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My CSL Reflection

Natasha Burford reflects on her Community Service Learning (CSL) placement at Emily Carr Middle School. She learned new teaching strategies from her associate teacher. She observed how lessons were modified to accommodate various learner needs, due to many students having Individual Education Plans. She also learned the importance of establishing rapport with students to support the classroom environment. Overall, she gained an appreciation for the hard work teachers do, and that maintaining order is challenging. She assisted her associate teacher and saw how group work and discussion helped build student confidence. Engaging with students kept them on task. The CSL experience highlighted how developing relationships with students is key to helping them learn and manage behavior, especially for students with IEPs. Teachers work hard

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160 views2 pages

My CSL Reflection

Natasha Burford reflects on her Community Service Learning (CSL) placement at Emily Carr Middle School. She learned new teaching strategies from her associate teacher. She observed how lessons were modified to accommodate various learner needs, due to many students having Individual Education Plans. She also learned the importance of establishing rapport with students to support the classroom environment. Overall, she gained an appreciation for the hard work teachers do, and that maintaining order is challenging. She assisted her associate teacher and saw how group work and discussion helped build student confidence. Engaging with students kept them on task. The CSL experience highlighted how developing relationships with students is key to helping them learn and manage behavior, especially for students with IEPs. Teachers work hard

Uploaded by

api-506886722
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Natasha Burford

8290191
My CSL Reflection

The past few months in my CSL at Emily Carr Middle School have presented many

learning opportunities as well as a few challenges. I was looking forward to this experience as it

was my first time in a grade eight classroom setting. My previous experiences have been at the

primary or junior level. My time at Emily Carr provided me with the opportunity to learn new

teaching strategies from my associate teacher. I also observed how the teacher was able to

modify her lessons to accommodate the various learner needs in the core French class, due to the

many individual education plans (IEP) in place for those students. And lastly, I learned that

establishing a rapport with these students was an important aspect in the classroom learning

environment. Like any classroom, there will always be ups and downs, I learned it is not always

an easy task for teachers to keep a classroom running smoothly. Overall, I’ve learned a new

appreciation for how hard teachers work.

During my time at this school, I was able to help out my associate teacher during her

lessons and observe how she ran her classroom. I learned how important it is for students to learn

how to collaborate with one another because a lot of lessons were based on group-work or

classroom discussions. I found the students thoroughly enjoyed working in teams on different

projects and it helped them feel more confident in their second language. One of the more recent

assignments they were working on was in pairs for geography class. They were instructed to

create their own island while working together to come up with how it would look and determine

where their island would be located. During this class, they would be given time to work on their

assignment and this gave me the opportunity to engage with the students. I was able to circle the

classroom and make sure the students were staying on task while asking them leading questions
Natasha Burford
8290191
about their work. I learned how useful it is to engage with the students as a teaching strategy

because it keeps them on task and helps to push them to their fullest potential.

The first time I observed the core French class was a bit of a wake-up call in terms of

students with IEPs. The French immersion classrooms don’t tend to have as many IEPs as in the

regular class. I realized quickly how important it is to develop a rapport with the students in

order to know how to better help them with their learning and to maintain classroom

management. In CSL I saw the core French group for only forty minutes a week, and ten of those

minutes were spent trying to calm the classroom down, which is unfortunate because it took

away from their valuable learning time. I also learned how the teacher was able to modify her

lessons for the students by separating them into groups. The teacher had me work separately with

a few students to work on individual tasks. It makes me wonder how difficult it must be for

teachers who do not have extra help in the classroom to support these students.

I think the most important lesson I have learned from my CSL is that teachers work very

hard. Each and everyday teaching is a time spent impacting a student’s life. And something that a

teacher says to a student could impact them for years to come. I learned that not every day is

going to be a good day, For instance, the day that a student set off an “axe bomb” in the locker

bay and the teacher had to send him to the principal’s office (and the entire school smelled like

axe for the rest of the day). Or the day the lesson doesn’t go as planned and the teacher needs to

have a plan B in place. Despite these challenges, I believe I have learned a lot from this CSL

placement and look forward to my future learning opportunities.

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