Themes of Teaching
By Alana McEvoy (10003183)
This year embarks my journey for my Semester 3 practicum. I was placed at
William Aberhart High School. By the time the end of August rolled around, I started to get excited for this school year. It is my final year, my last journey before I graduate and possibly start my own career being a physical education teacher. Days before my first day created me to be on an emotional rollercoaster filled with uncertainty thoughts and feelings. I do not know the challenges that this semester will bring to me, all I know is that I am entering a school that I am familiar with. At first you think it is great, going into a school that I have been coaching at for five years and graduated from. I am familiar with the staff and the way the school has been run; however, there have been a lot of changes to the school since it is under a new principal and head PE staff. My thoughts soon changed. I mean, I graduated from this school; I need to make a good impression,
What if I am not good enough? What if I disappoint the staff? I had high expectations for myself and I knew this journey wasn’t going to be a stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon. There were going to be obstacles and challenges that I have to find the strength to overcome, but I was ready for my “experience of being immersed in the field.”
Within the first couple days, I started “establishing productive pedagogical relationships with students.” The first day consisted of outlining what the class entails as well as how much the PE staff loves their jobs. The number one thing that my partner teachers kept telling me at the beginning of the semester was that I needed to get my students to “buy in” to what I was teaching. This comment was in countless lesson plan

reflections and journal entries. It wasn’t anything negative, I just had to keep working in order to get my students to trust me and build up that rapport to make effective and creative lessons. In my opinion, it is easy to develop professional relationships with your students due to the fact that PE enables a communication and social atmosphere. You are consistently engaged with your students by participating in activities or by giving them feedback from their skills or effort in class. My PE10 class was a typical class of 14-
15 year olds. They are entering a new school that they all face with new challenges as in relationships, schoolwork and jobs. All entitles to manage time, while still living life. I tried my best efforts to get this class to loosen up and get away from the image of having to “be cool” in my class. On countless occasions, I would dress up for my class depending on the unit that I taught. The first unit I dressed up in was tennis. This was my first time teaching this unit, so I had to do some endless research on form and rules.
To my surprise, my students thought that what I was wearing was my normal attire. I had to tell them that I dressed up for them. It was complete with sport skirt, sweat bands and grunting noises. After my first lesson I reflected that the students don’t know me that well, so it was expected that they thought I was wearing my normal clothes. The next unit that I taught in which an opportunity arose for me to dress up was football and finally archery. One day after an archery unit, I had a student come up to me and ask why do I like dressing up so much? I mean this unit I looked goofy, I was dressed up like
Robin Hood. I simply replied that when I dress up, I get to see all my students smile and laugh because they are simply laughing at me. It then creates a sense of equality among the students. I am the one who looks strange and act strange. It just shows that anyone

else in my class isn’t that different, I mean you don’t see a number of students in tights and a funky looking hat with a feather? The next reason that I told my fellow student was that I get to talk to students who don’t normally talk to me. I used him as an example, saying that would you have come up to talk to me if I didn’t dress up like this?
He replies, “You have a point, I probably wouldn’t have this conversation with you.” It didn’t take me long to start creating relationships with my students. I dove straight into it and was enjoying my time participating in my activities to get students to engage more into what I was teaching. A month into the Semester, an incident happened that was going to change my perspective on my teaching, it is something that I did not expect to happen... I broke my clavicle.
On October 21, 2011, I was participating in a Varisty rugby game versus the
University of Alberta. It was our first year hosting and participating in the West playoffs known as Can West. Twenty minutes into the game, an opponent landed on me while I was on the ground. The force that she exerted on my body caused my right clavicle to give. The noise echoed in the pile of players and my instant reaction was shock. There isn’t any treatment that you can do with a broken clavicle. Basically, the doctor confirms with you the extent of the injury and tells you to stay off it for six weeks. There is no effective way to cast the injury. I had to endure the pain of the break for countless weeks after the injury had happened. The clavicle is an irregular bone, it is a stabilizing bone that muscles attach to. It is extremely painful to break. You never realize the use the clavicle has in any movement until you break it. I couldn’t write, whistle or run.

The rest of the weekend caused me to debate about my practicum experience. How was this injury going to affect my teaching? I couldn’t participate in activities anymore, will this change my philosophy? Am I going to have to develop new teaching strategies and management skills with my classes?
The first area that goes with teaching that I worked on was lesson planning. I needed to make my lessons more in depth and well rounded. This included thinking about management skills. Since I was injured, I needed to be effective in communicating what I wanted to be done. I had to rely more on my students. This caused me to give them more responsibilities. As the semester progressed, I got better at lesson planning. I was more efficient with my time. I used my prep to plan what I was going to do for the rest of the week. I also used my prep time to get ready for my next class. I was able to set up some activities or make equipment more accessible for the students so they could set things up. Another key teaching point that my partner teachers told me was that you can never be over-prepared for a class. Use all the time you can to prep before your lessons. This allows you to feel more comfortable and you know what to expect within your lesson. If you don’t prep you will be chaotic and flustered, your students will notice it and therefore won’t have fun. It all starts with you prepping for your class, if it is done correctly the class will run smoothly, if you ignore it, that class will spiral downhill and the lesson will go on forever. I took her advice and did my best in being prepared for my class. For the majority, my lessons were starting to run smoothly near the end of the semester. My students gave me their outmost respects and we all had fun. There was just a couple times that I had trouble engaging my PE20 class in what we

