Author: rwightman

This is a ADST lesson plan I have made with the classic “egg drop” as the assignment. I made this lesson plan into a video so I can show off the egg drop itself!

February 23, 2026 – March 13, 2026

From the ending of February to the start of Spring Break in March, I completed my first three-week practicum at Prince Rupert Middle School. My practicum placement was in a grade seven class full of students I know from previous years and taught by my old grade eight French teacher. I found myself very lucky to be placed in the class because the practicum teacher is a very good teacher and a good person. That helped ease a lot of my anxieties. In my practicum I got to teach math and social studies. For math I covered Order of Operations (BEDMAS), this was my most taught class. Socials were different as I only had time to teach it twice. For this class all the grade seven classes are coming up on something they call the “ancient civilization walk.” This is when the grade seven classes all pick and ancient civilization unique to their class like, ancient Japan, Mayan civilization, ancient Greece, and ancient Tsimshian civilization. The students then research and construct models in their classrooms so that the entire school can walk through each room as part of the ancient civilization walk. The class I was in chose ancient Rome, so I taught two classes about Rome and how to properly research online. I had a lot of fun teaching this class with both subjects, but sure enough I found some challenges that I did not expect. 

The first challenge I ran into was space for me to sit and work. My practicum teacher tried to make a spot for me, but in his defence, he has the smallest classroom in the school outside of LST and over twenty years’ worth of supplies filling the room. I ended up having a chair to sit on close to his desk, and if I needed to write anything I would grab a spare textbook to use a hard surface to write on paper. When it came to teaching, I feel I had an easier time than others may have. This is because I have been lucky enough to have worked in schools as an EA for three years and as an uncertified TTOC for four years in this district. This allowed me to know most of the students from years prior, so we are not complete strangers. On top of that my practicum teacher has over twenty years’ experience with teaching so he has incredible control of the room. 

One of my biggest challenges I ran into almost every time I taught was time management. I would find time slipping away faster than expected and often get caught by the bell for lunch. If I did catch the time before the bell, it was usually only a couple minutes before the bell, not leaving a lot of time for a wrap-up and clean up time. Another thing I found challenging was ensuring I spent enough time with each student who needed my help. My practicum teacher let me know in after school meetings that sometimes a student would have their hand up for 5-10 minutes waiting for my help. They would eventually put their hand down before I would notice due to helping other students. Finally, the last major thing I noticed near the end of the practicum was ensuring students knew how to show their work in math. While I feel that I did a good job getting the information across for how to work with order of operations (BEDMAS) I did not realize that the students needed to be taught how to show their work. I would write operations on the front board and have the students follow along. Then I would show them how to solve and show work. What I did not do is make sure they understood how to show their work or why it is important. 

For my Ah-ha moments I feel I could write a 10-page essay on so I will instead limit it to a few that really stuck out. To start off I found myself lucky to be in this classroom as I found the practicum teacher aligns with my view of teaching and with what I am learning in the Bachelor of Education Course. First off, no phones allowed in the classroom, some teachers do allow phones in the room as they see the benefit to them as a tool. Both my practicum teacher and I see them as more of a distraction and he tries to model that by not using his phone at all during class time. If he needs to, he sometimes has a chat with the students on why as a working adult and father, he will need his phone on occasion but will never allow it to get in the way of education. Another thing that surprised me was how he starts every math class. He asks the students to grab these thin whiteboards that have paper inside them. The paper is a times table chart from 0-12 with blank spaces. The students have roughly five minutes to fill in the times tables using recall to ensure that they know their times tables. From what I saw is that some of the students who had a harder time with math would be proud of themselves when they would make more progress on the chart than previous days. I too used these whiteboards at the start of my math lessons and would get the students to flip them over to the blank side to work on BEDMAS. When I would teach order of operations, I would demonstrate a question on the board and have them watch. Then I would ask them to follow along with their white boards and solve the operations as a group. Finally, I would write a question on the board and have them solve it themselves and show me their whiteboards when completed. 

Overall, I had an incredible experience with this practicum. My coaching teacher is incredibly kind while being firm with his class. I learned many new tips and tricks on assessment and classroom management. From whiteboards to recall practices in multiple subjects to how to explicit instruction and time management. This practicum has helped to make me feel that this is indeed the right career for me and I cannot wait for my future practicums. 

