7/31/2019 Summative Evaluation

Summative Evaluation of Practicum

Master of Teaching

Teacher Candidate: Mathieu Thomas Corriveau

Year: 1 Practicum Session: 2
Dates: February 11, 2019 to March 8, 2019

Associate Teacher: Michael Milligan

Grade level and/or subjects: Health
School: Georges Vanier S.S.
Board: TDSB

PROFESSIONALISM
Mathieu has demonstrated his professionalism thoroughly throughout this practicum. His demeanour and
comportment with the students is friendly, cordial and genuinely enthusiastic. He is consistently developing
rapport with the students in attempt to make personal connections which makes curriculum delivery easier as he
can tailor examples to the personal interests of his audience. Similarly, he has connected with a multitude of staff
members and integrated into the department as a full fledged member. Additionally, Mathieu is always punctual,
professionally attired and willing to commit the time and energy to whatever tasks require completion or
preparation to be successful. This includes staying late to create lesson plans for activity courses or
marking/creating tests/quizzes for kinesiology class.

DIVERSITY AND EQUITY

Georges Vanier offers some unique opportunities to teachers and teacher candidates alike with regards to having
access to students from a variety of backgrounds. Over 70% of the population speaks a language other than
English as their mother tongue. The school has a large immigrant population from dozens of different countries
as well as different levels of prior education. While this might have been a new experience for Mathieu, he
handled these and other challenges of IEP students adroitly. Language and cultural differences were not barriers
in his classroom, instead they were added perspectives and opportunities for learning about the student and how
their experiences might contribute to their understanding of the material. One simple example included how a
student from Syria casually discussed how his friend had a prosthetic limb while discussing ergonomics in
kinesiology. Sobering to think about how some students have recently come from war torn areas like Syria and
their first thought about ergonomics is a prosthesis on a child instead of a comfortable but expensive
ergonomically designed chair. In this moment, Mathieu's response showed not just genuine compassion and
caring for the student's friend but recognized this teachable moment for exactly what it was; an opportunity for
students to share their understanding of the material and engage with it in a memorable way.

INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOL / COMMUNITY LIFE

Mathieu was immediately involved in the school by attending extra-curricular activities. I was coaching basketball
and Mathieu attended practices and immediately helped out by observing and parroting instructions and
providing another pair of eyes to support the team. More importantly, Mathieu took on the task of training and
coaching Vanier's badminton team. Even though badminton is not Mathieu's strongest sport he researched
techniques, organized practices (including having a morning practice everyday for two weeks. This provided
students an opportunity to get as much time on task as possible before the end of his practicum). Furthermore,
Mathieu is dedicated to helping return to coach as much as possible and to create lesson plans that can be
followed or implemented by whomever takes up the task of coaching badminton in his absence. To say he was a
valuable addition to the HPE team doesn't say enough. To say that he will be more than greatly missed but his
absence will be mourned would be more accurate. I think this message expresses the appropriate rhetoric of
how important he will be to any department that he finds himself in immediately after he graduates. If I were a
principal in a position to hire an HPE teacher, I would not hesitate for even a second to commit a full timetable to
his capable hands thus ensuring a vibrant extra curricular presence.

UNDERSTANDING CURRICULUM AND THE LEARNER

Since Mathieu was placed at the beginning of a semester he has been fully involved in the planning of the
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courses. This means he has been intimately aware of and had a locus of control over decisions about which
parts of the curriculum to teach and in what order. I was experimenting with changing the order of things for a
variety of reasons and Mathieu and I worked together to construct a course of study that would provide both
excellent teaching opportunities for him and a better transition of skill development and knowledge acquisition for
the students. One specific example was the decision to teach ch 11 and 12 biomechanics unit prior to the muscle
anatomy unit and after the bones anatomy unit to give the students an opportunity to recover from knowledge
and understanding (memorization tasks) and transition to some application and communication tasks without
sacrificing progress through the material. It also gives students more time to independently review their
memorization tasks for the upcoming unit and more time on tasks with presentation skills that will be relied on as
part of their summative evaluations. This re-structuring of the course is something I expect to replicate in the
future and owe a credit to Mathieu as we contemplated the needs of the students whilst still having high
expectations for curriculum delivery. This awareness of the students' learning and willingness to be flexible with
structure is a key part of understanding the overall goal of education; it's not just about the material but how the
student engages with it (asking questions and feeling respected as a learner) that makes it an education.

