Nov 13

1. Prep for my lesson in the afternoon & talked with a math and compsci TTOC in the school

2. Taught Mr.Weingarten's math 8 class.
- I enjoyed teaching the class
- Students were very nice and active
- It was tougher to get them on track during the homework session.  This is something I need to work on, also classroom management in general

3. Observed Mr. Knight's Computer Programming class
- Mr. Knight told me about how the course has evolved throughout the years he's been teaching, and the different languages, teaching styles, assessing strategies he has experimented with.
- Overall, the course is more project-based, and students set their own learning goals for the year.  A lot of freedom! It would be a class I would love to take if it was available in my high school.

Nov 12

1. Observe Mr.Grewal's Science class.
- Liked his way of getting feedback from the students during class:
Ask students to rate the understanding on a scale of 1 to 5 and raise their hand with the corresponding number of fingers.

2. Observed Mr. Hardman's Physics 11 class
- He had 15 - 20 workstations with different exciting physics experiments which all required using understanding of inertia to explain.
- Class split into 8 groups, each group tackle 2 experiments for half the class
- go around each station and have students explain the theories behind them during the second half of class

3. Observed Mr. Chan's precalc 11 class.
- Open book quiz that was not for marks
- Students were very focused and tried to do the best they can on the practice quiz

4. Talked to Ms.Duncan and later had a brief meeting with Ms. Hui

Nov. 10

1. Talked to the administrative assistant and the accountant in the office today.

2. Attended the Remembrance Day assembly & taught an AWM 11 class in the second block.
Some improvements:
- better use of the whiteboard
- talked to students before class

Areas to work on:
- give more time to students to work on problems
- get more students involved
- example prepared was too complex
- lesson was overloaded with information for a short class

3. Observe a mandarin class
- surprised to see that most of the class were native Mandarin speakers, later found out it was actually the AP class

4. Observe Math 8 class to meet the class that I will be teaching during the long practicum.

Nov 9

1. Lesson planning : Spent time planning for tomorrow's AWM class.

2. Math Challengers: Not many students showed up and the sponsoring teacher was busy for the day, but I did get to work with a few bright grade 9 student.  It was a very fun experience to go through challenging contest questions together.  It is sad that this will be the last time I get to see them until long practicum, as they meet on Mon/Wed only.

3. Talked to the constable at DT.  It was surprising to see him call out the names of almost any student that walked by us while we talked.  He obviously gets to meet a huge variety of students.
I also talked to the staff members in the cafeteria.  They were busy in the morning when I first met, and booked a time with the manager.

4. Observed Mr. Sheardown's energy-packed math lesson with his AWM students.  I will be teaching the same class with a different group tomorrow.

Nov 6 Blog

1. Web Design
- First time meeting with the web design class that I will take over during long practicum

2. Yoga
- First time ever in a yoga class.  Drew stick figures to record the movements.
- Teacher would often circulate to make sure everyone is doing the movements correctly.
- Spent the second half of the class preparing for my class in the afternoon

3. Teaching & debrief
- The students in the class were very well-behaved, friendly, and helpful.  I had fun teaching them, and was glad that they seemed to enjoy the class as well.
- I received plenty of great feedback, advice, and suggestions from both my SA and FA.

Nov 5 Blog

1. ELL English 10 Ms.Huey's Level 1 ELL class vs Ms.Bird's Transitional ELL class
- The approach in the two classes were different.  Ms. Huey focused more on bottom-up, i.e. start with phonics, while Ms. Bird used the top-down approach, i.e. teach meanings of whole words.
- The picture dictionary activity in Ms. Huey's class was similar to something mentioned in our LLED 360 textbooks.

2. Skills Development Centre
- Lead by Ms. Siling, along with three circulating student peer tutors.
- David Thompson loans laptops to students in this centre

3. Attended the film club meeting during lunch.  They were watching the movie spirited away.

4. Took on two blocks of Ms.Hui's Math 9 in a row
- Details will be in Ms.Hui's anecdotal observation form
- I am lucky to be teaching these two wonderful math 9 classes, as the students were very friendly and active.

Nov 4 Practicum Blog

1. ELL Social Studies 10
- We watched videos of Justin Trudeau's swearing-in ceremony.  I like how the teacher shows contemporary news to the class.
- I love how the in-class activity sheet had problems that were fun, in the sense that they had a few twists, but also keeping it not too complicated.  The class was about scales/map/atlas.

2. Apprenticeship and Workplace Math 11
- Interesting to see the other side of the spectrum.  The topics in this class are much different from Foundations/Pre-calc 11.
- Some students have certain disabilities.

3. Math 8 & 9 challengers during lunch
- Got to meet some of the brightest students in the school
- Worked on fun math problems with the students during lunch
- This will be something I will attend regularly in the future, hopefully can lead the discussion too.

4. Calculus 12
- Met the math department head, Mr. Madd
- He combines AP calc AB with the BC students and get the BC students to study material on their own sometimes.
- Even the regular Calculus 12 students are taught the same material.

5. Graphics
- David Thompson has a great collection of machinery for rendering images.
- Most are outdated but still serve as a fantastic learning tool.