Practicum Synthesis

This semester I spent 30 hours observing, participating, and instructing during my language arts practicum at Bondurant High School. The experience was definitely eye opening, especially considering that this was my first chance to engage with high school students (I usually work with middle-level students.) There were several instances that forced me to reconsider my assumptions about not only teaching and learning, but also about the nature of high school students in general. Also, there were times when applying my learning from class helped to increase student engagement and yield tangible assessment data. For this synthesis, I will review how and why my assumptions about the nature of high school students changed and detail how I was able to use student writing to increase engagement and provide assessment data. As previously mentioned, I have never worked with high school students in an academic setting. This left me with many prejudices about the nature of the typical high school student. Since I have been becoming specialized in middle-level development, I found myself making assumptions about high school students based on what I already knew about middle-level students. The first mistake I made was assuming that because high school students are older, it is easier for them to deal with abstract thought. When working with middle-level students, I always make sure to begin concretely and transition to

abstract thought. Though my practicum experience I found that high school students often need this same support if they are expected to deal with abstract thought. This was especially true for the literacy classes with struggling readers but was also clearly a need in Advanced Placement English. Several times I had to re-explain things in both settings because I failed to have students start with something tangible. Another assumption that I made about the nature of high school students was that they would be easier to instruct than the typical middle-level student. I assumed that because high school students were older, they would be more attentive, less disruptive, and more engaged during class. This assumption could not have been further from the truth. High school students were still disruptive and inattentive, just in ways that were different from many middle-level students. For example, instead of getting out of their seats and being physically disruptive (like some middle-level students) many of these students remained seated for the entire class but would be very talkative during instruction or work time. On the other end of the spectrum, there were also many students that were inattentive and unwilling to participate. Overall, I didnt see the developmental level of high school students keep them any more engaged than middle-level students. It is still vital in the high school setting that teachers write lesson plans that utilize student interest and have real-world applications to help increase engagement. I learned that being older in and of itself doesnt make one want to learn more

compared to someone that is younger. Working with struggling readers helped challenge me to apply one concept that has been covered in class, writing to learn. I was astounded that in a literacy class, the students did almost no writing. When teaching my lesson on fluency I gave students several chances to write during think-ink-pair-shares and with an exit slip. Some were immediately uncomfortable because they assumed that what they wrote would be graded and assessed for accurate conventions. One student refused to continue writing until she was told how to spell paragraph correctly. She had become so conditioned to have proper spelling, punctuation, etc that this resulted in disequilibrium. It would take a great deal of time with this student before she could become comfortable writing to learn because she needed to know that I was much more interested in her ideas, not her spelling. As was discussed in class, and especially after this experience, I dont think that grading student writing is appropriate in most instances. There is too much apprehension and anxiety that many students experience when writing and grading just compounds this issue. Many students were really excited that they produced a piece of writing that I showed interest in and I think the feedback I provided gave them much more reinforcement than any grade could. Their writing also provided informal assessment data for each student. This practicum experience forced me to reconsider assumptions

that I had about the nature of high school students and apply what I have learned about student writing. In my future class I will make sure to consider what I have learned about the nature of high school students (mainly, that they are not going to be more interested in learning simply because they are older.) I will also make sure that I give students the opportunity to write to learn everyday and give feedback on student writing in lieu of grading.