I am in a 3rd grade classroom at Washington
Elementary. I taught my Science lesson on October 22nd and for this
lesson, I let my CT decide what she wanted me to teach and how she wanted me to
teach it. My CT and the other 3rd grade teacher switch every other
week teaching Science and Social Studies. My CT teaches Science and the other 3rd
grade teacher teaches Social Studies. During the week I taught, the students
that I had to teach were the other 3rd grade class. Not having the
students I normally have in my clinical class was somewhat of an obstacle while
teaching, but I managed to pull it off!
I taught my lesson on vertebrates and invertebrates.
First I started with asking the students if they could raise their hand and
tell me what a vertebrate was and what an invertebrate ones. Then, I had the
students come to the board and place the pictures I printed on the correct side
of the T-Chart I created. I used pictures of a fish, turtle, bird, dog, human,
frog, butterfly, star fish, and crab. I chose these specific pictures because I
wanted to make it somewhat tricky for the students to figure out what category
they went in. Next, they built a model backbone made of a pipe cleaner, gummy
life savers, and raw noodles. They filled out a worksheet and self-assessed
after they created the backbone model.
As with any lesson plan implementation there are always
strengths and weaknesses to it, there are so aspects of the lesson that you
would keep the same or change to make the lesson better. When it comes to my
strengths, I was very well prepared and organized. I got all the materials
bought and put into individual Ziploc bags for each student before the day of
the lesson. Another aspect of my lesson that I thought was a strength was the
fact that I had the students answer questions about a real backbone so we could
compare and contrast the difference between their model backbone and a humans
real backbone. The students were able to look back on what we discussed in the
beginning as a reference to see the similarities and differences between their
model and their own backbone.
While looking back at my lesson and looking over what my
CT and I discussed, we both agreed another strength I had while teaching this
lesson was helping the students throughout the lesson and giving students
proper instructions. I gave the students clear instructions to simplify them to
help them understand. I gave directions for the model backbone first and
modeling how to create it, then after all the students were finished I went on
to introduce the worksheet and explained the steps first and hand them repeat
it back. I thought it was beneficial for me to repeat the instructions because
even though these students are 3rd graders, sometimes they don’t
listen and some of the students didn’t. Even though I had all the students
repeat the steps for the backbone and worksheet back to me they didn’t follow
the steps properly, which could also be considered an aspect of weakness on my
part when introducing the lesson.
When it comes to areas that need improvement, there are
definitely a few I can think of. Since I didn’t fully write a lesson plan, I
was somewhat unsure of what my actual objective was for the lesson. As a direct
result of that, I didn’t state what the purpose/objective was in the beginning
of the lesson as well as at the end of the lesson. If I would have done so, the
lesson would have gone more smoothly—the students may not have been as confused
at some parts and I would have been able to know what I should be observing
while the students were working on their models as well as their worksheets. Another aspect I had trouble with and should
be working on throughout implementing lessons is specific praise to individual
students. I think the reason I had trouble with this when my CT observed me was
because I didn’t know any of the students’ names since they were not in my
actual clinical classroom they were part of the other 3rd grade
classroom. So, as a result, I had never really met the students nor did I know
any of their names. In the future, if this ever happens I could ask them to
either put up name cards or go around the room and tell me their name. Another
way I could fix this problem is have them say their name before I help them or
they answer a question. That way when I give specific praises I can say their
name.
As for my
knowledge and understanding of the content, I didn’t know much about this topic
the week before it was presented to me by my CT. I used the teacher manual that
my CT had gotten the lesson plan out of, but I didn’t use everything inside of
the manual. I looked at the information presented and then implemented my
lesson in a more hands-on way. I also did research on different animals that
were vertebrates and invertebrates so I could use a T-Chart, but also so I
could ask the students what other animals/insects they knew of that were either
invertebrates or vertebrates. If I didn’t understand what a vertebrate and an
invertebrate was, I wouldn’t have been able to see if their animals/insect
ideas they shared with the class were correct or incorrect. This would also not
benefit the students’ understanding throughout my lesson.
Throughout my
lesson, I asked guided questions about backbones and their model backbone so I could
make sure the students understood the content being taught. Instead of just
making the model and filling out the worksheet, I created the T-Chart as an
extra hands-on activity to check for the students’ understanding. As a class we
bent and twisted to show that our backbones were just like the models they made
and then I had the students bend their model backbones they made. I did this
because I thought it would be go to relate our models back to a bone that is in
our body and talk about the different parts of the backbone that allow us to
move the way we do.
Overall, I really
enjoyed teaching this Science lesson. I am glad that my CT had me do a hands-on
activity because that is what we have been focusing about a lot in TCH 276 with
Dr. O. This was a great first Science lesson to teach the students because I
was able to create parts of the lesson on my own, but also use the teacher
manual for parts too. It was a great opportunity and I cannot wait to be
implementing more Science lessons. Lastly, I was able to teach this lesson
twice and the second time was with my actual clinical class; my CT had given me
my feedback sheet and I took her suggestions into consideration. Needless to
say, my lesson went much more smoothly the second time around with the students
I am more comfortable with.
Exceeds: Included pictures
-Went Over Word Count
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