Personal diary
During all these months that I've been carrying out my Practicum IV, I've been writing a personal diary about everything that happened in the school everyday I went there, because if not it would be impossible now to remember. So I started writing my diary the first week of October 2017, and I finished on the 30th January 2018, my last day of this practicum.
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Moreover, this personal diary was shared with my practicum mentor from university, so she was able to see everything I did and thought about the school and she could also ask me questions about it, make some suggestions, help me to decide in some cases, etc.
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If you click on the symbol below, you will have access to the whole diary. In black you'll see everything I wrote, in red you'll find some comments from my mentor and in green you have mines.
Reflection on my implementation sessions
First session (11th January)
Better than expected. That's the way I would describe the first session of my implementation.
It was the introduction to the topic, so I had to explain them the concepts of Africa, map, mask and, the most difficult one: symmetry (because African masks are symmetric). I had prepared a visual presentation to start talking about the topic and to introduce the new concepts, so I asked students to sit on the floor in front of the screen and we started the conversation. During the morning we had gone on an excursion and, in private conversations with little groups of students during the free time, I started asking them "do you know what Africa is?" "and do you where it is?" and questions like these, and then I told them as a "top secret" that it was a clue about what we were going to do in the afternoon in the art class. So they had already thought about Africa and they had spoken with each other about it. Then it was easier that during the lesson some interesting interventions from students appeared.
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After explaining what Africa was and where was it in a map, I had prepared a video of an African girl avatar asking students to prepare some African masks for her to decorate her house. So then, after the concept "African mask" appeared, we talked about it and I showed them a lot of pictures of African masks. Before that, I projected the word "symmetric", and I told them that all the African masks they had seen were symmetric. We started a conversation about what it meant until they had it clear.
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Finally, I explained them what they had to do and I gave them the worksheets to complete the half African mask in a symmetric way. They first did it in pencil and then they coloured it with wax cryons and they varnished it. It was really good and they understood the concept of symmetry better than I expected.
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The time planning was quite accurate. Some fast students could enjoy some free time after finishing and some others finished on time, but everyone was able to finish.
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So, in general, I would say that I am really proud of the first session. I think it was great and my feeling is that students learnt new things.
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Second session (18th January)
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I started by talking with students about what we did in the previous session, as it was one week ago. What a surprise! They remembered about most part of the new concepts and they had really clear what symmetry was, which I didn't think they were going to understand so good.
I explained them what we were going to do during that session, which consisted in starting their real masks made of cardboard. I introduced a lot of new vocabulary about different materials that could be udes to create their masks. Then we made a collective list on the screen about the materials that we already had in the class and the ones that were missing. Of course, the ones that were missing were natural materials that they could find in Campiri, the forest area in the school, so we went there and they started collecting their materials. They had to take into account that, as masks have to be symmetric, if they picked up a stick for the right side of the mask, for example, they should try to pick up also another one similar for the other side. As always happens when they go to Campiri to do some activity, some kids were super excited picking up their materials while some others were just playing and not thinking about the activity we were carrying out. I had to go there and made them pick up something when we were about to leave. During this part of the session, we were actually three teachers, because apart from Imma, one of the school's English speakers was with us for some time. It could have been a good opportunity to be ourselves divided and try to engage kids to pick up their materials and even help them. But Imma and Allanah (the English speaker) were talking about something and they didn't help me at all, but anyway, I could carry it out on my own.
When all of them had their materials, we returned to the classroom. They starting drawing the shape of their masks on the piece of cardbord, cutting it and then decorating their mask. We had to help them a little bit because it was difficult for them to cut the cardboard, some of them draw the mask too small, etc.
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After the session I was talking with Imma about it and she told me that maybe we could have given them a mask stencil. I told her that I didn't want to do that because if not everyone would have drawn the same mask, even though theu could have decorated it differently. I continue thinking the same. During the session they had on the screen a lot of pictures of different masks as a model, and some students chose the one thay they liked the most and tried to do one of the same shape. If we had given a stencil, they couldn't have done that and everyone would have had the same. That's why, even though it was difficult for some of them, I think it was better without any stencil and just helping them when necessary.
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In general, I am happy about this session. I think it was well planned and the time was accurate. The results have been the ones I expected, so I am proud about it.
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Third session (23rd January)
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In this session, my mentor from unifersity, Anna, came to see me. This session was specially devoted to finishing the masks and recaping the main vocabulary that students would need in the last session for the oral production.
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I started the lesson with a game that students had already played in the English lessons, so I could ensure that they knew how to play. I prepared some flashcards with the main vocabulary about materials that they should remember and we played the game for some time at the beginning of the session. Students were super excited and I felt really happy that all of them were participating. Even those who don't speak much in class, they raised their hands to play too, so I tried to let them speak as much as I could. Also Ruben was a special case that day, because in the previous session he was not in the class or he didn't want to work. He felt excited with the game and I also tried to let him speak when he wanted to take part.
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The second part of the session was devoted to finishing their masks. They had in a box the natural materials that they had picked up the previous day so that they could recover them to finish their productions. They also had wool and raffia (they didn't use it in the previous session yet), so they could make the last details to their masks.
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I am happy with the session because kids were so engaged all the time. At the end of the afternoon I was speaking with Imma and we both agreed that they had been working so good, concentrated, motivated and in a relaxed way. Ruben made his mask from the beginning because he hadn't started yet, but that day he was engaged!
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I think it was a good option to use the game in that session in order to recap the materials' names, because it was difficult for most of them to remember it and they needed some practice. And so they practiced but in a fun way. Excellent!
