Co-op experience

I did Co-op last year at Crescent Town Elementary School as a Teacher’s assistant and I actually miss it a lot. The most significant part of my Cooperative Education placement that I thought I learnt and would have the biggest impact on me was learning to communicate with the kids. By communicating, I mean not only teaching them lessons but also getting to know different types of perspective they have, how they act on certain conditions and how to handle them by communicating in a certain way. It will definitely help me in the future in the teaching field, because it helped me to become confident of what i was teaching them or gave instructions to and I am not as shy anymore compared to how i used to be before I started working in this placement. I definitely gained lots of skills, but the most important ones I think I gained would be communication, problem solving, and motivational skills. I only learnt how to solve problems when I got to know all of the students and what they like or dislike. Problem solving can be anything, if two kids are fighting over a game to play, I would have to come up with a decision where they could both play it fairly and that way none of them would feel as if they are being neglected. Last but not least being motive and being able to keep the children intellectually stimulated is important. I have seen from what my supervisor does to keep them stimulated all the time, such as games, concepts of phonics, reading, vocabulary, music, science, well as assisting in the development of their social skills through fun activities in small groups. As i got to see how it all works to keep them intellectually stimulated, I began to also use films, books, music, games, artwork, computers and other tools to teach kindergarten children basic skills. Children learn through interactive activities such as rhyming games, storytelling and acting games. So far, I know for a fact that handling bunch of children especially the ages of 4 to 5 all by your self is very hard. Therefore I would still like to be a teacher but for a higher grade where it’s more of teaching to the class than hands on and activities. If I have no assistant in for my career, personally I don’t think I would be able to handle so many responsibilities with no extra support. My supervisor gets lots of help not only from me, but also other helpers in the class so it is a bit easier for her to handle. As a result of my placement I am very excited to put additional experience in my exit resume.