Above is a video a made expressing my idealized school. I created the school in Minecraft and recorded a walkthrough/tour of the school.

The video above is a video I created expressing my metaphor for teaching. I chose Lego because it is something I am passionate about and I feel as a teacher showing passion for education is one of the best ways to keep students engaged. It also makes your job as a teacher much more manageable if you love what you do.

The Lego idea stuck with me because it teaches you how to build the set you are working on with explicit instruction. You follow along in the guide book which covers each step with visuals. You do not build half of the set in one page, instead it is usually piece by piece to ensure you understand where the pieces go.

I saw this process as breaking down the information as much as possible to make sure we understand what we are doing. All of the small pieces equate to each bit of knowledge you learn through education slowly building on each other to create something lasting and beautiful.

For my passion inquiry I would like to look into how drama/theatre benefits students. I am curious how the study of scripts and plays affect students learning. I feel that this subject can cover many different subjects such as history and English, while being collaborative and fun for the students. It also gets the students up and moving to fully engage in the learning. I want to look into this as drama and musical theatre was such a pivotal moment in my life that I believe made me a better person.

Hello! My name is Ryan Wightman and I was born on the unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh peoples, also known as Prince George. I lived there for one year and then moved to my mother’s home town of Prince Rupert. Which is the unceded territory of the Ts’msyen and Smalgyax speaking peoples. I have lived in Prince Rupert for most of my life.

I personally was indifferent about school, it wasn’t my favourite but I also did not hate it. It was mostly a good way for me to see friends. I never cared about getting good grades, just enough to pass. I used to be extremely introverted outside of hanging out with friends. I was terrified of things like presenting or reading aloud in class. Especially presenting, my leg used to shake like crazy standing up in front of the class.

It wasn’t until I joined drama class in high school that I began to come out of my shell. I truly believe this is because my drama teacher made such a profound impact on my life. In this class I began to become braver and braver and eventually mustered up the courage to audition for the school musical Beauty and the Beast. I have never sung in front of anyone till this point so I assumed (and hoped) I would get an ensemble role like a fork. Somehow I landed the role of Gaston the villain of the story. This musical change my life, I have never felt so free and myself before this moment. After this I auditioned every year for school musicals and would luckily land lead characters.

After High school I was lost on what I wanted to do for a career. I have a fairly large family in Prince Rupert and they are all trades people. I am not a trades person but because I did not know what else to do I took my first year plumbing coarse just in case. It was during this course I decided I should try and chase my dreams of being an actor and apply for Vancouver Film School. I truly think I only got accepted because my drama teacher wrote an impressive reference letter. I went took two different acting courses at that school both were for active for film, television, and voice roles, a 4-month essentials class and a 1-year intensive. I had a blast at that school despite being incredibly broke due to the expense of the tuition and the cost of living in Vancouver (there are no dorms at VFS, you have to rent a place).

Now, while my dream was to be an actor I chose to move back to Prince Rupert to start saving money again with the goal of going back to Vancouver in the future. That ended up being a good choice as right after I moved home the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With everything being locked down with no end in sight I decided to shift my career path. I thought to myself, who are the most influential people in my life outside of my grandparents. Every single person I could think of were teachers, my drama teacher, choir teacher, English teacher, French teacher, and many acting teachers. This made me realize that the best job for me in a town full of trades is teaching. So, I went back to school at the college in Prince Rupert, and lo and behold I met two more teachers that I will never forget.

I took classes in Rupert for two years and transferred to UNBC in Prince George for two years. During my schooling I started working as an on-call Educational Assistant on days off from school and after university semesters. After school in Prince George I moved back to Prince Rupert to save some money and take online classes. During this time I got extremely lucky and was able to become an uncertified TTOC. This has been by far the best job I have ever had. I have worked at a fish cannery, paper delivery, McDonalds, Safeway, Costco (in Vancouver), Home hardware, and as mentioned before an EA. No matter how bad of a day I might have as a TTOC, it is still better than my best day at any of my other jobs. I also landed a grade 2/3 class for half a year replacing someone on leave. It was a touch class but I never dreaded going back the next day.

I have been working as an uncertified teacher for a couple of years now and I can say it is a job that I truly love. That is why I am incredibly excited and grateful that the UNBC regional BEd is taking place in Prince Rupert, along with Terrace and Quesnel. I cannot wait to get my certification and become a teacher that my students need like my drama teacher, and so many others were to me.