were doing. Typically, when my PE20 class was on campus we did dodgeball type games.
One day I decided to ignore the dodgeball type games and add games of relays and class competition. At first doing the relays, the students were completing it, but they weren’t fully engaged. As soon as I went to the whiteboard and starting checking points off the focus on the task at hand increased tenfold. Once the class ended, I was able to reflect on my lesson and it instantly made me think of my case class. One group presented on classroom competition and is it beneficial or not. In my response I say, “ Classroom competition is very beneficial if it is lead properly. Bateman (n.d.) states that competition in the classroom is just another way to motivate students to succeed. It works for the majority of the students (boys more than girls), but it also depends on the type of students you have. My PE20 class has a lot of guys and very little girls, so the competition really brought the lesson to life. Now, the downside was the scoring eventually got out of hand, but the next day I gave everyone a treat, so they were all winners. Overall, my planning allowed me to do creative and engaging lessons. I taught different activities within the gym, but also got to experience with technology and teach in a classroom situation with my sports performance class. My partner teacher and I agree that this area of my teaching has improved a lot and you can see it when I teach.
My classes run smoothly and I don’t get all frantic and chaotic. I am relaxed and easy going, which is how I like to be.
My practicum wasn’t always easy going. There were times were it was stressful and very hard. I mean the student-teacher aspect demands a lot. The point is to experience what a teacher experiences. While this is going on, I am also trying to be a

student. I am trying to be an elite varsity athlete and trying to be an outstanding teacher. All these stressed definetly got to me in the middle of November. You can tell that burnout was starting to happen. I started to be immersed five days a week in my practicum and just finished completing all the university requirements of my papers.
There were points in my teachings that I was just going through the motions, I ended up doing the same types of warm-ups with all my classes and I wasn’t changing much between them. This was the point where my partner teacher pushed me, much like my coaches would push me to improve. It was emotionally hard and difficult, but I don’t wilt away when the sun goes down, I am an athlete, I know these types of pressure.
Instead, I bounced back. Once the week ended where I received this criticism, I went home and I studied. I did research and the whole weekend was dedicated to teaching. I was lesson planning well in advance and doing the best I can to show my partner teacher that I am fully capable of achieving whatever I want. Later I realized that is what she wanted me to do all along. She wanted to show me that I am fully capable of doing great things if I keep my mindset. Kelly then continued saying that many teachers are afraid to do anything different, they are afraid of change. This made me think of a book I read in Semester 1 called Meditations of Anselam: Letters to an Elder Teacher. The book was about a couple of young teachers looking for advice from an older teacher. One of the quote was that “Many teachers are afraid to change, afraid to be open, afraid to solicit criticism, afraid to loosen up”. Kelly said, “That no matter what I take from this practicum experience, just realize that you don’t want to be afraid of anything, or afraid to try something new. Continue to push yourself and you’ll be a great teacher.” This was

probably the hardest thing I had to go through in any of my practicum’s. But because I was able to go through this situation, I also started to “build professional relationships with my partner teachers and PE staff so that we could form a productive learning team.” I looked on the support of fellow PE staff to help me get new ideas for games or how to run certain units. The best thing was that I didn’t necessarily used their ideas. I took into account what they would tell me, but I would also change it to make it my own. The PE staff at Aberhart has a variety of experiences. Some teachers have taught in
Edmonton, others taught mostly in a high school or junior high setting. Regardless, the variety allowed me to create an extensive resource file, it aided my lessons and helped me manage my stress levels. Being a teacher, you are never alone and if you think you are, you aren’t doing it right. You need guidance from fellow employees. That is why there are so many organizational days. Those are the times to get together with other teachers and brainstorm new ideas or fix things that aren’t going well.
Overall, the experiences that I went through on this journey were remarkable. I could write a novel on everything I learned. I learned the value of reflections after a lesson. In order to be a better teacher, you always need to reflect on what you are doing and change things that went well or take note of things that went well. I have never noticed many changes when I am teaching. My other practicum’s were good, but this practicum I have seen my most growth. My lesson plans have flow and passion. I have built up a strong relationship with my partner teachers and other PE staff. I am not afraid to look onto other people for guidance when things get tough. I won’t be afraid to use my relationship with my partner teacher’s in the future if I ever need them. I am

excited to know that I will soon be an Education graduate. I think I am ready for the challenges and obstacles that teaching brings. My charismatic personality and my passion for teaching helps me define who I am as a teacher. I now know that I don’t have to stick with one type of teaching style, multiple styles work for me and I am blessed that I experimented with different styles and know what kind of teacher I want to be. I want to be an outstanding teacher, I want to help children learn about themselves and who they are. I want to impact peoples lives and I KNOW I can do all these things, after all I have a big heart and a willingness to always learn.

References
Bateman, G.M. (n.d). Motivating students for success in the co-gendered inclusion classroom through multiple motivational strategies . Retrieved from http://www.smcm.edu/educationstudies/pdf/rising-tide/volume-2/VOL2article12.pdf on November 5, 2011.
Faculty of Education (2011). Year 2 Handbook. Not published. University of Calgary,
Calgary, AB.
Jones, D.C. (2005). Meditations of Anselam: letters from an elder teacher . Calgary:
Detselig Enterprises.
Kelly Lloyd and Cindy Miller. Practicum partner teachers. William Aberhart High School,
Calgary, AB. In conversation or notes taken from reflections and feedback.