Author: rwightman

Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.

During my three week grade 7 practicum I made sure to implement as many as the standards as I could in the short time I had. Before my practicum started I met with my coaching teacher in his classroom to make sure that we were on the same page. Luckily for me, my coaching teacher regularly uses whiteboards in his class which is something I have been wanting to write into my lesson plans. The amazing thing about whiteboards is it allows the entire class to engage with the lesson in a low stakes manner.

I used them for a “I do, we do, you do” lesson with Order of operations (BEDMAS) in math. I would demonstrate a question on the board step by step. Then I would write a new question and have the students follow along step by step with their whiteboards while getting their input on how to solve the operations. After I would write questions on the board and have them work through it independently on their whiteboards. After a few minutes I would ask them to show their boards to the front of the class. This way I can see everyone’s answer without calling anyone out for being incorrect. I found that some of the more shy students were more willing to participate in this manner rather than being called on.

Throughout my three weeks with this class I used this type of formative assessment as much as possible. What I found is all students engaged with the lessons and were not scared to participate. This style of assessment helps to create an environment that aids the students in feeling safe and not dreading coming to class.

Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families and communities in schools.

Back in 2023 I was working on a Letter of Permission in a grade 2/3 class. Before this I worked for about a year as a on call TTOC, and 3 years as an on-call EA. none of that experience prepared me for my first class however. I found this job very challenging, not so much with the content of the curriculum, but how to manage the class. I will admit that my class was very loud and wild at times. Another thing I was worried for was working with parents. It was something I had never done before and I felt like I would come off very unprofessional. However, due to certain circumstances I had to talk to a few parents. To my surprise all of them were amazing and made my job easier!

One parent in particular went out of their way to meet with me after class to give me pointers on their child’s behaviour. Some of the pointers worked like a charm and made the student feel more comfortable around me. Because of this I made sure to at least briefly chat with the parent after class almost everyday. Another parent met with me and the principle about their child’s behaviour. Over the next month and a half of meetings we finalized on the student going home after lunch as one of the parents would be home at that time. I would make sure the student had enough meaningful work to do in the afternoon and in turn the student was trying their best in the morning. Even though this child would go home in the afternoon the student was doing better in class and the parent was happier.

I have more stories like the two mentioned above but the main point is that working with parents made my job much easier. Not only that, it helped the parents out a lot and eased their anxieties about their children’s education and behaviour’s in school. Finally, I feel it helped the students have a better education in my class.

Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.

Educators act ethically and maintain the integrity, credibility and reputation of the profession.

Educators value the success of all students. Educators care for students and act in their best interests.

I have always enjoyed being a student throughout my life. While I was in school, I did not have a clue what kind of job I would like to have in the future. The closest I could think of was an actor, which I did attempt to pursue just before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a mix of how expensive it was to try and live in Vancouver and struggling with the pandemic changed my life path. I moved back to Prince Rupert and decided to go back to school for my “backup” career path, teaching. I chose that as my backup because so many teachers have made a long-lasting impression on me, school is one of my comfort places as it makes me feel youthful, and yes, I really like having summers off. Now I thought that after 5 years of working in schools and taking classes, I would have a pretty good idea of what makes an effective teacher, but after only about a month of taking the Regional B.Ed. course I feel like my entire perspective has been flipped. There have already been so many eye-opening lectures, videos, and web-conferences.

One of the lessons that really blew my mind is the input output lesson (Horvath, 2023). I have spent my entire school life, including my working life, believing that all students learn differently. Which is one of the things that stressed me out about the job, how am I supposed to individually teach every student to ensure they are learning as much as possible? Especially in a district that has many students in classrooms and a small number of supporting workers. However, watching the video and hearing the speaker say, “all students learn the same.” (Horvath, 2023) was incredibly jarring, but so good to hear. Breaking it down into the two parts, input and output does make a lot of sense. Everyone has the same output, but the input may be different. This is also supported by something that was mentioned in class, “if kids are not similar, we would not be able to teach in a classroom” (Raymond, 2025). I feel this has helped change my perspective on how kids learn in a classroom from my previous belief that all students need more one on one support.

Another eye-opening lesson was the two POPEY webinars hosted by Zach Groshell. Before this lesson I, like many others, did not know how to handle low attention spans for students. After Zach’s lesson I see now that low attention spans are not a problem, it is actually our working memory (Groshell, 2025). Everyone’s working memory works at different paces, which is why it may seem as if some kids have lower attention spans. The working memory is a bottleneck that can only take in so much information at once. If you bombard a student with too much information at once it will not fit into the bottleneck. To effectively get information into a student’s working memory is to break it down into its smallest, most basic pieces. Starting at these steps allows the working memory to process and add that information to the long-term memory where the student no longer needs to use their brains processing power to think about the basic steps down the road (Groshell, 2025). I was teaching a grade 2-3 class in 2023; it was my first official class. Being an uncertified TTOC I did not know how to teach certain subjects too well, of course I tried my best with the knowledge I had. What I found in that class was that some students struggled with grade 1 level math, and most of it came down to them struggling to write the numbers correctly. I see now through the POPEY webinar that the reason for that is the students did not have the process of writing the numbers broken down for them. They need that essential step to be able to move on to working on the equation problems.

The POPEY webinars had so much mind-blowing information in them, I feel that they need to be rewatched multiple times to understand all of it. Another lesson in them challenged the commonly used hands up method used in school (Groshell, 2025). This is something I too am guilty of using in my classroom. I would ask for hands whenever I had a question for the students, and of course the same three students would always put their hands up. If I tried to get other students to raise their hands, they usually would not know what we were doing in the first place. I found that this method on hands-up led to many students feeling unintelligent because they never knew the answers. Zach Groshell opened my eyes to the problems of hands-up and offered a much better alternative. One of the alternatives is having the students use whiteboards to answer questions. They all put up their whiteboards at the same time so that the teacher can see if the whole class is understanding or if they need to dive deeper into the topic. This is a fantastic way to engage the entire class (Groshell, 2025). I have witnessed this firsthand with a teacher here in Prince Rupert. I was working as an Educational Assistant and went into the classroom. The teacher was teaching math and had her class use whiteboards to answer questions she wrote on the front board. If the class were getting the wrong answers, she would do the question with them. If they still were not getting it, she would break down the question into simpler steps. It was fascinating to watch but I never grasped what made her class so effective. I see now it is because she was able to engage her entire class without singling out any student.

I feel incredibly lucky that I can take the Regional B.Ed. program in my hometown of Prince Rupert. I feel that I am learning so much about how to be an effective teacher and we are only at the beginning of the program. There is so much I am excited to learn about like Indigenous ways of learning. Which is a subject I am mostly ignorant about, but I know will add valuable new perspectives that will aid me in my future career. I want to be a teacher that can guide all my students toward success, not just a small few. I feel if I can take this knowledge and make sure, I apply it in my future classes I will be fantastic teacher!

References

Groshell, Z. (2025, September 16 & 23). The Power of Explanations & Explicit Teaching [PowerPoint]. POPEY.

Jared Cooney Horvath. (2023, December 29) All People Learn The Same Way: The Most Unnecessarily Controversial Statement [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIO08oUNPUo.

Raymond, M. (2025) People The Earth [PowerPoint]. https://www.canva.com/design/DAFuvpRg-9o/yRLkdCwKsXYplKG6jISCUQ/edit.