In my first practicum I taught a unit about sensation and perception in the Psychology 11/12 class. In my first lesson I had students submit a quick write which I used as a pre-assessment to assess biology knowledge and previous psychology knowledge. I had a formative assessment notes assessment that the students completed daily in order to help improve their note taking ability as well as give me feedback about how much material students understood from my teaching. Students would submit their notes daily for a completion mark with notes for improvement and get their feedback the next day. I also had a summative assessment to end my unit. For the summative assessment the students choose to integrate the material learned in the unit to either analyze an existing advertisement individually or create a new advertisement using content taught during the unit. This allowed for students to pick a method that made sense for the students individual needs and learning styles to express learning in the assessment. During my last class I had students answer four questions on post-it notes to give me feedback to continue my own professional development. The students anonymously gave feedback to continue the holistic assessment cycle as it allowed for post assessment of the material and way that the material was taught.
My second practicum fell at the end of May and the start of June. May was Asian Heritage month and Jewish Heritage month. In May 2021 the remains of 215 children were found at a residential school that started the public unearthing of 1800+ unmarked graves of Indigenous children at residential schools, the one year anniversary of this discovery happened during my second practicum in May 2022. June is LGBTQ+ pride month. With all of the cultural awareness opportunities during my practicum I wanted to provide students with an inclusive look at identity. The goal of including identity in my classes was to allow for all students to see themselves represented in the content of the class and to see other lifestyles for better understanding.
In the Humanities 8 class I included current events near the start of every class. In current events we discussed the various months and related stories to topics at a global, provincial, and local level. I wanted students to see the month’s identity topics as more than just a mention, instead, I wanted them to see the relevance of the topics and be able to engage with them. For example, during June we discussed the theft of pride flags in Ontario as theft from a legal standpoint as well as the definition of hate crimes, then we transitioned into discussing the history of Pride month and LGBT+ rights in Canada.
I made efforts to imbed inclusive content into my courses. In Humanities 8, I had a lesson on social classes during the Renaissance and took the chance to include the roles and discrimination of Jewish people during the Renaissance. In the introduction to Renaissance art I discussed the conversation on Renaissance art being influenced by explorers travelling to China. There was a student at the school doing a project about residential schools, so for the one year anniversary of the unearthing of the 215 Indigenous children’s bodies, I opened my class for this student to talk about the residential schools and the anniversary. The student then had my students colour in part of 215 total feathers to be hung up around the school in commemoration.
In my Psychology 12 class I had a unit on the self and personality. In this unit we had a class on race, religion, and culture during Asian Heritage month and Jewish Heritage month. In this class we addressed the importance of race, religion, and culture to gender and sexuality and about how this was relevant because of the heritage months. The unit continued in June when we did a lesson on gender and sexuality where we discussed Pride month and the importance of gender and sexuality in the self. I was glad to get the chance to include identity in the classroom to attempt to make it a more inclusive environment