Author: mtodorovska (Page 1 of 2)

THE END

11 December 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

What a journey it has been. I have come to the end of my Bachelor of Education, and boy, was it a wild ride. There were tears, frustration, anger, but most of all, laughter. Because of this program, I now have a community of teachers and friends that have completed this journey alongside me and man, we are a good-looking crowd.

I have learned so much in the past sixteen months. From the foundations of education to inclusive education. I learned about formative and summative assessments and can talk about them without trembling in my jeans. I started this program off with barely understanding math myself, and now I am confident in teaching it to students.

At the beginning, I didn’t understand what my professors meant by a teacher’s identity. I thought that who I was as a person in the world would be who I am as a teacher. But as I continued throughout the program, especially during my last practicum, I realized I had finally discovered my teacher identity. I realized that the classroom is the only place in the world where I can be myself.

Was this program a walk in the park? Absolutely not! I encountered situations that made me uncomfortable. I experienced a level of stress that I never have in my entire life. At specific points, I was ready to give up and drop out of the program but I pushed through my insecurities, swallowed my stress, and kept striving for progress.

I cannot wait for my next step in my teaching journey and I am ready to sign up for a life long dedication to learning. This program brought me to the starting line. Still, it is up to me to continue striving and jumping over hurdles along the way to becoming the excellent educator that my future students deserve.

Now introducing….. MISS TODOROVSKA <3

Classroom Management

11 December 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

Classroom Management: These are some tips and tricks I have learned for classroom management that create a great learning environment.

20 minutes..

This management tool is used for a whole class reward. The students will be given expectations they must follow to get time added to their prize. These expectations may be “be respectful,” “don’t interrupt others’ learning,” “clean up workspace,” etc, and each expectation comes with a certain amount of time that can be added to the clock. The goal for the students is to get to 20 minutes. Once the students have reached 20 minutes but following expectations, they may receive 20 extra minutes of gym or computers, whatever is available to them in your particular school.

Activity with…

This tool is used for individual management. Activity with.. cards are effective for those students who may need a little more encouragement. These cards come with expectations that need to be followed to receive one. These expectations may be “No arguing,” “complete an assignment without silliness” etc. A student receives one card for each expectation that is followed. Once the student has collected five cards, they may turn them into the teacher to participate in an activity during recess. These activities can be based on personal preference, when I used them, the choices were a game in the gym with a friend or a board game.

Voice Level Lamp

If you have a chatty class, a voice level lamp and chart may dave your life. First you need to find yourself a lamp that changes colours. After you have found that, you need to create a visual chart that states which colour is which volume level. This needs to be visible so that the students can be reminded of what colour means what. For example, if you have the lamp in the picture above, you could say purple is individual work time: no voices; blue is whisper; and green is group work; inside voices allowed. This will help maintain a good noise level in the classroom throughout the day and the students will love the colours.

*Disclaimer*

please make sure that you establish the rules for all the tools above with your students before hand. If you bring the tools in but don’t explain what they are for and how they work then they will not be effective.

The Final Practicum

10 December 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

Well, this was the final leg of my BEd journey. This was the last leg of the journey that I worked so hard for during the 16 months I was in the program.

I didn’t expect this practicum to go the way that it did. However, I learned so much and it prepared me to be comfortable in the classroom by myself. During this practicum, I was mostly alone in the classroom with 25 students. I am used to having multiple adults in the room, so I liked the fact that I got to learn how to manage a classroom on my own.

This practicum allowed me to try out different classroom management techniques. I started using a management tool called “Activity with Miss. T. ” The students were given classroom expectations that they were to follow and if I noticed that they were doing what was expected, they would get an activity card. Once the students had collected five cards, they would be allowed to participate in an activity during recess, whether it be a game in the gym or a board game etc. This tool helped quite a lot in the management of individual students. The students enjoyed it and would often ask, “What can I do to get a card?” or “I think this person should get a card because…”

I encountered a challenging situation almost every day during this practicum, however, the community within the school was so tight-knit and supportive that I never felt like I never had any support. Whether it be needing help with the photo copier or a student’s behaviour, there was always someone there to help me when I needed it. The staff at Nukko Lake treated each other like family and welcomed me the moment I stepped through the doors.

I am very glad that this was my experience for my last practicum. It allowed me to try out different techniques I had and really helped me step into my educator’s shoes. I officially feel like a fellow educator instead of just a student that stepped into the classroom with no idea what is going on.

Here are some photos of activities I got to do with my class…

Ron Brent Pro D

20 August 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

As many of you know, educators participate in various Professional Development Days throughout the school year. These development days can range from learning about new developments in assessment methods all the way to ideas about incorporating risky play within the classroom/school grounds.

During my last practicum, I had the honour of participating at a Professional Development session at Ron Brent elementary school. The topic of this session was Risky Play and how we can welcome it into our classroom and on school grounds.

When I first heard of risky play, I was amazed that it was even considered an idea. But then again, I never really knew what it truly was and had a certain opinion on it based solely on the name. All of my thoughts changed when I attended this session.

