My #oneword2020 was Mindfulness. When I look back at my blog post from before my practicum, I feel that although this was a reasonable goal, it was also naïve. This goal was set before getting to know my students and understanding what they really needed. I don’t think this goal is completely off base, however it’s less significant than the goals that came up throughout my practicum. Mindfulness is something that will always apply to all situations of education but has also become less of a goal as I strive for deeper and more meaningful goals. In a sense you could say I have achieved my goal of mindfulness when I became mindful about the goals I was setting during practicum. I created the goals of achieving meaningful differentiation throughout my lessons and on a daily basis, mindful assessment practices that would allow me to meaningfully communicate student learning, and instilling a sense of mindfulness in students.
My practice of differentiation was largely implemented into the four core subjects: Social Studies, Science, Mathematics, and Language Arts. Of course, differentiation was applied into all other subjects, but it was more of a natural process. For the 4 core subjects I had to be intentional in my differentiation every single day by creating literacy groups, math groups, and group work during content heavy subjects like Science and Social Studies. 
Literacy groups were split up based on reading level and math groups were based on levels of mathematical understanding. Group work completed in Social Studies and Science included predetermined groups that included a range of abilities in reading and writing. The purpose for this was that the students who are constantly able to extend their learning with language arts skills and processes would be able to lead and collaborate with the students who needed extra support. This collaboration would encourage all members to achieve the same content with peer support. The groups in Science and Social Studies also encouraged social interaction with all members of the classroom regardless of learning abilities and provided a different group to work with.
My assessment practices evolved over time and I learned a great deal throughout this practicum. My biggest takeaway from this practicum was how important Formative Assessment really is for student success. I learned about the impact that a single point rubric could have by encouraging a growth mindset in students that is sometimes limited by a traditional rubric. I think that understanding the students that can feel limited or overwhelmed by traditional rubrics is very important. I had a few students in my practicum that would take one look at a traditional rubric and refuse to even consider it because of how many words were on a single page. The single point rubric would provide students with a simple rubric template to complete a self reflection. The single point rubric also allows students to consider both what they are working on and what they have done really well on therefor encouraging students to push themselves farther.
As far as direct mindfulness is concerned, I tried to implement this in the most organic format possible. I was consistently reminding students to be aware and focus on all aspects of every learning situation.
I was often finding myself reminding students to slow their work down and to pay attention to all steps in each process at school. This would often bring about some reflection once students finished the task, that by slowing down the process, they found themselves creating and completing higher quality work. We also studied yoga and self reflection in gym class that included mindfulness. I used indigenous yoga cards to help guide students in their practice of yoga and self reflection. Students would create a sequence using the different yoga cards and their poses. After physically completing the 
yoga sequence moves, students were required to flip the final card over and communicate their reflection with their yoga partner. Along with the yoga gym class, we also listened to a few recordings from Katie Marren’s SoundCloud recordings (which I have linked to my Mindfulness tab on this ePortfolio) that are focused on student mindfulness. As a class we discussed the importance of taking time to slow down and reflect on a daily basis. By introducing the recordings to students I was able to provide them with a tool to aid self reflection practices.
As an educator I worked hard on being mindful throughout each day by taking in every moment of my practicum. I worked hard to be in the moment as much as possible without overwhelming myself with practicum stress. Every day I would take some time to reflect upon each lesson both throughout the day and at the end of the day. I would discuss what went well and what could have used improvement with my coaching teacher as well as where I was going forward. I learned a lot about self care and the importance of taking a step away from teaching occasionally to maintain my ability to be my best self as an educator. Each criticism that I received I would take with a grain of salt and evaluated what would work best for me with my pedagogical approach to educating. This practicum is where I have grown the most and transformed from student to educator. By practicing mindfulness each and every day I was able to take part in every advantage and benefit provided to me through this practicum.
If I were to go back and have the option to change my #oneword2020 I would not change it. Mindfulness allowed me to progress to where I am today as an educator. If I were to change anything about my choice, it would be to keep more of an open mind and not limit myself to what I thought was mindfulness in the first place. As I progressed throughout my practicum the ways of educating and learning were heavily influenced by mindfulness. By promising to myself to be mindful throughout this practicum I allowed myself to slow down and reflect throughout the experience to be the best educator I could be.