ASSESSMENT, PLANNING AND INSTRUCTION

To put it bluntly having Mathieu at my side for these last four weeks was essentially like having a second teacher
to help me teach my classes. I feel like I learned just as much from Mathieu as he learned from me. On days
when he was fully responsible for the lesson (from planning to execution) I observed him and made notes not
just for him to receive feedback but for me to try these new approaches in my future lessons. Mathieu was
always eager to jump into and support any of the classes that I was teaching as another bonafide instructor able
to give expert advice and knowledgeable information about skill mechanics, chapter reviews or even just life
lessons. We talked everyday about each class and what goals we had and then worked together in every class
to accomplish those goals and then reflected about what worked and how we could scaffold skills into different
drills, games and lessons to make it even better next class or even next year. I particularly valued that in subject
areas that again might not have been his strongest he worked at making sure it was improved so that he could
feel comfortable and confident expressing the material to the students and expertly able to field the inevitable
questions. He truly was a team teacher who is already prepared for his own classes and teaching assignment.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
Mathieu immediately developed a rapport with the students in all three classes from day 1. This is a fantastic way
to avoid having classroom management issues. Making students feel welcome in the class decreases
behavioural issues and increases engagement in the lesson. Furthermore, due to his impressive lesson and time
management skills, Mathieu was always able to complete curriculum objectives and keep the classes on task
throughout his placement. This included successful execution of lessons in varied environments including a pool,
gym, and classroom ( with both open level health classes and grade 12 university level courses). Obviously,
each environment and population requires a different touch or skill to manage but he deftly wielding the
appropriate tools at the appropriate time to ensure there were never any issues. Furthermore, as previously
mentioned, he was also mentoring students while managing extra curricular responsibilities (badminton and
basketball) which carries with it a different kind of student behaviour and he was still friendly and firm when each
approach was needed.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Mathieu is an incredibly enthusiastic and energetic personality. This is not a minor detail to be overlooked. When
it comes to taking risks in a classroom this infectious attitude makes it even easier to succeed. One of the more
memorable risks he took was trying a team building game in the pool in the early stages of the aquatics class
called 'towers'. In this racing 'game' students were taxing their swimming skills and communication skills to
acquire objects (life jackets, flutter boards etc.) from one side of the pool and use them to build a structure on the
other side of the pool in groups. A fun friday activity to be sure but ultimately one of the most valuable days of
teaching as I could literally see the growth in each student as they tackled the problem solving and team building
scenarios. Each new attempt at the game occurred after a debrief and community decision to change the rules
and add a new flavour to the game. The smiles on the students' faces were memorable and the effort and
creativity that was on display was truly inspirational. I let him run this activity and I'll admit I was a skeptic on its
success but I'm happy to report it was a monumental success and I'll be using it again in the future. He took this
risk having never tried this with any other class, in a unique environment with students he barely knew. Mathieu
did this with the confidence and panache of a seasoned veteran and handled all of the growing pains of this new
activity with aplomb, making it a tremendous success.
This type of risk taking was also on display when he introduced an indigenous game to take the place of
basketball on a day when students were expecting to play a basketball tournament. And again when he decided
that the kinesiology groups would jigsaw and present to the class not once but twice to get over the anxiety of
presentations (while still entrenching the knowledge of the chapter). As much as I'd like to give credit to pleasant
and patient students for these activities working so well, it's impossible to ignore that the real reason these
experiences were successful was because of the personality of the teacher leading them.

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Overall appraisal: Pass Fail

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