On Tuesday, we implemented our Engineering lesson we created a couple of weeks ago. When I thought engineering I thought OH MY! However, teaching engineering to young students is much similar concept than when adults think engineering! My group and I worked very hard to make and effective engaging lesson for the students to do. We used outside resources and brain stormed our ideas to come up with a good lesson. After thinking and eliminating different ideas we thought wouldn't be good, we decided to teach a lesson on floating and sinking.
We had the students work in teams and made it somewhat of a competition to get the students excited and boy were they excited! We ended up having an even number of boys and girls so we did boys against girls and the students were eve more excited about that. Us teacher split up and worked with one group. Brittany and I worked with the 3 boys in our group.The boys were so excited about creating a boat they had some trouble following directions and they all wanted to make their own boat. However, we wanted them to work together to create one boat so Brittany and I provided some guidance when they were confused.
We started by asking the boys what we should use as the base for out boat to help it sink. They didn't seem to understand this concept because all they kept saying was a boat. We guided them and went around to each object asking what object we should use as the base. One boy suggested straws and we agreed so together I helped tape the straws together and then the boys started to get the hang of it. They started adding objects to help it float, but didn't add to many because we told them that if the boat was too heavy it would probably sink. The first boat that the boys made worked and they didn't have to build another one. At this point we told them they were going to add pennies and see how many they could add until the boat sinks. The boys thought this was such a cool idea. They did a great job taking turns to add pennies and counted all together as they added the pennies. We got to 10 pennies and then the girls were ready to compete with us.
We put both boats into the same container of water and added the same amount of pennies to each at the same time. The girls boat started to tip and sink a little so we took it out and stopped adding pennies. I think their boat was able to hold 10 pennies. However, we decided to work as one large group this time and the boys and girls all took turns adding pennies to the boys boat. Everyone worked awesome together and did a great job taking turns! The boat ended up holding 45 pennies and the kids were shocked! They thought it was crazy that the boat they created held that many pennies. All of the children wanted to keep the boats so we made sure it was okay with the teachers first and let her put the boats where she wanted them to be.
I think the children struggled a bit with the concept of this lesson. The had a hard time understanding that we wanted them to work as a group to create one boat instead of work individually. They also seemed to be unsure of the objects that we brought to create the boat. Like we stated in class, in modules, and as we did in the Bag-It activity we could have made this concept more simple. Instead of putting all of the objects we had the students use on the table at once we could lay them out on the ground and introduce each object and how it could or could not help a boat sink. This is breaking down the concept for students to understand better. More simple steps is better than less complex steps when teaching bilingual students. Lastly, if I retaught this lesson, I would put each object in the water to show if that object sank or floated to show the students a visual of what objects may or may not be good to use to create a boat.
As for my goals, I think I am doing a great job getting more comfortable teaching bilingual students and during each lesson I can see myself accommodating the lesson plan as it needs to be to help the students learn better. I like that we are able to re-teach lesson that we already taught to the bilingual students because then I get the opportunity to make the changes needed to make sure my students are learning from the activity.
Overall, I really enjoyed teaching the students this lesson and I think the students enjoyed it as much as we did teaching it. It was a great hands-on activity and kept the students engaged the entire time! I would make the necessary changes before teaching this lesson again, but I will probably teach this in the future. This would work better in a small group lesson to keep it more organized and for assessment purposes as well. If I tried doing this with more than one small group at a time I think it would become an overwhelming experiment and I would want the students to get something out of the lesson instead of being distracted. I remember doing experiments with large groups in middle school and my teacher did the experiment while we watched. When this happened I never payed attention, but when we did small group/partner work while doing an experiment it was much more interesting and I learned much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0SnFCs9z1g
The link is a good YouTube video that we could have showed the students on sinking and floating to help them better understand the concept.
Exceeds:
-Over 500 word count
-Included video
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