Reflection of my Teaching Experience

On December 6th, I had the opportunity to teach the lesson I had worked to design for Mr. Pitcock’s 7th grade science class. Because I had spent the entire semester observing this group, I had many ideas swirling around how I wanted to design the lesson, and what I wanted the students to take away from the experience. I had noted the lack of student focused instruction throughout the fall, and it was something by which I was troubled. I feel very strongly that science is a subject in which it is best to engage students with critical and authentic learning experiences where they can investigate and explore. So, in response to this, my first step, after discussing the topic of the lesson with Mr. P, was to design a classroom activity which would get students up out of their seats, and into a learning experience through which they could work together to investigate a topic for themselves.

Mr. P asked if I could design a lesson on waves, he mentioned that they did not do much with this topic currently, but both he and the other 7th grade science teacher Ms. Monroe, had been trying to coordinate a lesson about the subject. I was happy to oblige, and began to draw up a lesson plan in which student would work at lab stations in groups through inquiry to investigate wave properties as well as light and sound waves.

The entire lesson was designed to begin with an activity to get students out of their seats and moving. Movement in a middle level classroom is an important need and I wanted to be certain I accommodated these students inherently in the lesson design (Developmental Need: Movement and Physical Activity).  Because we discussed the importance of non-linguistic models as described by Marzano, I thought it might be effective to engage the students in a kinesthetic activity to begin our study of waves. As Marzano writes, “physical movement associated with specific knowledge generates a mental image of the knowledge in the mind of the learner” (82).  This non-linguistic model would also help the students who are transitioning to abstract thinking (Vatterott 40). Waves and their movement, which can sometimes prove to be a difficult concept to visualize, are much easier to model physically than by drawing. So, I began by moving the 33 students in the class out into the hall to model compression and transverse waves (InTASC 5).

The physical demonstration of the two waves went very well, the students were engaged in the activity and taking part in the model, all while having a good time moving out of the confines of their desks. In looking back at the video of this activity, I think I would have spoken to the students a little more while they were at their desks, and then proceeded to bring them out into the hall. Because the class was so large, the line spanned a decent amount of the hallway ,and I can see now that I lost some attention as we moved into the hall for the activity and I had to wait for the students to quiet down before I began instruction. Had I kept the students corralled in their desks for a few more minutes, I might have been able to more effectively instruct the activity before we started, therefore, preventing the significant talking which ensued as we began the activity.  In order to regain the student’s attention, I informed them I was waiting on them before I began, and they took responsibility for quieting each other down.

After modeling the waves, I called the students into a penguin circle still in the hall. I had hoped that by inviting them into this informal space, I might create a learning environment of a dialogue between the students and I as we reviewed the activity together (InTASC 3). I wanted to show the students I respect them and their learning by standing in the circle with them instead of taking the space in the center which would have displayed teacher focused instruction. Students of this age a very concerned with being shown respect, and being empowered for their own learning (Vatterott 87). While we were in this circle, I questioned the students about the activity and informed them of the upcoming activities in the lab. Here, I did take over in teacher focused instruction because I was detailing specific lab safety practices, and I wanted the student to understand the clear structure and limits of the lesson (Developmental Need: Structure and Clear Limits). Looking back on it now, I think I did a fair job of addressing the safety procedures of the lab activities, but I know I missed a few details–especially concerning the tangling of the slinkies.

Next, I had the students spell out the word “atomic” around the circle-each student taking one letter. This word, which is six letters long, was the way I organized my groups of students. I wanted the laboratory activities to incorporate collaborative learning experiences because, as Marzano discussed, collaborative learning is an excellent practice but groups must be selected carefully (85). I intended for these groups to be haphazard as possible: breaking up some of the students who clumped together in groups naturally, and included the students who would not have been first picks for partners. Middle level learners are highly self-conscious, so through this type of grouping strategy, I had hoped the groups would be formed from students who were similar and different, and could all contribute to the activities in the lab successfully. Although I had wanted the groups to be as small as possible because, as Marzano points out, the best collaborative groups are rather small in size, this class was too large to have groups of smaller than four students (88). So using this informal grouping strategy, I moved the students from the hall to their lab stations (InTASC 7&8).

