1. What are two specific things you thought about your instruction while watching your video? (Specifically note one that you consider positive and one that you consider an area of needed growth)
a. Why did each of these things catch your attention? b. For those that are positive, why do you think so? c. For those that are areas of needed growth, i. Why do you think so? ii. How might you address this? One thing about my instruction that I noticed I did well was explaining my instructions and expecations to my students. One thing I noticed that I could improve on is making sure students are engaged and on task during independent/partner work time. One thing I try really hard to do is make sure my students know what I expect from them. In third grade, we are trying really hard to hold students accountable for their learning. I make a concious effort to explain every little thing I want them to do and I have learned never to assume a student knows what you want them to do. Because of this, I have gotten in the habit of explaining everything, even if I think they know. I am happy to see that in this lesson, that it looked like my students understood what was expected of them and what I wanted them to do. One thing that caught my attention that I still struggle with, is montioring student engagement. I still get caught up in my teaching that I sometimes do not notice bad behavior if it is not distracting to me. When groups of students work at the low table in the back of the room, they tend to be off task a lot. That table is kind of tucked away and hard for me to monitor so students easily get away with being off task there. 2. Was the standard-based objective met for this lesson? What specific evidence from the video supports your conclusion? I believe the objective was met for this lesson based on student responses on their worksheets. They were able to find similarities and differences between the two texts. When we came back after partner work, students were able to identify multiple similarities and differences between both White House articles. 3. Were all of your students engaged? a. If so, cite specific evidence from the video. b. If not, how do you know they were not engaged? Cite specific evidence from the video. I feel like most students were engaged during the whole group lesson but they got a little off task during partner work. Like mentioned before, the back low table is an area where students get away with being off task. 4. Were you satisfied with the level of student participation? a. If so, why? Cite specific evidence from the video. b. If not, how could you have improved it? I was satisfied with how many students raised there hands to share their responses to the similarities and differences of the articles. One little girl who rarely particpates in whole group lessons asked me if she could share a response. Of course I said yes, and when it came time to answer that question, I made sure to call on her. I am sure that made her feel really good to participate and have the right answer. 5. Were there any classroom management or procedure issues that needed to be addressed during the lesson? Cite specific evidence from the video. a. If so, how were they handled or how should they have been handled? I think in future lessons, the low table will be off limits or limited to just one group being able to work there. When more than one group sits at the table, it becomes too crowded and students start becoming off task. 6. Describe how you planned for and used assessment before, during, and after the lesson. a. Share results of student performance. b. What follow-up was provided after the lesson? Before we started the lesson, I asked students to take out a worksheet they had completed the previous day on comparing and contrasting. They were reluctant to go over it, but I wanted to refresh their memory anyways. As we were going over it, I realized that they were not as good at compare and contrast as they thought they were. I am glad we were able to refresh before starting the new pieces of texts. At the end of the lesson, I had students complete an exit ticket where they told me what they learned, the effort they put in, and challenges they still have on the content. I also implemented a rating scale where they rate themselves from a one to four. Four is understand and can teach it to others and one is do not understand at all. I plan to use this self-assesment strategy in future lessons because of its success.
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FEAPS INTRODUCTION
For this lesson, we did an experiment with cornstarch and water. This was a follow up lesson to a previous introduction lesson on matter. Students learned what matter was and the three states-solid, liquid, and gas. For this lesson in particular, we were focusing on solids and liquids. The interesting thing about mixing cornstarch and water is when you squeeze it, it feels like a solid, but when you let go, it flows like a liquid. REFLECTION This was the one of the first hands-on science lessons we did with students this year. This was also the first time I asked students to complete a lab report with the lesson. This experiment required a lot of pre-planning and setting up. I wanted the lesson to go as smoothly as possible so I pre-portioned out the cornstarch for every student ahead of time while they were at specials. It also helped that this was the last lesson of the day because it was a messy one! I started out the lesson activating students' prior knowledge of matter of what we learned in previous lessons. We then talked about expectations for doing a science experiment and handling materials. I had written on the board "During an experiment, Scientists..." ahead of time so that we could write expectations as a class, but I completely skipped over that and ended up not writing everything on the board. Even though I had prepped materials ahead of time, it was still hectic passing out materials during the experiment and making sure every student was using their materials appropriately. I had students calling out during the whole experiment that they needed more water, or more cornstarch, or they wanted to see if there mixture was the right consistency. I felt like I was all over the place and unable to really activate their thinking. A lot of misbehavior went unnoticed, as well. At 5:52 into the lesson, a little girl got out of her seat and dropped a note on a boys desk as she walked by. Then about a minute later, she walked back and picked up the note that he had responded to. Other students were looking at the camera, dancing, or making faces. ANALYSIS This lesson was extremely overwhelming, but I am glad I had the experience to complete a science experiment. I realized that no matter how much planning you put into a lesson, something will always go wrong or unexpected. The experiment I was following did not give me an exact measurement of water to add to the cornstarch, so I ended up added too much or too little which caused chaos with my students and me having to walk around adding more water or cornstarch to there bowls. Behavior management with my students continues to be an ongoing struggle, but in their defense, this was a cool experiment and I know they were excited. I expected them to be a little crazy, but they had trouble following step by step directions. I asked them to use one finger to touch the cornstarch and I had students putting there whole hands in and making a huge mess. I also realized how difficult it is to balance productive learning while dealing with that chaos. |
AuthorDanyelle Estill Archives
April 2018
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