Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.

On the first day of my practicum, I met each student with a smile and a “Hello!” I worked to build trust with the students, for trust is crucial for an effective learning experience. As well, I worked hard to develop clear Learning Intentions and “I Can” statements. When students understand the objectives of a lesson clearly, they are set up to succeed. I begin observing my students on the first day class, and I apply assessment strategies in coordination with the lessons and activities of the day. For example, one strategy that I applied is Number Sense, which involves Number Talk–an interesting method used for thinking and talking about numbers. Using a silent gesture (thumbs up at the chest) to signal that one has got an answer helped keep the room quiet and made learners who took more time comfortable. I like how Number Sense reveals that there are many ways to solve a single math problem. In this way, Number Sense celebrates a diversity of learning styles. Furthermore, I have observed student progression with writing. While teaching a Unit on Narrative Writing, I observed students participate in the writing process. The first lesson included an exercise where students wrote a single, descriptive paragraph. I was able to assess the students while they wrote. As well, after the lesson, I was able to check their work. Each lesson, the students added a writing skill, such as adding details, dialogue, or quotation marks and end punctuation such as question and exclamation marks. At the end of the Unit, students had three pages of writing, and I was able to assess and give feedback on the ideas, the use of the writing skills we had discussed and practiced, as well as some punctuation and spelling. I enjoyed observing how the students had extended their sentences as many students showed creativity and sometimes a sense of humour. The Career Education Unit is also an effective example of how I observed and reported student growth and development. For example, with the Self-Portraits, students wrote three strengths and one goal to work on. The strengths were used to consider future jobs and careers. The point to work on was used to encourage personal growth: I asked the students to reflect on how their strengths might contribute to their success in a job. Each student has different strengths, which were acknowledged during the sharing exercise. I observed the students’ confidence in talking about their strengths grow. In this way, I feel that I helped facilitate a strong, reflective exercise that helped students see their growth in real time.