I personally believe as a whole it went extremely well. The first day was not as good as the second because we had a lot of information to give to the kids and in my mind we were all a little nervous so we rushed our explanations and probably talked to much. The actual lesson was supposed to be student-directed but our nerves made it seem more teacher-directed. What made it work extremely well was the second day. The first day we were giving them a lot of information and density was pretty new to them so it seemed like they didn’t really get it but the second day when they were allowed to pour the liquids themselves and have a visual representation you could really feel things going well and the kids enjoyed themselves a lot. The minor changes we made were mostly effective because it wasn’t a repetition of something they had done before. Our initial idea was actually being enacted by the other group that went earlier in the week so we decided to focus a lot more on density and gave them more information.
Students met the learning performance by explaining why they thought they had different densities and then by arranging them in some sort of order on the second day. They had a visual representation of their knowledge. The discussion that followed exemplified that they understood the main point that liquids have different densities because of their properties. I would say something that lingered for the ideas they had would be that most of them thought that water was the least dense liquid that was out there. On the worksheet most of them put it as the least dense. I’m not exactly sure why that was and when I asked them the next day before they poured the liquid they said it would be in the middle but didn’t have an explanation why. They more or less changed their minds without reason.
What actually happened when we taught our lesson compared to what was written down was not that different. It really did go smoothly and the only thing I would say that I really expected to be differently was the time. You always hear when you are creating lesson plans that you should have early-finishers and extra things for the students to do which of course is a good thing but if the students are engaged like ours were with the actual lab portion then it seemed like time was short. I would have liked to have more discussion at the end just to clarify a few more things but we made sure that they interpreted the learning performance, which they did, but it is crazy how fast time goes when you are teaching.
I learned a lot about time management and classroom functions firstly. This was really my first time being in charge of a lesson and you don’t really know how to manage a classroom until it really is your own and the truth of it is it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I’m sure I’ll learn more about that the more I progress through the college of education. This really influenced how to create an inquiry-oriented classroom. I truly understand the difference between a FOSS kit and science as inquiry from this experience. While every lesson could have even more inquiry it was apparent that our lesson had a lot more inquiry than the kids are used to because of their level of engagement. It was almost as if they had never had the choice of how to do an experiment like they did with our lesson. The factors that need to be considered most when teaching inquiry is that it has to engage the learner initially and then they have to be able to research it and talk about it and then get a second or third opinion and talk about it again to show they understand. The five features of inquiry are branded in my brain because you can really see it work before your eyes if it is happening and that’s what this experience has taught me.
From what I learned in this experience the only thing I would modify for the first day is more time (preferably a week on density if not more) but on that first day to have something visual so they can put things together or take more time so the explanations have a chance to take hold instead of a lot of information all at once. I would probably use more visual aids such as video resources so they can understand that liquids and objects alike both have different densities over a large spectrum. I would also add a scale to the mix if I had more time because I believe kids should be able to at least calculate some sort of density. It doesn’t have to be challenging but they should be able to show they can thus making that a learning performance.
As far as anything else to address I would say that it is extremely challenging to teach with others and that is another great thing because I could have not done this project without them. This project really teaches you how to effectively collaborate with peers outside of teaching the lesson and inside. Outside it is important to make decisions and I loved my group mates for being vocal and for also being great listeners when I had something to say. Inside of teaching the lesson is interesting because I have a very different teaching style compared to the girls but since we are all laid back it worked great and I also like the aspect of working in a group to understand strengths and weaknesses. There are few projects that I feel make me a better student but this is one of the few.
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