PROF 191 In-school Weekly Discussion Topics

These topics are suggestions for your 2-hours of in-school meetings each week in the Fall Term. These topics are suggestions based on the experiences of previous teacher candidates’ meetings. Of course you should add your own topics of immediate interest to your school group. Ask your Faculty Liaison for specific suggestions.

During the 4 weeks of practicum in the Winter Term, when you are expected to increase the amount of time you spend teaching, the in-school meetings are no longer required.

3 Weeks in October

Observing, School Classroom Context

Focus: Initial observations, initial days: What did we learn this week about observing in classrooms?

• Describe the situations and times when you were able to observe.
• What suggestions can you make for your future use of these strategies for observing students? For example, is it more effective for you to focus your observing on a narrow aspect of the classroom?
• How does your Associate Teacher handle classroom routines? Share your Associate's best ideas.
• What evidence of a professional learning community have you observed among school staff? How might you become involved?

Looking ahead

• How are you starting to negotiate your relationship with your host/associate teacher(s)?
• How do you beginning to negotiate your relationship with the students you will be teaching?
• What strategies have you observed that seem effective in managing the classrooms you are involved with??
• Find out how the school endeavors to maintain students' safety? e.g. staff handbook, code of Behavior
• What best practices have you observed so far that you can discuss/share with the group?
• What do you (teacher candidates) expect of one another as members of this associate school group?

Observing Classroom Management

Focus: What did you learn this week about classroom management?

• Create a visual map of at least one of the classrooms you are in showing details. Explain how this classroom arrangement is designed for student learning.
• Describe the responsibilities your Associate Teacher(s) has/have outside the classroom, as part of her/his Professional Learning Community. Describe how you are becoming involved.
• Share your observations about the most effective management strategies your teacher(s) typically use. Explain why you think these strategies are effective. Do they match ideas presented in your summer reading or our readings on managing learning?

Looking ahead

• How are classroom rules and procedures established?
• How do you talk and respond to colleagues when your viewpoints differ?

Lesson Planning

Focus: What did you learn this week about lesson planning?

• How are you planning lessons in your classroom? Is this approach working well for you?
• What resources, in and out of the school, have you found to assist you in lesson planning?
• Which parts of the courseware pack are most helpful?
• Which lesson planning ideas from your two curriculum courses have you implemented? What did you observe when you used these ideas?
• How are you adapting lessons for the exceptional learners in the class? Did you find the ideas in Education for All helpful? (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/speced/panel/speced.pdf)
• What have you found to be most challenging about planning lessons? How can we all work to support our learning?

Looking ahead

• In your classroom, what strategies are used where students finish their work early?
• How are lessons adapted for exceptional learners and/or courses at different levels e.g. Essentials, Academic, Applied?
• Additional thoughts, questions, issues raised by the group?

Focus:  What did you learn this week about classroom instruction?

• Describe for your group one instructional idea or lesson, that one of your Associates used, that seemed very effective. Explain why you think it worked so well.
• Describe one lesson or instructional idea that you used that seemed to be effective. Try to explain why you think it worked well for your students.
• Share one good teaching/learning resource with your group. Explain why you consider it to be "good". Add shared resource suggestions to your Prac Pages, section 5.
• Describe one teaching "dilemma" that you had to resolve during this practicum round. How did you resolve it? Was your decision a good one?
• Have you seen IEPs for any students in your class?
• What resource support is available for students inside and outside the classroom?
• How do classroom teachers and special education personnel collaborate?

3 Weeks in December

Assessment

• What methods of assessment do your host teachers use in the various courses you are involved with?
• What is the role of standardized testing in the school? E.g., grades involved, courses/subjects involved, time of the year, impact/involvement of other subject areas
• How is assessment adapted for exceptional learners as well as for other diverse students?
• How is group work evaluated?
• How are report card grades determined?
• Describe and demonstrate for your group one of the methods your Associate Teacher(s) use to assess student learning. Do you consider it to be assessment for learning or assessment of learning?
• Describe and demonstrate for your group one of the methods you will use to provide feedback to your students. How does the age and stage of the students add special challenges to this aspect of assessing for learning?
• Describe how you/your Associate Teacher(s) assess prior learning in your classroom. What other methods could you use?
• What do you consider to be the most challenging aspect of assessing student learning? How do you plan to deal more effectively with this difficulty?

Effective Teaching Strategies

• Describe your most effective teaching strategy. Explain why you think it worked for your students.
• Describe your least effective teaching strategy. Explain why you think it was not appropriate for your students.
• Describe a lesson you taught in which you used one of the lessons or instructional ideas presented by one of your curriculum instructors. What made this lesson effective or not so effective, in your opinion?
• Does your teaching work for all students in your class? Why do you think this?
• How does your Associate Teacher select students to work in cooperative groups? How do you select students for cooperative learning?
• Describe some positive and negative aspects of having your students work cooperatively.
• Explain how you dealt with negative moments, when your class was in cooperative learning groups. How do you ensure that all students in groups are learning?

Managing the Classroom Environment

• Positive learning environments include these elements: physical layout, atmosphere, routines, responses to student behaviour, effective teaching methods, appropriate learning experiences, interaction with parents and professional learning community. Comment on which of these seems most important for the smooth running of your Associate Teacher's classroom. Why do you think this is the case?
• Make some comparisons among your group's classrooms: which elements are most effective for Grade 9/10 students? for Grade 11/12 students? For Academic vs Applied, for everyone?
• What aspects of managing the classroom environment do you find most difficult? Why do you think this is the case? What changes can you make in your own teaching in order to improve this situation?
• What strategies have you or your Associate Teacher(s) used in order to improve the sense of "community" in your practicum classroom? What impediments are there to creating a community of learners?
• What students do you find difficult to teach? Why?
• How do you ensure that your lessons are not racist, not sexist and not heterosexist?

So Now I Think…..

• Describe your biggest professional aha moment during the Fall Practicum. What made it so important for your professional learning?
• List and explain 2 or 3 items that you consider you need to focus on during the Winter Term, in order to foster your professional learning. Why are these important to you? Have you added them to your Professional Learning Plan?
• Describe your biggest teaching/learning challenge during your Fall Practicum weeks.
• Describe your happiest moment during your Fall Practicum weeks. What can you learn from this?
• What aspects of the in-school discussions were problematic? How could these things be improved?
• What did you find most useful about the weekly in-school discussions?
• Which resource people from the school have been able to join your meetings over the 8 weeks of practicum?
• Consider/share ways of wrapping things up with the classes you are teaching as well as with your associate teacher(s), especially if you will not be with the same classes/associates in February/March.