From a very young age, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

I was
told from family members that I would be an excellent teacher from a
young age. I started teaching figures skating when I was in junior high
school. I loved helping children learn new skills. I then started teaching
Red Cross Swimming lessons in Junior High, and I found my passion for
teaching. Teaching swimming lessons for almost ten years have given
me the confidence that I would make a great teacher. I enrolled in the
Bachelor of Science program at UPEI because I love learning about
science, especially biology. I struggled throughout this program and
being able to do oral presentations. My immediate family would see me
directly fight with this. They then started to question my ability to
become a teacher. This lead to the doubt in my mind that I would not
be able to reach my dream of becoming a teacher. Every weekend I
would head to my hometown to teach swimming lessons, and I would
be reminded of how much I loved teaching. Being accepted into the
program was such an accomplishment. The first few presentations
that I had to do in this program were tough. I always had anxiety
medication that I would take throughout my science degree, and I was
still taking them during the first month and a half of the education
program. With the support of my caring professors, they gave me the
encouragement, confidence, and strategies to learn how to give
presentations to my peers. Having said this, I owe it to the education
program for building my oral presentation skills and building upon my
teaching expertise and confidence in front of students.
The education program not only has built upon my teaching and
presentation skills but also how I present myself. I have learned
through this program that when I was giving a presentation that I was
to look professional when doing so. This was more of an unspoken rule
in my cohort, but it was quickly enforced. Having this happen so often
in the Education program I took this experience and applied into my
rapport during my practicum. I was commended for having such a
professional appearance and attitude from my colleagues in my
practicum school. I took pride in the job that I was doing. I enjoyed
getting up and making sure I looked professional for the day ahead.
Having this professional appearance, I was able to gain the
responsibility as well as respect from my colleagues, which made for a
positive experience. I was complimented on my professional
appearance from someone different in the school at least three times a
week. I also tried my very best to carry myself in a professional
manner, respecting my fellow, more experienced colleagues during my
practicum. The education program has also taught me to keep my
professional life and social life separate from each other. With social
media usage today, it can be troublesome, however, after discussing
the importance of having your personally Facebook account settings
locked, as well as any other social media platforms. Always being

cautious of what you are posting, because you are now in the public
eye.
Throughout the education program, we looked at the diverse
learners that we may have the opportunity to teach. Understanding
that all students have their strengths and weakness was a broad
concept that was at first very challenging. Learning throughout the
program about differentiated instruction did not prepare me for
actually differentiated a lesson. It was not until I was in practicum
where I had the opportunity to differentiate a lesson so that all my
students were able to benefit from the lesson that I was giving on any
particular day. This lead to me knowing my students very well, leading
to relationships with them because I needed to know how I could
present material so that they would understand it. For example, when I
was teaching 801 Human Biology, I had 15 males in my class. Of those
15 males, eights of them came from automotive class. I quickly started
to implement lessons that incorporated a lot of hands on work. For
example, the circulatory unit, I brought in modeling clay and students
were able to make arteries and veins, model the heart and blood flow
through the heart. I started to build relationships with my students,
which made it tough to hear some of the difficult situations that they
would share with me. I would take my best step forward in aiding them
in the best way that I could as a pre-service teacher. The biggest thing
was not taking these difficult situations home. Knowing what some of
these students were going home to, or not going home to anything or
anyone, was hard for me to wrap my head around.
I am so thankful that the UPEI Education program had classes
specifically for classroom management and assessment/evaluation.
Having these classes have given me the tools that I need in my toolbox
for my future classes. Assessment and evaluation have taught me how
to assess students accurately, whether it be an in classroom
assessment such as a test or presentation. I also learned how to make
multiple-choice questions for a test correctly. How to construct and use
a rubric properly is something that has been very beneficial. Another
type of assessment that the Education program was Level B
assessment. I enjoyed this course, it was challenging at times, but in
the end, I enjoyed having the level B assessment so I can help
students who may need level B assessment.