During this session, there were multiple presentations by teachers from Ron Brent that allow their students to participate in risky play. Hearing their stories gave me a sense of purpose in trying to incorporate it into my future classroom. Now I know when you hear the words risky and play together in a sentence, it makes you scream on the inside because your first thought is, “the students will get hurt”. However, the staff at Ron Brent showed us how to safely allow the students to engage in risky play. I learned that before any student is allowed to participate in anything that is considered a risk, the teacher goes through copious amounts of lessons defining the rules to what they will be doing clearly. The teacher also spends time going over the difference between natural consequences and what is actual considered harm/injury.

The presenters made sure to emphasize that the student underwent prior lessons about the dangers of certain activities and were taught that in order to participate in risky play, the student must make the conclusion themselves that they are confident in what they would like to do and are aware of all the natural consequences.

During this Pro-D, we got the opportunity to try out a few of the activities that the school allows the children to participate in. Ranging from tree climbing to wrestling, the presenters demonstrated to us the precautions that should be taken when allowing the students to engage in risky play.

After attending this Pro -D, I found myself thinking about incorporating risky play into my classroom and I look forward to trying some of the things I learned on my own students in the future.

Images

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Barkerville

20 August 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

One of the most memorable moments during this program was our trip to Barkerville.

At first, I felt very uneasy about staying the night in a place that made me somewhat uncomfortable. However, knowing that I would be surrounded by people that I feel comfortable around made my uncertainty better, and I was able to enjoy the trip with my peers.

Our first stop on the trip was at Blessing’s grave. Here we brainstormed ideas on how we could bring our students here and teach them about the history behind the grave. Specializing in elementary years made it slightly difficult to think about bringing students to a grave site while also ensuring that they stay engaged. My group came up with the idea that the students could get together with partners and create a story of what they thought Blessing’s life was like before he made it to Barkerville. This would practice creative thinking and teach the students about being respectful at a gravesite.

The next stop was gold panning and boy, were my friends and I bad at it. Nothing is more frustrating then trying to pan gold and losing all of it in the river. Although there was a lot of frustration, it was a good team bonding exercise and by the looks on our faces, you could tell we had a blast.

Last but not least, we made it to Barkerville. After setting up our little tent crowd with all tents set up in a circle, we got to participate in a fire circle with our peers. During this, everyone got to share their experiences that occurred during practicum and it was nice to hear that everyone went through some tough times during practicum. I felt like this fire circle brought us together as a cohort and made us a little family.

Overall, the trip to Barkerville was eye-opening, informative, and beyond fun. I would love to have the opportunity to bring my future students to such a knowledge filled place and give them the opportunity to create a connection with their peers like I got to do with mine.

Heritage Elementary

20 August 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

Another day, another practicum…

When I first discovered that I was placed at my old elementary school, I was ecstatic and wanted to start immediately. So technically, that’s what I did… sort of.

Before practicum even started officially, I asked my professor if it would be okay to attend the school for the first couple of weeks so that I could get to know the students and lesson plan based on what I learned about them. Lo and behold, I was given permission to do just that, and I took the opportunity in stride.

During the first couple of weeks, I sat in the classroom and bonded with the students and my coaching teacher. I learned what the students were not comfortable with and what lessons they would love to participate in. This connection that I was able to make with the students helped with my lesson planning and allowed me to make lessons that would keep the students engaged.

After spending the first couple of weeks with the students, practicum finally began. In my first week, I took over the morning activity that required the students to answer three questions quietly and then discuss them as a class. One of the questions that I asked was, “What do you want to know about me?” This way, the students could ask me questions so that they could get to know me as well. What I didn’t foresee happening was a student stumping me with a question. A student’s hand shot up in the air, and they asked me if I had ever been in a bar fight. to tell you that I was stunned by this question was an understatement. I did not know how to appropriately answer the question while also letting the student know that that was not an appropriate question. I successfully redirected the situation, and the first week of practicum went smoothly from then on.

By week two, I had created a solid relationship with the students, and I was flying high. Everything was going smoothly until one day, I dropped the ball… On the first day that I taught the full day, I was told that there would be an assembly in the afternoon and completely dismissed the thought that I should have a backup plan. Well, as it turned out, the assembly was cancelled, and I did not know what to do, I was scrambling. Thanks to my coaching teacher, I was able to somewhat smoothly end the school day, but I knew that from that day on, I would forever be over-prepared hen ever be under-prepared ever again.

At the end of this practicum, I had to say one of the hardest goodbyes I’ve ever had to say. My connection with the children and my coaching teacher made it incredibly difficult to leave a classroom that I wanted to stay in forever. However, with everything that I learned from that practicum and the relationships I created, I was able to go back to classes even more comfortable in a classroom setting and ready to take on what the program had to throw at me next.

Bring on the next practicum.

Let’s be real about stress

28 March 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room… the one thing that makes everyone uncomfortable… STRESS.

Everyone experiences stress occasionally; it’s a natural part of being a human, but sometimes the stress becomes too much, and we need ways to handle it… that is the one part I am not good at, handling my stress in a healthy way.

For years, I handled stress by ignoring it and hoping it would just go away. But instead of it going away, it would eat away at me until I was engulfed by anxiety. It took me up until my first block of the education program to learn how to deal with my stress in a helpful way.

