Intern Teachers Descriptive Report:

My PSIII internship at G.S. Lakie Middle school was an incredibly rewarding experience. I loved my time at this high energy and fast paced school. The school environment lends itself to being incredibly engaging for both students and staff alike. I took advantage of this by becoming involved in some of the many extra-curricular activities that are offered at Lakie. The staff at Lakie was incredibly welcoming and I was quickly treated like a regular teacher and was held to the same standards. I was fortunate to get to teach two grade six social studies classes. Both classes of 33 students were incredibly diverse and interesting to work with. I found myself eager to learn about all of the students various learning styles and interests. Through various surveys and tests I was able to assess learning styles and interests and use these help organize my units and lessons. Throughout my internship the students and I worked through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms unit, along with a very fun and engaging Amazing Race Ancient Athens unit. My favorite unit, and arguably my students favorite unit, was the ancient Athens unit. Students worked in groups to complete challenges as they made their way around ancient Athens. I found that the students were incredible motivated to learn the new material and work together to complete challenges. It was amazing to see students who would typically check out during class time to become incredibly engaged. Differentiation was a key part of every lesson in this classroom. There were many students who needed various supports during lessons. Examples of this may have been providing them with differentiated activities, providing differentiated notes or content, even modifying grouping so that all individuals could be successful. My largest challenge was creating parallel programming for a student that mirrored the grade curriculum but was at an appropriate level for the student. My PD project was centered around the creation of this parallel programming. Various matching activities were used for this student, along with WH questions and sentence strips. We also incorporated various books and videos into the program. Another large aspect of the parallel programming was the use of an assistive program called Proloquo2Go. We worked to set up this program to best suit the needs of the student and to scaffold her learning of the paralleled curriculum. Throughout the development of this parallel program I collaborated with other teachers, educational assistants, occupational therapist, and speech language pathologist. I found this to be an incredibly rewarding experience in which I gained invaluable knowledge and experience. I also had the pleasure of teaching a grade six physical education class. During my internship I taught many units including; badminton, tchouk ball, cooperative games, low organizational games, track and field, fitness, and health. Due to the large school

population we needed to be flexible with the space that we would be teaching in; areas could include the gym, foyer, fitness center, classroom, or outside. At times it would be necessary to team teach classes which would greatly increase the number of student we were responsible for. At times there may be as many as 4 classes of 30 students all together but more often there were 2 classes paired up. I found team teaching to be a rewarding experience and I was able to learn an abundance of teaching and classroom management strategies throughout this experience. I was lucky to be able to be involved with some of the many extra-curricular activities that take place at Lakie. Right away I had the opportunity to become involved with the supervision of G-club basketball. I then had the opportunity to become involved in the amazing dance show by volunteering as an usher. My biggest contribution to Lakies extracurricular activities was assisting in running and supervising the G-club badminton on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. It was great to see how many students were excited to come out and practice their badminton skills. Other activities that I was able to be involved with were the Willy Wonka Jr. drama production, the weekly Fish Friday activities, and helping organize an activity for the grade 6 reading Olympics sleepover. During this internship I also gained lots of experience communicating with parents and working with various support staff at the school, including educational assistants and councilors. Communication with parent was often on a daily basis. I found that by keeping the lines of communication open everyone was on the same page and the classroom functioned very smoothly. Overall I felt that the staff and students at G.S. Lakie welcomed me with open arms into their school. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here and feel that I have grown so much as a teacher. I believe that Lakie encourages teachers to be well rounded as they provide opportunities for involvement in both academic and extra-curricular activities, and this has definitely helped make me a well rounded and confident teacher. Completing my internship at G.S. Lakie is incredibly bittersweet as I am very sad to be leaving a school that I have become incredibly attached to but I am looking forward to all of the exciting opportunities as I venture out and begin my teaching career.