And it's Over!

So it’s Thursday, and observation at Wellington is officially done. It’s a pretty nice feeling to know we can go back to the regular life routine on Monday, but I’m a bit sad to leave this school behind. I met some fantastic teachers, and they were kind enough to share tons of ideas and materials with me (including a rather hefty photocopy pile I am bringing home of Lord of the Flies and grammar lesson materials that one of the Engl 11 teachers so graciously gave to me for a block to go through!) I really enjoyed the students and the school community, so I’d love to be able to return here in April.

Some highlights this week…

• I forgot to mention this earlier, but I got to run a student questionnaire last week!  I did the questionnaire with an Engl 10H class, in which I read them five questions, they answered anonymously, then I went through all 27 responses and compiled them into some form of a results sheet.  I’m going to post my results document on my e-portfolio hopefully next week at some point to share, but just to give you a sense of what I was doing, here are the questions:

1) What do teachers do (or have done) in the classroom that you really like?

2) What do teachers do (or have done) in the classroom that you really dislike?

3) What do you think makes a great teacher?

4) Do you think bullying is a problem at Wellington? *

5) What was the last book you read?

* that question was originally supposed to be about the classroom setting, but I’d been reading so much about the gay teen bullying that’s been in the media spotlight recently that I was really interested to hear what the students thought!

• I attended the Parent/Teacher Conferences on Wednesday night! I asked the VP if I could just mill around and check out how the night is run, but I ended up being invited to sit with the Engl 8 teacher I’ve been shadowing this week and watched her run interviews for nearly two hours! It was really great to get to see that student/teacher dynamic when a new factor- parent- is thrown into the mix.  I really liked how the teacher not only gave feedback to the parents, but included the student in the discussion as to how they might improve their performance in the classroom.

• I got to teach a (brief) lesson on Sustainability to a SS 11 class today! I’m going to do another blog post where I discuss this in more detail, but I just wanted to mention that it was a great chance to jump into the waters and try it out.  I ended up being in front of the class for almost 40 minutes (I’ll get to that later), but I felt great! I’m really glad I took the teacher up on the offer because it was a great learning experience- I initially turned it down when he asked me on Tuesday last week.  Then again, it was my first day in the school and I could barely find my way around! I felt very confident today, and I’m glad I’ve got some solid feedback to work with.

Okay, it’s off to bed now- I’m going to an Educators against Racism Conference tomorrow at the Well, and then back to Victoria tomorrow night. Hope you all have a fantastic long weekend and see you on Monday:)