Orientation As A Block 5

Wow, it has officially been one year since I have started my journey in the Education program at UNBC. Today we ran orientation for the Block 1 student’s and it feels like just yesterday, I was meeting last year’s block 5’s, asking as many questions as I could for what the next year and a half would look like. My time in the education program has gone by so fast and I have learned so much, and today validated how much I have learned and was able to share and answer the incoming student’s questions, the same questions I had just a year ago. 

We all knew at the beginning of the program that one day we would lead the orientation for the next group of future teachers. It felt so exciting and, also sad that it was finally our tie to pass the torch on to the next group of future educators. We had our summer course to prep and plan for today. I was so excited for our station idea and the group of people I got to work with. We knew when planning our station, that we wanted something meaningful and practical for a teacher. Our group thought about various ideas, and we ended up deciding on making lanyard for the block 1’s future practicum experiences and something they could take with them as an early year educator after the program is complete. We got to lead a “practice” lesson with our block 5 class and we all got to walk away with a lanyard that represented our individuality and could take it with us for our final ten week practicum. After our trial run through making the lanyard with the block 5’s, it was time to lead orientation for the block 1’s. we had so much fun connecting with the incoming students. They all expressed how much they loved the idea of making a lanyard and we had so much fun answering their questions and being someone that they could turn to if they ever needed help. The lanyard represented something that was meaningful to our group, as on our very first practicum, we were given name tags which showed the schools we were teacher candidates at UNBC. These name tags went with us throughout our education program and we wanted something that we could wear to show another important milestone in our education experience with UNBC.