INSTRUCTION PRACTICUM
The following is a summary of key components and resources that will be explored in the INSTRUCTION sessions at York. Please feel free to use the suggestions and resources to support your role as a Mentor Teacher.
TCs benefit greatly from having a window into your thinking as you plan instruction for your students. Thinking aloud during the day, and as you co-teach or co-plan with your TC will provide them with invaluable insights into the process of planning learning for your students.
1. THE LEARNING PROCESS
Talk with your TC about how you plan and deliver your program. How do you facilitate having your students involved in learning for a real purpose? How do you provide time and opportunity for your students to use and practise their skills, concepts & understandings in realistic ways? How do you maintain high expectations for all of your students? How do you foster opportunities for your students to make choices? How do you foster ongoing communication and reflection? How do you provide feedback to your students?
2. KNOWING YOUR STUDENTS
Talk with your candidate about how you gather information about each student. How do you gain insight into how each student perceives and processes information? How are a student's needs identified? How do you accommodate the needs of your students?
For students in their second placement, you can refer to the Class Profile excerpt from Education for All. Talk with your Teacher Candidate about the students in your host classroom. Focus in particular on learning about the socio-affective qualities of the class. Have your TC make note of what he/she learns on the Socio-Affective Profile Page. Discuss the information that is gathered.
3. INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES
Remind your TC that teachers must teach to all types of learners by providing a balance of concrete and conceptual information. New material must be related to student experience and background knowledge. Time must be provided in class to allow students to think about the material being presented and for active student participation. It is also important to demonstrate a logical flow of topics as well as connections to material in other subject areas and everyday experience.
For students in a first practicum placement, you can review the concept of using questions to facilitate learning. Learning begins with questions. These can be stated or implied and can arise through the handling of materials, resources, experiences and written and oral interaction. Teaching is directed toward activating thinking and inquiry in the mind of the learner. Questions probe for further understanding, extended meanings, and new applications. Questions are a key skill for teaching and effective learning.
Explain how you create an environment that fosters students’ questions. How do you ensure that you provide effective wait time for students to respond to questions? How do you use questioning to build on students’ initial responses, to seek more information, clarify thinking or extend the answer to engage the students to think more deeply? Explain how you support student curiosity and thinking. How do you use the inquiry process in your program?
Help your TC learn about questioning by using open and closed questions. Closed questions have a limited number of acceptable responses and can be used to check understanding and recall of facts. Open questions anticipate a wide range of acceptable responses and often require students to demonstrate higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. They have no single correct answer, but rather, encourage students to explore their thinking on a topic or issue.
As you teach, take time at some point to debrief your lessons with your candidate. Explain why you used the instructional strategies that you did. Encourage your TC to begin to use a variety of teaching strategies in their lessons. The teaching strategies checklist can help wih this.
For students in a second placement, ensure that your candidate is using a wide range of instructional strategies. Provide opportunities for your TC to explore new teaching strategies. Allow your TC to provide opportunities for student inquiry. While they may emulate your teaching style in the beginning stages, we encourage TCs to develop teaching in ways that may be both similar and different to your approach. Help them continue to improve their questioning skills. Reinforce the need to plan for effective questioning. Encourage them to take carefully considered risks with their pedagogy.
