Week 1:

Introduction to class
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Learning names
o Having students write their names and decorate popsicle sticks at
the beginning of the school year could be a useful way to facilitate
learning of names and provided a way to randomize selection of
students to call on during class to answer questions. In this way the
few students who like answering questions do not dominate class
discussion, students have greater incentive to pay attention during
class just in case they do get called on, and as a teacher I can get a
better idea of the level of understanding of the class by random
sampling.
Developing a rapport with the students
o Establishing a sense of community and understanding of
expectations early in the school year seems critical to ensure that
the class works effectively and efficiently throughout the year.
Sacrificing some time at the beginning of the year to activities
designed to help foster this may be worthwhile as the time used to
do this could be more than made up by the increased productivity
that results over the rest of the term.

Character time activities (Exploring Truth)

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2 truths and a lie

o Only weakly tied to the idea of truth, mostly used to help introduce
myself to the students and vice versa.
Telephone
o Another fun game to help further develop a relationship with the
students, but also to look at the concept of rumours and how even
truth can get distorted with its retelling.
Why Mr. Clark wears sunglasses/AMA
o Primarily for addressing any questions that the students may have
had about me but may not have been comfortable to ask. Also
looked at the idea of preconceptions.
Understanding of truth over time, what does truth mean to your parents?
o Had students think about how understanding of virtues, and truth in
particular, evolve over time. Began with a discussion of how a
kindergarten, grade 3, and grade 7s understanding of what truth
means might be different. Then assigned homework for the
students to go home and ask their family members what truth
means to them in order to expose them to other perspectives of
truth and hopefully provoke discussion at home then have the
students bring those perspectives to class the next day. Few
students followed through however and so instead I had the

students consider an Oscar Wilde quote on truth followed by a short

video one of the students wanted to share with the class on bullying
and being a Good Samaritan.
Mentorship time (teaching grade 9 space physics)
-

school currently has no teachers from a physics background

Worked with the grade 9 math and science teacher to help prepare her for
the space component of her science curriculum. Might volunteer at the
school after my practicum in order to help with the space unit and gain
more classroom experience.

Planning of statistics
-

What do I want the students to learn besides what is required by the

program of studies?
How can I make statistics engaging?
What sort of project can I create?
How should I evaluate understanding?
What aspects of statistics are likely to be sources of problems for students
and how can I address these potential pitfalls proactively?

Planning of optics
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What skills should I focus on?

What are the important aspects of curved mirrors and image formation?
What are the materials that I have available to me?
How can I reduce lecturing time and maximize hands on time to better
accommodate a class that struggles with maintaining attention?
What are the most difficult aspects of optics and what would be the best
way to address them?

Evaluation of energy projects

-

1-4 grade scale

o What does it mean when I say that a students work is at the 2
level?
Stems
o What are the particular aspects of a students work that I will be
looking at when I am grading their assignments?

Math challenge
-

Multiple step geometry problem

o Applying the idea of subtraction to geometric shapes
Developed estimation techniques prior to solving
o Approximating region of interest as a similar but simple shape

Small
o
o
o
o

Dividing the region of interest into a grid then estimating how much
of each grid square is filled in order to create an estimate of the
whole (potential connection to calculus)
Tried to motivate the reason for estimating prior to solving by using
it to determine whether our calculated answer is reasonable or not,
way to detect if we made a mistake in complex math problems.
group work with weaker math students
2 sessions with each group
First session devoted to developing an estimation technique and
finding an estimate
Second session devoted to mathematical calculation of the exact
answer
Significant differences between the two groups I worked with. While
both groups represented the weaker students of their class, the first
group proved to be fairly adept at solving the math challenge,
suggesting their own way to approximate as well as requiring only
minimal guidance in order to solve the problem. The second group
however had far more difficulty in establishing a strategy to both
approximate and solve the math problem. As the second group
comes from the class that is generally less academically inclined, it
may be that weaker student benefit significantly by being grouped
with stronger students. This comes at the expense of potentially
having a greater range in ability within a particular class however.

Week 2:
Grade 9 Dragons Den
-

Extended project done jointly between the math/science and humanities

teachers
Major presentation at the end
Revealed some misunderstandings in students (thought water was the
power source of fuel cells)

Teaching optics
-

Stations (experimental, mathematical and qualitative observation)

Short introduction to ray diagrams and walkthrough of stations
Station signs made to outline what is expected at each and provided
questions to explore during each activity
Example ray diagrams provided for students to refer to
Generally useful, probably too much material covered in a single class.
Students seemed to get a reasonable understanding of general properties
of images (real vs virtual, upright vs inverted, magnified vs diminished)
but struggled with details of how to develop a ray diagram (often worked
backwards, unclear of properties of principle rays)

Teaching statistics
-

Settled on 2 lecture periods and 3 project work time periods

Had students provide the data for analysis rather than making it up myself
to make it more authentic and generate interest
Tried to develop understanding of the topic organically through questions
designed to look at particular aspects of the data
Had to refine aspects of my lesson to better explain particular concepts
(relative vs absolute) and do class level formative assessment to check for
understanding.

