When you start the second part of your Practicum, they expect more from you and by “they” I am referring to our teacher. The reason why is more expected of you for the second practicum is because you already have a sense of what practicum is and what you have to do, like the activities and the preparation and all that. Since more expected of you, the activities that you have to do are more involved, there’s more to prepare. But I truly believe that this would be more like when you start working in the field, since some schools you have to prepare day-by-day the activities that you are going to do with the children so this is a good sense of what you are going to have to do in a future. Although of course because this is a practicum and not a job, I think there is a little bit more pressure than if it was your job because you have to demonstrate that you know what you are doing and that you are well prepared. In a way I think it is also to show the people you are working with (where your doing the practicum) that you are capable of doing this and that you could be a good asset to their school so in a future they can think of hiring you. So it’s an opportunity in a way to show off what you are capable of – the opportunity that you don’t get once you’re looking for a job since you can only say so much at an interview but you have the opportunity to show what you can do at practicum and they can see you in “action.”
So because of this you have to be well prepared and more organized since there’s much more to do. You need to do more activities at once, not like at first practicum and you need to start right away. So by the second day you can start with some activities and I think if you start right away at the beginning and you can do different activities at the same time. What I mean by at the same time is that in one day you can do maybe an art activity and maybe a science or social activity and so on, and almost every other day you can do a circle because those are the most you have to do.
Of course for this practicum as well, you need the pre-approval of the teacher supervisor of the preschool or childcare you are doing your practicum and once they approve the activities then you can do them with the children. Even though for the second practicum is more work, I seemed to have more confidence because I already knew what I had to do and with the feedback from the first practicum, I was able to work in whatever I needed to improve on.
So because of the practicums, here comes the importance of all the homework done throughout the year. The more and the better homework you do, the more resources you will have for your practicum and the easier will be implementing the activities in the classroom.
So when you keep this in mind, I think you would have a better understanding why you have to do all you have to do.
Check out a video of Early Childhood Educators career.