I made a video that better goes into detail about my family history and how they came to Canada. Here is the link to that video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drI0xOgvJY0

Also these are my two boys who have been my emotional rock throughout my schooling Journey!

This is Azriel (aka Azzy), I adopted him in Prince George in 2021. He is a sweet baby angel.

This is Rowan, I adopted him to keep Azzy company in 2025. He can be a psychotic demon, but is usually a sweet angel as well.

They cuddle sometimes!

Educators respect and value the history of First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada and the impact of the past on the present and future. Educators contribute towards truth, reconciliation and healing. Educators foster a deeper understanding of ways of knowing and being, histories, and cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

Educators contribute to the profession.

Educators engage in professional learning.

This standard is one that I feel expresses one of the main reasons I love teaching as a profession. One of my biggest fears in high school was getting a job that I disliked and felt like the standard 9-5 career. I did not want a career that felt stagnant, so teaching is a profession that has variety day to day. That being said if you do not love teaching you could make it feel like a 9-5 if you are unwilling to grow with your profession.

What I love about teaching is if you want to stay a great teacher the learning never stops. If you are constantly open to learning you will enrich the mind and spirit. When you are not learning new things or having new experience, you fall into the trap of time speeding by. Learning and experiencing slows down time and allows you to process new things. When you take professional learning seriously, you equip yourself with better teaching tools and tools to perceive the world around you.

As a teacher it is incredibly important to have a trained and opened mind to stay on top of your career. If your mind is shut off to new learning that will only be a disservice to you and especially to your students.

I have been working in SD52 for seven years now. Three years as a on-call EA and four years as a on call uncertified TTOC. I also worked on a LOP in 2023 from September to December. During my time working I have not had too much trouble teaching the subjects I need to. The only time I could not for the life of me figure out how to teach is when I would substitute in the high school for a high level science or math class. This is why I try to stick to subbing in elementary classes as I find the subjects are easier as a substitute to understand and teach. That is until I taught on my LOP and it dawned on me how much I needed to brush up on. Math was the easiest to teach for me as it was grade 2/3 math and I know many tricks to help remember how to solve equations. The real challenge was literacy, which was something I never truly thought too deeply about.

I started by getting my students to start weekly journals. At the start of the year the grade 3s needed three sentences and the grade 2s needed two sentences. What surprised me is how many students could not write basic words, and what surprised me more was my inability to teach how to spell correctly. Students would ask “why is there an E in that word” to which I would respond “its a silent E.” Which would then be followed with “why is it silent,” and back to me saying “english is weird.” I did not know why there were all of these rules in english that make it difficult to learn and teach.

Now after taking this program I was able to take the “Basics of Decoding and Spelling Instruction” course from the International Dyslexia Association Ontario. This opened my eyes to the complex code that is the English language. Using knowledge from this course I have already been able to apply it in some classes as a substitute. One class I helped three students in a grade 2 class understand how to use the “biting E”, some say the “bossy E” but I found the biting E was more effective. a word like “bite” for example, the E bites the first vowel to make it shout its name “I”.

This is just an example of how taking professional development has improved my ability to teach and enhanced my own learning!

Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.

Before making the choice to become a teacher I went to school for different career paths. My first out of high school was plumbing as it was being offered at my local college and it is a good paying job. After completing my first year plumbing I decided it was not for me and I attempted to pursue one of my passions, acting. I then enrolled in Vancouver Film School for a year and four months for acting in film and television. After this was completed I moved back to Prince Rupert to work and save money to go back to Vancouver to continue pursuing acting. Lucky I moved home because only a few months after doing so the COVID-19 pandemic began and locked everything down. Due to that I decided to continue my other passion of becoming a teacher. I did this by taking the pre-requisite classes at the college and eventually moving to Prince George to take my History major.

During most of this time and after I have been working in School District 52. What I have found is the more I broaden my knowledge the better I am at teaching. My time in plumbing has helped with teaching math to students. My time at VFS has helped to improve my confidence and improv ability and has clearly helped with more drama based education. My time with my history major has made teaching social studies much more rich for the students. I am able to dive into details or hook many with the passion I feel for it. All of these subjects have made me a better educator and I do not plan on stopping. I will continue to broaden my knowledge base to ensure that I can teach the curriculum and other subjects that are useful for the students!