Climbing field trip

-

Part of outdoor ed option class

Students had instruction prior to field trip to gain experience in the
equipment
~1 hour of instruction by climbing wall staff followed by ~90 minutes of
climbing time
Most students didnt get above 5m, but those who did reached the top
Spent time as photographer

Professional development day

-

Time spent mostly by new principle developing understanding of priorities

of the teachers to help guide upcoming budget allocation
Worked with partner and G8 teacher to go over lesson plans prior to class
and get feedback
Developed rubric that would be used to mark statistics assignment and
ensure that expectations would be clear for the students

Week 3:
Substitute teacher
-

Students tended to be louder

Substitute spent more time on class management, not clear if it was
always needed or effective. What degree of class discipline is desirable if
it makes class a less welcoming space? Does overemphasis on class
discipline undermine authority and ultimately make class management
attempts less effective?
Better understand the need to prepare comprehensive notes for a
substitute teacher

Statistics project class time

-

Students worked on assignment over the weekend, unexpected

Some groups developed questions that would result in data that could not
be used to find median/mean. Worked with these students individually to

try and help them see why they would run into problems. Also attempted
to suggest minor modifications to their original topic that would facilitate
the gathering of numerical data while preserving the essence of what they
were interested in.
Possible that there will be a significant range in how long students take to
complete their poster, need to plan additional activity for students who
finish before the end of the third day.

Geology project
-

Student lead, station based project

End goal to identify mystery samples
Each station addresses one aspect of rock and rock formation
Largely student driven
Students take progressively less time to complete stations, not sure if its
because they are getting more efficient or if they are skimming over parts.

Coordinate Math
-

Connect the dots like activity where students are given (x,y) coordinates
to connect by lines and reveal a hidden picture.
Might be useful to extend the idea to vector addition/subtraction at higher
grades

Week 4:
Statistics project
-

Due on Monday
Review class on Monday to go over common mistakes I observed while
students were working on their projects. Did a comparison of two similar
data sets, one which collected numerical data and one that collected nonnumerical data to demonstrate how non-numerical data does not allow for
calculation of mean or median.
Assigned 5 practice problems over the weekend, had students review the
questions in small groups then went over the problems that the students
struggled with as a class.
o This seemed to work fairly well as I could have the students help
each other understand how to do most of the assignment. This
helped me identify what were common issues and use class time to
address just those rather than going over the entire assignment.

Geology/Tectonics Lesson
-

Day 1: Introduction, volcanoes and earthquakes

o Activity: Mapping locations of earthquakes and volcanoes on world
map, looking for patters or trends in where they occur. To be used in
day two to note the connection to tectonic plate boundaries.

Intention for this to be the hook class, talk about volcanoes and
earthquakes, show a couple short clips, look at a website that
shows all the earthquakes in the last 24 hours, discuss the Richter
scale and frequency of earthquakes. Discovered a misconception in
how frequent students thought earthquakes occurred. Many
thought that all earthquakes are reported on the news.
o Videos proved to be an effective way to build interest and provoke
good questions from the students.
o Plotting exercise a good way to use their coordinate math skills in a
more authentic context
Day 2: Continental drift
o Start with introduction of mysteries
o Discrepant expectations proved useful in provoking thought in
students
o Talk about how continents kind of look like they fit together
o Tried to establish link between fault lines and locations of where
earthquakes and volcanoes occur, but students lacked a good grasp
of world geography. Refine approach for second group to look at
more familiar locations and help guide them in identifying locations
on the map
o Watched video that shows what earth looked like in the past and
into the future. Provided landmarks to help provide perspective
over immense time scales.
o Had students develop a hypothesis to predict how part of the world
might look different in the future based on what they saw in the
past. Shared predictions then watched final part of video showing
earth 100 million years in the future.
o Finished with telling class a little bit about what will be the topic of
next class in order to have them give important aspects some
thought beforehand.
o Tried to draw on as much of previously covered material as possible
in order to establish connections between previous work and
current topic. (coal, particular fossils)
o

Introduction to Algebra breakaway group

-

Work with strong students to give them additional challenge

Class will be looking at geometric representation of linear patterns
Will introduce concept of fractals and have students create fractals using
simple rules
Try to have students find relations/patterns that describe their fractals
Connect fractals to structures in nature (Trees, snowflakes etc)
Students seemed to enjoy drawing of fractals, allowed them to be creative
while still learning about math and patterns. Students learned about
exponential relations and gained some experience in recognizing
exponential and polynomial patterns.