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Forth session (25th January)
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Last session of my implementation. When I started designing the teaching sequence, the only thing I had clear about the last session was that students would have to make an oral production using the vocabulary they would have learnt during the previous sessions. At first, I thought about the easy, traditional and typical way: oral presentation in front of all their classmates. But I wasn't sure about that, because I imagined myself as a student in that class, listening to the presentations of my 27 classmates, and it was a crazy idea. Moreover, I wanted students to be co-evaluated by their mates, and 27 co-evaluation checklists for each student to fill in, wouldn't have worked. So I continued thinking about it and something quite different came to my mind. I explained it to Imma and she agreed, so that's what I finally did.
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I used the same African girl with who I started the implementation with and I prepared a video in which that girl congratulated students on the masks they had made and asked them if they could make a video explaining her how they had done it (which materials they used). Then, I explained students carefully how we were going to do that.
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I had prepared some support cards with the sentences and words they could use in their presentations. Some of them were for everyone (hello, my name is..., etc.) and with some others they had to choose, like the names of the materials they had used to make their mask.
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They were divided in 6 groups, and each group had an ipad. They had to crate together the structure of the presentation of each member of the group with the help of the support cards, help him or her to practice and improve and, finally, record him or her with the ipad. So each student would create collaboratively 4 presentations (his/her own and 3 more from classmates), would record some classmate with the ipad (which they love doing!) and would vo-evaluate only 3 classmates.
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Luckily, that day we were four adults in the class, because two English speakers came to help us. They had one group each, and Imma and me had two groups each to help them. Some groups went outside the class with Imma, to the corridor, because it was so noisy inside sometimes.
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At first, it was difficult for students to know how to work, because it was the first time they did an activity like that, which requires some autonomy. But they get used quickly to that system and it was so nice to see how they prepared and rehearsed their presentations and how they discovered new strategies for the time of recording, talking in front of the camera, etc.
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What I would change about the session if I had to do it again would be the setting. I would try to find some school places with no people and I would divide the groups in different places, because the noise was the main problem. They were super excited about the activity and they all talked at the same time, so it was inevitable to be noisy. They could record their classmates and then we could evaluate the videos because they were understandable with the sound accompanied by the image, but the sound quality was not good enough.
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Even though, I am really happy about this session because I think that students had a really good time at the same time that they learnt and they did something they had never done before (so it's logical that it wasn't perfect!).
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Also the fact of being four adults in the class was super important because kids asked for help a lot of times and it was necessary to be more than one to assist them.
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I feel proud of this last session, as well as of the previous ones!
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General reflection
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Now I've finished, I look back and I still remember the first day I arrived to the school. It was huge and I didn't know where to go, who to speak with, what to do, but now I feel at home there.
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During these months I have learnt A LOT. And when I say a lot, it's a lot. At first I didn't like the fact of going just once a week to the school, but now I realize that this has been better than if I had done all that days in an intensive period like the last three weeks. Why? Because this way I have seen the evolution of the students since the first week of october, when they were still getting used to the primary school system, coming from pre-school. I can see now how much they have learnt, improved, grown... It's incredible.
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I am so thankful to all the teachers I've met in Fundació Llor, because they have helped me and taught me a lot just by letting me be with them in the class. All of them have something special and different from the others and that's something awesome for me, the person who is there to learn from them.
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The fact of being with a so young tutor, Imma, has let me empathize a lot with her, because I can see me like her in some time. I've seen everything she has to do, problems or difficult situations she has to face, that will probably be the ones thay I'll have to face soon.
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One thing I've been thinking during these months is that it's easy to see some differences between a school like that and other schools, specially between public and state schools. In Fundació Llor, most students come from good families, who live quite well. For instance, you can't find students whose families don't have much money for food, like I could see last year in the school I was. Here you can count on families for a lot of things that you could not do in other schools. The fact that the families prepared the costume for Carnival, for example. What a crazy idea if we had to do that in another school where most parents don't collaborate a lot. So it has also been a good opportunity to see this kind of things, that I hadn't seen before.
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The maths' lessons are also something I would like to highlight. The fact of teaching maths in such a different and real way has let me learn a lot. I love maths and I love teaching them, but I've learnt some activities, techniques, strategies... thay I've never seen before!! Awesome. I am specially thankful to the maths teacher, who made me work in her classes like if I was another teacher, who always counted on me and who taught me more than anyone.
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The math system they have in the school is also related to what I was saying about the kind of school. This school has a lot of resources and materials, due to the kind of school it is. But I think that, if you know how to do it and you feel like doing it, you can also create your own materials in a cheap way in any school! Maybe recycled materials are a good way to create materials and resources that can help students to learn in a meaningful way.
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Finally, I would like to talk about the students I have been with. Each one is different from the others, and there are some cases that have made me learn a lot. And here, I must highlight RG. I've learnt a lot with him and with the simple fact of being in the classroom with him and looking at what teachers do with him. He's a really difficult kid and it's so hard to deal with him. Some days I returned home thinking about if I am really prepared for kids like him, because I don't want to imagine what it would be like to have him as a pupil in some months in a classroom. I promise it's so difficult and teachers don't know what to do. I hope the treatment he's being through right now and the specialists he's going to will find the solution early, because he's the first one who is not happy and doesn't enjoy like a kid like him should do. It has been a good lesson to learn, for sure. And if I had to do the practicum again, I would choose this class one more time, because it has been ideal to learn from really different cases, kinds of kids and situations.
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I am really thankful to my mentor from university too, Anna, because I think I couldn't have had a better mentor. She has always been so kind to me, helping whenever she could and being concerned about me continuously. The effort of coming to the school to see how I did my implementation I think is really positive, because it's the only way of improving the teachers training and, consequently, our educational system.
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I am really happy with my Practicum IV, but also sad to finish it. It has been a great expirience!!!
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Aida
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