At no point during the 491 practicum did I attempt to plan or measure my performance with reference to my one word for 2020; indeed, by the time the practicum ended I had completely forgotten what word I had chosen, and was quite curious to find out what it was when I found out I needed to write a reflection on it. None of this is to say that I didn’t take the initial assignment seriously; I put serious self-reflective thought into my word choice, and I feel that my submission for that assignment was an honest reflection of who I am and what I needed to work on. My subsequent disinclination to view my practicum experience through the lens of that assignment, then, is not a dismissive act, but rather a reflection of how I approach things in life. I’ve never been the type to narrow in on one phrase, idea, or word as a guiding metric of analysis, preferring instead to take a whole picture approach that encompasses as many different aspects as possible. The admitted downside of this approach is that it is not the best for addressing specific issues, but I find that it otherwise works better for me than trying to keep track of multiple narrow foci. As proof that my failure to so much as think the word “equilibrium” during practicum did not prevent me from utilizing or reflecting on the principles it encompasses, I offer the following thoughts.
The explicit goals I set for myself as part of the initial one word for 2020 assignment were (a) to achieve some semblance of work-life balance, (b) to improve my classroom management by balancing strictness and approachability, (c) balancing collaborative and individual learning according to the needs of the class, (d) finding a good ratio of formative to summative assessment, and (e) challenging students without overwhelming them. I had more success with some of these than with others, but made some progress with most of them.
The goal at which I least succeeded was unquestionably that of finding work-life balance, as I essentially had no time for self or family following the first couple of weeks of teaching. I feel, however, that this is not entirely an ominous sign of problems ahead, as one of the biggest time sinks was the detailed day and lesson plans we were required to submit, as well as the expectation to have everything planned much farther in advance than I ever did or needed to when I was working as a practicing teacher. Thinking only of the time I spent working on actual lesson materials and how I would have scheduled it were I free to do so, I think I will be better able to balance life and work in future.
With regard to classroom management, there was definite improvement here over the course of the practicum. I definitely started out too easygoing, as is typical, but was much better at enforcing classroom expectations by the end.
Finding the balance between collaborative and individual learning and between challenging and overwhelming students was a definite area of success. I had to scrap my entire first unit plan for one of my courses and change everything once I actually met the students, which I feel shows pretty good responsiveness and adaptability on my part. The nature of the students in that class required that the course consist of more content delivery and assisted learning than I had hoped, but I still pushed them beyond their comfort zone from time to time to build new skills and greater independence. My other two classes I hit a good balance with right from the start, which showed in successful student outcomes.
Finally, formative and summative assessment. I had two CTs with very different expectations of the balance between these two kinds of assessment, which gave me a chance to experiment with both heavily formative and heavily summative assessments. I definitely preferred the former, but ultimately came away feeling that my ideal may be somewhere between the two formats to which I was exposed during practicum. Overall, my time in the classroom helped me find the ideal balance between formative and summative assessment for my teaching style.