EDUC 370 – Three-Week Practicum
During the beginning of summer 2019, I completed EDUC 370, which was my three-week practicum. The practicum is one small step towards my teaching licensure and is basically a smaller version of student teaching, which I will do spring semester of my senior year.
The practicum consisted of observing and teaching in a classroom setting. I was placed at Liberty Middle School in Hanover County. I went to a different middle school in the same county, so it was interesting to see the differences between both the different schools and how middle school has changed since I was last in it.
I spent the three weeks working with a sixth-grade language arts class and I absolutely loved it! When I initially started the process, I filled out paperwork saying I didn’t want to be out as far as the Montpelier area AND I only wanted high school, no middle school placements.
Flashforward to after the experience, and I’m honestly grateful that I ended up exactly where I didn’t want to be originally. The students taught me so much about their age group and myself as a teacher. I now know that I have the ability to actually teach for an entire day, let alone weeks at a time. This experience also encouraged me that I have what it takes to be authoritative in a teacher’s role and not just a student’s.
Because practicum is still technically a course towards the education portion of my degree, I had a university supervisor that I turned journals into every day. That supervisor was Tammy Jones and she was absolutely wonderful. She was flexible with times, lesson plans, and my journal entries.
The journal entries we had to turn in included daily reflections about what went well or didn’t, what we’d improve on, and things that were expected or unexpected in the classroom that day.
I also had to write five specific journals in addition to the 13 general ones. These specific journals dealt with topics like curriculum resources, behavioral management, assessments on my cooperating teacher and myself, as well as an overall reflection on the experience.
I have included my specific journal on curriculum resources below!
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