Short Practicum Experience

Practicum Experience

Best Practicum Story

My best practicum story occurred on Halloween – the day I taught Math 8 for the first time. I was very nervous teaching this class because my faculty advisor was observing me and I was not sure how the students would behave because it was Halloween. Additionally, I was really nervous because it was my first day using the computer tablet. I practiced writing on the computer tablet the day before, but I was still very nervous. However, once I told the students to take their notebooks out and stop talking, my nervousness subsided and I did not even notice my faculty advisor sitting at the back of the classroom writing down notes. I was successfully able to give the students their notes on mean, median, and mode by having them participate by asking them questions and having them solve examples that I asked them. Moreover, the students were very enthusiastic about what they were learning and they really enjoyed the lesson. I also did a little class activity with the students. In this activity the goal was to determine the mean, median, and mode of the shoe sizes in the class. I had the students come up and mark off their shoe size on the computer tablet. This little task made the students very happy because they were able to write on the computer tablet. For the rest of the hour the students worked on the homework or studied for the test that they were going to have during the next portion of the class. After the students finished their tests we watched Transformers for the rest of the class. Additionally, I was very happy that afternoon because I received excellent comments from my faculty advisor for my lesson. Nothing too crazy happened during this lesson, but it was still a very memorable lesson for me because it was my first time teaching a Math 8 class and both the students and I had a lot of fun during this lesson.

Changes in my teaching as a result of the practicum

Overall, I really enjoyed the short practicum and I found it to be a very educational experience. It was very nice to actually work with high school students and see their personalities – instead of just sitting in the classroom and hearing about how high school students act and think. Once I was in the classroom teaching, I realized that I had to be very clear when giving students instructions. I could not just assume that the students would understand what I was saying, even if I thought I was telling the students something they would already know. Therefore, I learned that I have to be very clear and direct when giving students, no matter what grade they are in, explanations and instructions. Furthermore, after the practicum I learned that I have to be very commanding. I realized that I cannot just ask students to do things; instead I have to demand that they perform certain tasks. I found it very difficult to be commanding; however, as a started to teach more and more classes, I was able to become more commanding. Moreover, I think that during my long practicum I will be able to do this better because I will be teaching more often. In general, I experienced good changes in my teaching as a result of the experiences that I encountered during my short practicum.