Educators contribute to the profession.
Throughout my various practicum experiences, I have developed a variety of usable resources for the delivery of curricular content in English and Social Studies. Especially in my first experiences, this was heavily guided by the collaboration/partnership between myself and my first CT. She was extremely helpful in the formulation of my understanding of assessment practices, and resource creation, and we maintain an ongoing collegial friendship still.
The resources I have made, have all been made freely accessible on request by any of my peers that I have participated in the program with. I made sure to offer in various communication platforms, as well as in person when I could (such as when practicums had us at the same school), and have received good feedback from those who have taken me up on my offer. Additionally, I offered access to any of the work I had done to each of my CT’s, so that they could keep anything they enjoyed from my lessons. This practice of free exchange of resource material is something that I would like to promote and continue doing as I continue to develop as a professional.
During my 491 experience, I had a variety of projects which included creative components to them. Because of this, I also challenged myself to source additional materials which could be used by students if they needed them. I wanted to do what I could in order to provide equitable resource pools for students who could not afford to purchase materials themselves, or find time to collect them. Admittedly, my Wife and I are both quite into crafting, and so I was able to bring in a lot of my own materials for students to use. I also was able to source several useful materials from local dollar-stores for very reasonable prices, such as clay, hot glue, etc.
One thing that I am particularly interested in continuing to look into after this practicum is the promotion of community engagement in school crafting needs. One concrete example of this from my 491 practicum, is the connection I made through FaceBook with a local couple who recycle old reading material. Together, they process literal tonnes of content in the form of newspapers, magazines, and books, and I was able to collect roughly 100 pounds of magazines which they were happy to part with, for students to use for collages, and other projects. Moving forward, I want to continue to look at ways to establish connections like that, in potentially ongoing formats so that we as a community can become more connected and focused on the education of our youth.