Optics Demo
-

Look at image formation using lenses

Show similarities between image formation in mirrors and lenses
Show image formation

General:
Class management
-

Establishing clear expectations prior to leaving class seems to be

effective. Not just please be quiet but also establish the procedure that
you expect to be followed.
Easier to manage small groups when a high degree of restraint is
necessary, also more efficient.

Misconceptions of teachers passed on to students

-

Grade 8 science substitute didnt understand optics leading to confusion

amongst the students and may have made it impossible for some to
understand what they were observing during the lab.
If a middle school lacks science teachers from each of the natural
sciences, it is likely that students will reach high school with significant
misconceptions and holes in their understanding that will

Demographics of AJA
-

All girls, predominantly visual minorities (90%). Most seem to be of Middle

Eastern descent and come from Muslim households. Indian and Asian
backgrounds are also represented. A few are ELL, but operate at a
reasonably high level and speak with no discernible accent indicating that
even they have been largely socialized into Canadian culture.

Student leadership class

-

Omnikin tournament
o Helped out this group in organizing prior to event as well as acted
as a doorman
o Encouraged group to think about what aspects of the event didnt
go smoothly the first time and how we could address those issues
for the next time.
o Also touched on applying math to determine how many people
attended (If we collected $55 and each ticket was $0.50, how many
tickets did we sell?)
Earth day school yard cleanup
Bake sale to raise money for sick student
Mental health awareness event

Gauss Math challenge

-

Many students have expressed interest in participating though none seem

to be sufficiently motivated to practice for it. Organizing some sort of
extracurricular group to expose high achieving students to high level
conceptual challenges could be beneficial for the school.

Diversity in students:
-

D, significant learning disability and tests very low on IQ. Outgoing and
friendly, well integrated within the class. Parents refuse to acknowledge
that D needs specialized support and insists that she remains within the
standard curriculum. School does best to provide additional support while
honouring parents wishes but they are concerned that D will suffer from
not being able to access the additional support that could be made
available.
A, Born hearing impaired and with some visible deformities. Started in
special need program but is now in the standard curriculum, though 2
years older than her peers. Difficult to understand, but is accommodating
of others who have difficulty understanding her speech by writing what
she wants to say. She appears to be mature compared to her classmates,
perhaps even compared to her age and is an intelligent and proactive
individual, taking responsibility for her own learning by coming after class
to ask for clarification of something she didnt understand during class.
She does seem to have some issues integrating in the class though, while
her classmates are not overtly unkind to her, they tend to not interact
with her to the same degree as they do with others.
J rarely attends class and appears to have no friends among her
classmates as a result. Ive had limited opportunities to engage with her,
but my impression has been that she is quiet but capable. Conversations
with the teachers at AJA have led me to believe that it is likely that J
struggles with depression and while there does not appear to be any
formal supports in place for her, teachers do try to accommodate her as
best they can by not being critical of her inconsistent attendance and try
to ensure that the classroom environment is welcoming for her to try and
encourage her to attend more often. I have followed suit by devoting
some one on one time on her to help her catch up with her peers in the
statistics unit that I have been teaching.

Bullying/Discrimination in school
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A parent called the school expressing concern that her daughter was
being bullied in class on the basis on being Sunni Muslim as most of the
Muslim students are Shiite. My partner teacher used character time to
have a discussion about bullying and discrimination without revealing that
there was a complaint by a parent and discussed many different forms of

discrimination that could occur. Students were encouraged to talk about

other forms of discrimination they have experienced both in and out of the
classroom as well as situations in which they were the minority. The issue
was then brought up with the administration team to make them aware
and my partner teacher called back the parent to discuss her concerns
and inform her of what has and will be done and assure her that the
school takes such matters very seriously. This incident led me to consider
similar sorts of challenges that I may face as a teacher and how I might
best ensure that all students are safe and differences are respected.
Sources of conflict and division that I lack any depth of understanding the
roots of such as Shiite/Sunni seem to pose a particular challenge as I
would only be able to have a superficial discussion on aspects of it without
being able to address the sociological and cultural roots.
School having an issue with regard to a website called askfm.com.
Apparently its some sort of anonymous rating site where photos of
individuals are uploaded and users vote +/- and leave comments. This has
become a platform for bullying allowing fellow students to leave hurtful
comments anonymously. School has taken steps in order to address the
issue, beginning with talking to affected classes during character time by
both my partner and the principle. Any further issues will result in
contacting of the students parents and raises the possibility of
suspention/explusion.