Soil: Lesson 2

Lesson Intro: My co-teacher and I had noticed that in our previous lesson the students seemed to only make observations using their sense of sight. To fix this problem so that the students would think to include all their senses when making observations (except taste of course), we devised a two step intro that would both demonstrate examples of observations using diffrent senses and then have the students attempt to use their diffrent senses to make observations. First, my co-teacher introduced a made up story that would apply the use of observations to a situation that could apply to the student's lives. The story involved my co-teacher finding an object in her garden that she was unfamiliar with. To find out what the object was, she had to use her senses to gather observations. After giving examples of the observations she made, my co-teacher showed the item which was an awkward looking butternut squash. Now that the students had a concrete example to follow, I began to ask them about observations that pertained to the substances we would be studying for the experiment. These observations were written down on charts. Needless to say, by then end of the experiment the students were making all kinds of observations using all their senses. Mission accomplished!

Framework Connections: I actually found that this experiment easily fit into the frameworks. Mainly they just asked for students to be able to do diffrent kinds of observations and make predictions (did this too, but it was assessed at the end of the lesson). They also wanted the studnets to be able to use equipment like hand lenses and stuff, which was a main part of observing the materials with the sense of sight.

Material Management: During the first lesson my co-teacher and I designated certain studnets to be material collectors in hopes of getting some of the studnets a bit more active. However, the other students proved to be way to enthusiastic about the lesson, so it was difficult for the collectors to do their jobs with the interference of the other students. This time around, my co-teacher and I set out all the materials on their grouped desks. I was initailly afraid that they would be too excited about the things on their desks and would begin tampering with the materials. However, with just a little instruction this way proved much more effective than the last. The materials were not touched until it was time to do so, and there was no chaos caused by students trying to manage their materials. Hooray!

Hey! There's crystals in my soil!

My first science lesson went better than even I had expected. I really had no clue going into the lesson about how enthusiastic the students would actually be when observing soil. However, I quickly found the answer to my question as soon as the lesson's experiment began. One of the first things I heard from the students was a yell that carried through the whole room when a student excitedly cried "Whoa! There's crystals in here"! Obviously there were no crystals in the dirt, but the shouts of glee from many of the students was proof that they were actively interested in what they were observing. I also found that the students were exceedingly willing to offer up their thoughts and answers to any of the questions posed by my co-teacher and myself. Although sometimes this can be a bad thing, such as students raising their hands in participation but not thinking of any answers or about the content at hand, the students I was teaching all offered answers that pertained to the content of the lesson.

One thing that I found that was difficult to get through the student's heads was the diffrent types of observations. Before the experiment, my co-teacher and I had demonstrated all the diffrent types of observation (all 5 senses) and how they would be used in the classroom. However, when it came time for the experiment the students may have used most of the appropriate senses to observe, but did not record their observations unless it involved sight. Even when prompted to think about the diffrent things they could write down, or even told that they should write a certain observation down, it seemed that the observations using the sense of sight would be the only ones that the students recorded. A great example of this is when one student explained to me that his dirt was wet to the touch. I told him that was a great observation and that he should record that on his data sheet. However, because it did not pertain to the sense of sight he never recorded his observation. This happened many times with many diffrent students. I think adding a permenant visual cue may aid the students in expanding the use of their senses. This visual cue would probably be a large piece of chart paper with all the diffrent types of observations one can make with their senses. Maybe at certain times I will interject during the experiment to the whole class and ask them if they are using all their senses and recording them, since it does not seems to work well at the individual level.

One thing that I will have to do to improve my end of the lesson is to leave a little more time for practicing the lesson plan with my co-teacher. Although the lesson went well, it would have gone even smoother if the two of us knew exactly who would present what and how much. We both did an equal amount of discussion with thel class, but on certain topics one or the other would have to interject during a discussion which could have causes a little confusion in the students. Luckily the students did not seem to be to thrown of by having two teachers presenting.

Can't wait for the next lesson, I think it will go even better this time!

Excited and Scared

The classroom I am going to be teaching seems like it is full of some really great students. They all seemed very excited about participating in their various classroom activities, and were attentive and responsive to all forms of instruction given by their teacher. This got me excited because it will make it much easier for me to connect with the students if they are already prone to being excited by classroom material. I am also excited that this will be my first time teaching a full group of students, as well as an actual full length lesson. I would say most of my nervousness came from the unknown aspects of the classroom. What would the students be like? Would I be able to present material in a way that actually helps the students? However, there are many things that are helping me to take the right path. Frameworks will provide me with a guideline for teaching materials, and my first visit to the classroom showed me that the students are awesome. So in these regards I would have to say I am more excited than afraid. However, even though I am not afraid, I am definetly anxious. There are no real details that can explain my anxiousness, other than it is to be expected because this will be a "first time" type of event and anything you do for the first time is a bit stressful.