Grade 5

From February to March of 2023 I went one day a week to observe and teach the grade 5 class. The class consisted of 28 students so it was a big change for me since I came from a school with about 100 students from pre-K to grade 12. had so much fun with this class and learned so much about classroom and time management, building relationships, and working through mistakes and confusion so that learning can happen for the students. I taught 6 science lessons in the time that I was there which covered multiple different topics, such as states of matter, the human body, gravity, and friction.

States of Matter: Oobleck

One thing I love about science is that you can incorporate so many hands-on activities that help the students to build their inquiry and curiosity. One example is the lesson I co-taught with my peer on states of matter. This lesson was discussing non-Newtonian fluids which is a fluid that does not follow Newton's law of viscosity. With this lesson, we went over previous knowledge that the students had on solids, liquids, and gases, then had them make their own Oobleck with their table groups. Oobleck is an interesting substance as it is a liquid when it is poured, but when pressure is applied to it, it becomes solid The goal of this lesson was for the students to discuss with their groups what they thought this fluid would be classified as. With time constraints, we weren't able to have a discussion after, but many of the students came up to me after asking about what it was.

I loved seeing the curiosity that they had in this lesson which showed in their inquiries to me about the Oobleck even when their learning time for that class was over. This lesson taught me a lot about time management which is something I now consider a lot more thoroughly when planning. However, I am proud that I planned more for the lesson that we didn't get to because in my opinion, it's better to have too much than too little.

Forces: Gravity

For this lesson, I introduced the concept of gravity to the class. To begin, we did a knowledge check to see what they knew already. Luckily I had a student who gave a great definition of gravity to the class to start the lesson. We briefly talked about parachutes and I showed some examples of what they might look like. I allowed them to choose their groups and sent them on their way to make a parachute that would be dropped from the top of a staircase and had to leave the small cup attached to the bottom standing. This lesson went great in my opinion. All the students worked well in their groups and contributed ideas as well as listened to their peers ideas. I was so impressed at the creativity they showed when making these parachutes. I was slightly worried that they would all base their ideas off of the photos I showed at the beginning, but in reality, each group made very unique and different parachutes. I wanted them in this lesson to explore gravity while also exploring what factors might have an influence on how gravity affected their parachute. As I watched them test their parachutes I saw a lot of testing happening and after testing, if something wasn't working, they discussed why that may be. The photos on the right is one example of the uniqueness of these parachutes. This one was also very successful during the final drop which was very exciting for everyone!

Force: Friction

I absolutely loved teaching this lesson and even planning for it! For this lesson, we were doing an introduction to friction so when I began the lesson, some of the students knew a basic definition of friction but not much else. There was many moving parts to this plan so I was slightly nervous that it wouldn't work as well as it did. In this lesson, I set up 4 stations around the classroom each with a different activity relating to friction and how it affects many objects in our daily lives. The students were put into 4 groups and were given 5 minutes at each stations to predict what would happen and then complete the activity. Afterwards, we had a discussion on their findings. The discussion we had was so amazing and showed me just how much students can learn through hands-on activities and being allowed to explore concepts. The students came in with almost no knowledge on friction and by discussion time, they were able to explain why the activities did what they did, how friction is affected by different materials and textures, and the many ways that friction affects our daily lives. We also talked in this lesson about how and why different groups may have gotten different results and that it's okay when this happens.

INternship: grade 9, 10, and 11

My internship experience was so beneficial for me and I was so lucky to have an amazing cooperating teacher who helped me navigate so many aspects of teaching. I taught grade 10 science, grade 9 science, and grade 11 health science (x2). Over the course of 4 months, I learned so much from the staff at the school, as well as the students I taught.

Some of the highlights of my experience were:

assistant coaching junior girls volleyball
PRIDE club
Truth and Reconciliation group (teachers' after school group)
working with my cooperating teacher to incorporate authentic Indigenous content into my teaching
dissections (deer heart and pig)
building relationships with students
working with Learning Resource Teachers to improve modified content