When we moved into the lab space which I had previously set up with all the tools the students would need to complete the lab activities, I realized the space was a bit too cramped for groups of five. I think had this been my own classroom, I might have had more time to set up the space to allow the groups to spread out. At this point, I regained the students attention (they had gotten a little rowdy) by again reminding them to take responsibility for their learning and that “we could not move on to the fun stuff unless they were finished talking”. I asked each group to nominate within their group a time keeper, a reader, a researcher, and a recorder. I had hoped that this would allow some student autonomy as they would be the ones deciding their roles in the group (Developmental Need: Self Definition). Then I called the readers to come and pick up the packets that each group would need for the lab. Reflecting on this step, I would definitely change my actions here. Instead of giving the instructions to the readers, and in trusting them completely with the direction of the group, I would have instructed the whole class preparing them for what was in the packet, and how they were to go about these activities. While I had wanted to empower the readers to take a leadership role in their groups, I can see now that this did not work and I had to repeat the instructions to each group independently–I did not necessarily do a very good job of setting up the objectives for the lesson for the entire class (Marzano 93).

At this point, I turned the students loose on the activities of the lab. I gave them a 12 minute time period for each station, which turned into 15 minutes, and then turned into me moving the groups along as they finished with one activity. In the future, I think I would like to maintain an organized time limit on stations, by either displaying the time left per station in a more prominent place, or also acting as a time keeper myself and reminding the students.

The students were able to move through the lab with little real issue other than tangling the slinkies. But other than this little hiccup, the activities were all well-suited for the lesson I designed. I floated from group to group throughout the rest of the class, helping students through the follow-up questions, and pushing them for further understanding of the material. At this time, I tried to catch up with what the students already knew about waves, and what they were wondering about, or what they were learning through these activities (Marzano 111). In some cases, I had to practice “wait time” to allow the students to generate the deep thoughtful answers to my questions (Marzano 114). While this took patience on my part, I was rewarded with some great answers from the students which corroborated that they were both learning something, and having fun.

At the end of the stations, we concluded the activity by turning in the lab packets and having a quick formative quiz. I asked the students a few questions in regard to the objectives I had developed for this lesson. Some of the questions were in regard to vocabulary, while others were about practices in the lab and measurements. I would say this was not a very effective closing activity because I had lost the attention of a significant number of students who were too intent on watching the clock count down the last few seconds of the class. I think if I were to redesign my closing activity, I would rather end on an exit slip. Although these may be more work for teachers, I would have had a more concrete answer of where the class stood on learning the concepts (InTASC 6).

Overall, while this lesson was a fun one for me to design and investigate with my students, I would say there are still a few things I could work on in the future to make it more effective. I would change the way I gave instruction, spread out the lab stations a little further, and potentially reduced the size of the groups. I would have also liked to have offered a different type of assessment allowing me to provide more feedback to my students about their activities. I was very proud of the interactive activity at the start of the class, as well as the different lab stations I had designed. I think with a bit of tweaking, this lesson may quickly become a good one which will spring-board students to further investigations.  Mr. P was generous in giving me feedback and pointing out the areas in which I could have more effectively maintained the classes attention. He mentioned that he might be stealing a few of the activities I did in my lesson for his future classes, and I took this as a compliment (InTASC 10).

I would like to conclude with the rationale for why I chose the first 15 minutes of the 90 minute class as my video presentation. I felt this first bit of class time demonstrated my commitment to interactive activities, student focused instruction, and collaborative learning. The clip also shows that I still struggle with maintaining the attention of a large group at times–I often have to pause and rely on them to get their talkative classmates under control.

I enjoyed the opportunity to investigate waves and their properties with Mr. P’s class, I learned so much in observing his work with them over the semester, and I have no doubt these experiences will shape the teacher I will become.

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