, was to mix and match their groups and partner work. The group was very interested in learning, so I was able to refer to the FPPL in a way that they wanted to recognize and understand some of the deeper issues–such as voice, opinion, and speech-through the poem I Lost My Talk, by Rita Joe. Students were able to understand that learning takes patience and time with regards to forming ones voice over a length of time in order to sound authentic and relevant. By connecting this to the FPPL to days lesson, which was about discussion and voice, students were able to grasp a sense of their own voice a little more clearly. This experience deeply shows the value of standard 3 and how it can be applied, not jut as a checked off box, but as a developed philosophy over time embedded into my thinking as an educator wanting to develop the students’ learning.

Many different examples of diverse groups of learning and sharing and working together to demonstrate a growth mindset:

-Mr. Novak