Learning is a life long process and the children who will be the future of tomorrow are shaped by the teachers they have growing up. That’s why having smart and capable teachers is essential for the future of any society.
Part of becoming a teacher is academic. Going to university, studying, and learning the material that will be applied to your work. But one of the most important parts of becoming a teacher is gaining hands-on experience. This is why university programs require their students to complete placement programs along side their classroom education.
Accredited teachers invite students to come into their classroom, so that they can observe established teachers in action, get a feel for what their future career will look like, and gain real life learning experience.
Now, these placements aren’t just limited to physical classrooms. With more and more learning taking place online, teachers must adapt to the digital age. Learning how to teach in a virtual setting, to create lessons plans and modules that will help students in a virtual format, is just as important.
Our Student Teachers
At Ontario Virtual School, our Ontario Certified Teachers are dedicated to providing a quality education for all students. Which is why we are happy to spotlight our most recent student teacher Skylar Golem.
She earned her undergraduate Bachelors degree in Kinesiology, with minors in Psychology and Biology, and is currently completing her Bachelor of Education from Wilfrid Laurier University. When she’s not busy studying or working she likes to play and coach hockey, softball, and skating.
Skylar chose OVS as her placement school because she wanted to gain insight into what it’s like to teach at an online school as well as in the private sector. She thought our school would be an excellent learning opportunity to gain better understanding of the differences between in-person and online schooling.
During her time with us she helped to develop an overall course plan, long range plans, and individual lessons. She was able to connect curriculum expectations to the lessons she was developing as well as learned to create forms of assessment and evaluation that corresponded to each lesson.
Due to her inexperience, she thought that teaching online would be quite difficult. However, she found that utilizing the design down approach that OVS practices made the task much easier. She felt she was supported through the entire process and given the tools she needed to be successful.
“I had a very supportive advisor who was readily there to answer any questions. I was walked through each step and given feedback that was both positive and constructive, giving me the opportunity to better myself and learn.”
Skylar said that OVS deepened her understanding of the behind the scenes work that teacher’s do. Having experienced education through the lens of a student for nineteen years, OVS was an excellent platform to get an idea of the care and effort the instructor puts into each lesson.
“I believe that learning online via OVS is an excellent opportunity to deepen one’s knowledge. They offer a large selection of classes and the administration is a wonderful, caring group of individuals who strive to make learning both fun and productive.”
At Ontario Virtual School we want to help everyone learn, including future educators of tomorrow!
