Cason Machacek

Week 5- Reflective Journal

At the beginning of this practicum I didnt know if I was going to be able to
endure the demands that Practicum II places on a student teacher. Reflecting now
after week 5, I have found a sense of comfort in my classroom teaching,
management, and strategies at the secondary level. This growth was done through
an ability to continually revamp, reflect, and redesign each and every lesson taught
during my practicum. This reflection will reflect on my professional growth and
development as a teacher in three main areas: Questioning and discussion,
assessment, and finally planning and preparation.

(KSA- #4, #5, #9, and #10)

Creating effective questions for the classroom is something many
experienced teachers can do subconsciously without even knowing. For myself as a
student teacher I found this skill to be one of the toughest to master during my
practicum. Using the experience of my Teacher Associate, he reassured me that it is
indeed a skill that will take time to really perfect. He along with my knowledgeable
University consultant offered some advice that I have put into action in my lesson
plans to strive toward my improvement in the area. This strategy was to physically
write down key essential questions in my lesson plans, to ensure I dont pass over
when I begin teaching the lesson. Using this strategy has allowed me to incorporate
those key questions linking directly to student outcomes into my teaching more
frequently. By incorporating these key questions into your teaching practice, it
provides students with continual relevance behind topic details. It also can lead to

Cason Machacek
useful class discussions. This art will be a strategy I will continue to take forward
into my last week of practicum and through my Professional Semester III.

(KSA- #11)
The second area of growth I experienced in my classroom teaching time, was
the notion of proper and effective assessment devices. As a student teacher we
have a brilliant opportunity to use different modalities of assessment devices to see
which best suit certain performance tasks. Prior to beginning my professional
semester II, I had just a microscope view of different assessment tools. Using the
experience of both my university consultant and teachers associate again I was able
to gain more insightful knowledge on assessment devices in the CTS department.
With CTS being structure quite differently than most traditional classrooms, the
need for differentiated assessment devices is also just as important as choosing the
proper assessment instrument. I experienced growth in my practicum from trying to
incorporate a wide variety of both formative and summative assessment strategies
into each of my daily lessons taught.
(KSAs #1, #3, #6, #9, and #13)
The last key area I would like to reflect on through my practicum experience
is the notion of planning as a professional teacher. Teachers do not get enough
credit for the amount of planning and preparation they put in. This was a huge area
of growth for me as a professional in my practicum II through an ability to use the
resources readily available out there and fine tune them to make your own. Prior to
practicum I was under the notion of belief that you had to re-create this task that
have been implemented for countless years. While I have now found out that this is

Cason Machacek
certainly not the case. You want to keep up to date by fine tuning resources and
tools out there but you need to remember that some of these resources have been
used because they work. Finding ways to make them work for you as a teacher so
that your students can achieve the outcomes and feel success is the proper way to
manage the task of planning and preparation.