Descriptive Report

Georgia Merk

March 2022

My PS3 experience at St. Patrick’s Fine Arts elementary school has been amazing,
challenging, and exciting all in one. The climate at St. Patrick’s is community-based with the
care of students at its heart and all the staff are amazing and welcoming. I was very excited and
nervous to begin the teaching journey of PS3, especially knowing there wouldn’t be the presence
of a teacher in the classroom to always watch over me.

I was given the teaching assignment of teaching grade 5 Language Arts, Drama and
Religion, and grade 6 PE and Health. When planning in all these areas I really took my time to
learn and understand the concepts of each subject to feel comfortable enough to teach them. By
making sure I was prepared with having my initial plans completed, I set myself up to dive right
into the classroom. Throughout my practicum, I devoted a significant amount of time during my
prep periods, after school, and on the weekends to unit and lesson planning to maintain my
quality of teaching.

As a kinesiology major, I really enjoyed the experience of teaching PE and health as I

had the opportunity to teach my own values for what living a healthy lifestyle should look like
and engage in my love for physical activity alongside the students by participating in PE with
them.

As aforementioned, this practicum was nothing short of challenges. My greatest

challenges were learning how to balance the workload of planning with other life priorities,
managing the anxiety of teaching alone, learning how to feel confident in the teacher role, and
managing the outlasting impacts of COVID19.

Another challenge was the university strike that occurred. This briefly left me without a
UC, and around the same time, my teacher took a leave of absence due to family matters. During
this period, I felt quite overwhelmed, but I do believe that because of this, I was able to grow
stronger in my independence, preparedness, ability to ask for help, and grow confidence in what
I was doing in the classroom.

Reflecting on my previous practicum experiences, it is night and day in what I

understood about being a teacher and how to step into the role. Previously, I never quite broke
free of my “shell” and was quite nervous, shy, and unsure of who I was as a teacher. My
previous practicum goals focused on learning to be assertive, use a louder voice, and acquire
classroom management techniques. At St. Patrick’s I believe I fully have embraced the teacher
role and developed these valuable teaching skills. I can attribute a big part of my growth to the
relationships I have formed with my students and the independence and trust I was given by the
support staff around me.
 I am most proud of the relationships I was able to form with my students. Previously, I
was very unsure of what grade was a good fit for me and never had the full opportunity to get to
know a class. After teaching grades 5 and 6 I can confidently say I could see myself thriving in
teaching this age range.

At the beginning of practicum, I brought in a class pet that the students named “Henry”,
and every week we took turns watering it. This is a good example of one of the ways I have been
able to get closer with my class. Other ways I believe helped growth in my student relationships
were taking the time to acknowledge every student, actively listening to them about their lives,
and spending time with them on supervision, flex times, and during project-based work. With
taking the extra time to get to know each student's name in grades 5 and 6 and build these
relationships came an increased confidence and ability in myself in the classroom.

My TPGP goals during my practicum were to learn better classroom management and
understand assessment on a deeper level. Looking at my classroom management skills, I would
say that I have learned how to effectively manage a classroom and found some techniques to
assist in this area. I learned how to be louder in the classroom, I practiced different call and
response techniques to attain student attention, I recognized inappropriate behavior and
disciplined students when it was necessary, and I learned how to ask for respect from the
students as an authority.

For my assessment goal, the process and experience of completing report cards taught me
how to collect assessment data, how to assess outcome-based learning, and how to build better
rubrics and assignments. I learned the depth and range of assessments and how there are so many
routes to take when building them. I think that both of my goals are career-long initiatives that I
will be constantly evaluating and learning about, but I am happy that I was able to make an
impact on them at this stage.

I was engaged in a few school initiatives during this practicum. One of the biggest was
the PIP project that the other intern teacher and I created named Whimsical Wellness Club. This
club focused on grade 5 students and provided them the opportunity to come and create crafts
and practice wellness strategies once a week with their peers. This was a valuable experience as
it contributed to my management skills (40 students showed up every Wednesday!), gave me
insight on how to run a club, and made me feel happy that we were able to alleviate stress for our
students in a safe space.

Another initiative I engaged in was coaching girls’ basketball at lunch with two other
teachers twice a week for a couple of months. At times, I fell into the role of an observer coach,
but I really valued the opportunity to watch the other coaches' strong management skills, learn
drills and get to spend more time with the grade 6 girls. At the end of basketball, we hosted a
teacher versus students’ game that was so much fun to be a part of.

Overall, I think that this practicum has taught me to not be afraid of failing, how to be
assertive, and started my path to who I am as a professional teacher. I am really looking forward
to my future as a teacher and am excited to keep learning, trying, collaborating, and growing.