Before starting this program, I knew I needed to organize myself better to manage my stress because I knew that I would have a long and busy road ahead of me. Not only was the program going to have a heavy course load, but the career I was choosing to go into was going to strain my psyche.

Working as a teacher, I will need to be ready to face stress and not allow it to affect my job. In order to manage this amount of stress, I will need to find proper coping mechanisms that will allow me to keep my affairs in order without experiencing burnout too quickly in my career. Burnout is something that all teachers experience throughout their careers because being a teacher is a taxing yet beneficial job.

Some coping mechanisms that I will try

Learn relaxation techniques
practice mindfulness
make time for me
start a stress journal where I can write my worries away
admit when I need help

By the end of the education program, I hope to have useful stress management strategies that I will be able to bring into my teaching career so that I can have a long and enlightening career.

The Art Gallery

28 March 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

My first time going to the local art gallery was quite the experience. My knowledge of art galleries is scarce, but I had always wanted to visit one and boy, was it a life-changing experience seeing how people see art.

The “Hope” exhibition was a beautiful demonstration of the contemporary life of the artists. One piece in the exhibition stood out to me; it was called “Mother” by Keerat Kaur. This piece of pure art was so realistic that you could see the little peach fuzz on the lady’s face. This piece was a realistic painting, and Kaur also incorporated embroidery on the canvas of a life-like heart. Through this piece, one could feel the pride that Kaur wanted to demonstrate for mothers and grandmothers and the gift of life they give their children.

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Keerat Kaur was one of many artists whose pieces were displayed in this exhibition. Each piece had its own demonstration of community and contemporary life in its own particular way. An exhibition like this would be amazing for students to experience in order for them to understand different cultures. I feel that the Two Rivers Gallery is a wonderful place to bring students so that they can learn to appreciate different types of artistic expression and maybe even get to explore their own artistic abilities.

In the future, I would love to bring my students on a field trip to the Two Rivers Gallery because I believe it is a wonderful place to discover art and allows the students to find art that resonates with them and that they connect with. It would be wonderful to get the students to participate in an art class where they can explore their individual artistic abilities.

featured image

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An Adventurous Practicum

28 March 2023 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

The self-agreement one must make when becoming a teacher is being open to learning constantly. That’s why teacher candidates must complete four practicums when attending the Bachelors of Education program. With the idea that I am meant to learn from practice and experience, I jumped into my second practicum feet first and was terrified of failing.

I have always felt content and comfortable whenever I am in the classroom, and my first day of practicum was no different. All my nervousness and fear of failure disappeared, and I felt as if I was in my element. I immediately started building a relationship with the students and learned about their personalities and interests.

During the first week of practicum, I taught a Black History Month lesson about Nelson Mandela and asked the students to write a paragraph on what they learned about him and why he was an important figure. The students loved the lesson and wrote very moving and personal paragraphs. Having such a great first lesson with the students, I felt comfortable and ready to create more lessons for them. But before I knew it, my worst nightmare happened… I got COVID and had to quarantine for the whole second week of practicum.

Experiencing this unexpected situation brought my stress levels to a new height. I became worried that I was not going to finish enough hours and lessons for my practicum. However, with the help of my practicum professor, I was able to make up the time that I missed and created lessons that the students absolutely enjoyed.

In this practicum, I learned the importance of classroom management. Students need to be interested in what you are teaching for them to want to participate in the activities. For most of my lessons, I used formative assessment because that form of assessment fit in better with the Montessori way of teaching. The students appreciated my formative assessment practice because they received critical feedback that they could use to alter their assignments and grow from.

Although there were a few bumps in the road toward success, I fully enjoyed my first practicum experience and loved getting to know the students and creating relationships with them. I learned a lot from my coaching teacher and created a tight-knit relationship with her. Because of this relationship, I now have someone who I can turn to with questions and someone who can give me advice based on their real-life experience.

For my next practicum, I hope to develop a better understanding and practice assessment and continue to practice my classroom management techniques and discover new ones. Let’s see what the next practicum has in store. 🙂

Inspirational Character

28 November 2022 / mtodorovska / 0 Comments

Wow, what an inspiration this woman and educator is…

I have had a chance to meet Kelsey on a couple of occasions during this first semester of the program, and I must say I clung to every word that she said during the times she spoke. The most recent visit she had with our cohort was by far the most memorable. She demonstrated to me what it meant to go through struggles yet still come out on the bright side of things. She told us about her personal experiences in the school setting when she was a student and explained that she did not want to be a teacher when she finished. She wanted to be an RCMP officer instead. I resonated with this soo much because that is exactly what I was planning to do as well. I had it decided in my mind that I would finish school and go straight into becoming a police officer, but boy, did that vision change.

Kelsey’s presentation showed us that things don’t always go as planned and life will always throw curve balls at you but you have to take them in stride and hit it out of the park. She is such an inspiration and role model to me now that I have met her because she is very easy to connect to, and one can clearly see how passionate she is about what she does. I hope that when I become a teacher, I can become half of the inspiration that Kelsey MacDonald is.