Directed Reflection

Describe:  Describe the circumstances, situations, and issues related to the evidence or artifacts in your TWS.   

1.  Did the school have appropriate resources/materials for this unit?  What materials/resources/services did you incorporate?  Discuss any media tools you used and explain how they enhanced learning.

            Scott’s Creek School did have the appropriate resources and materials for this unit as far as technological resources and paper goods, such as construction paper, white paper, and soil.  All other supplies such as seeds, cups, beans, etc. had to be purchased by myself which was expected.  The materials/resources/services that I incorporated into my unit were the use of technology through the use of a PowerPoint presentation.  This occurred in the lesson “See one seed, now see two.”  For this lesson a projector connected to a laptop computer were borrowed from the library.  This media tool enhanced learning by allowing the students to see a visual presentation of what was being presented in the lesson.  Verbal learning styles were also being addressed in this lesson.  I also used construction paper for students to create work samples and to present their ideas.  Allowing students to create a product enhanced student learning because it appealed to kinesthetic learners, but it also gave students a chance to in their own ways show me what they had learned.  Students also used spiral notebooks to keep a journal of their work and thoughts.  White paper was also used for students to create a book that summed up what they had learned throughout the unit.  This process also enhanced student learning by allowing them to explore their own creativity and show their learning in their own way.  Throughout this unit the whiteboard was also used.  It was used to write vocabulary on as I verbally spoke it and to draw diagrams on as I discussed a process or vocabulary word, such as the parts of a seed.  The whiteboard enhanced student learning by giving students a visual way to learn in conjunction with the auditory style of learning. 

2.  What kinds of multiple teaching strategies did you use in your lessons?

            The teaching strategies that were used in this unit were visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  Visual teaching strategies were used in the form of diagrams of processes and vocabulary on the board, written directions on the board, and written vocabulary on the board.  Auditory teaching strategies were also used.  This strategy was mainly used in the form of lecture throughout the lessons of the unit.  Kinesthetic teaching strategies were also used when the students had to go outside and find examples of the characteristics of living things in the “Outdoor Adventure” lesson.  Kinesthetic experiences were also used when students planted their own plants in “Do you have a green thumb” and took care of those plants according to their experiment plans and kept track of their plant’s growth throughout the unit.  Students were also provided with kinesthetic experiences during the bean dissection lesson.  During this lesson they learned about the parts of a seed by dissecting it.  

3.  What strategies did you use to assess student learning?

            The strategies that I used to assess student learning began with a pre-test/post-test.  This strategy helped me to assess student learning by helping me to know what students already knew and helped to measure student learning at the conclusion of the unit.  I also assessed students with checklists in the “Bean Dissection” lesson and in ““Do you have a green thumb.”  Students were marked against a prepared checklist for observed behaviors.  Another strategy I used to assess students was to allow them to create a product that allowed them to be creative while showing me what they had learned during the lesson.  This was the case in the “Life Cycle of a Plant” lesson.  In this lesson student created books that detailed each stage of the life cycle that they learned about throughout the unit.  Students were also assessed through the use of journals.  These journals were graded at the end of the unit.  The journals were mainly a place for the students to record their thoughts and observations during the lessons so that I could look back and see what the student learned throughout the lessons.  Students were also asked to recall what was presented in the lessons through drawings or another product.  These products enabled me to see what the students understood or did not understand.  Rubrics were a big part of gauging this understanding.  Questioning was also a strategy that was used.  Students were not just asked recall questions, but were asked questions that asked for comparisons and generalizations.  When students had trouble, I rephrased.  When a surface-level answer was given, I asked follow-up questions that made the students think deeper for the answer. 

Analyze:  Analyze how the evidence and artifacts you included show the relationship between your teaching practice and the standards in this activity. 

1.  How were the ages/developmental levels of you students reflected in your lessons?  Select the student work samples from one lesson and use them to address this question. 

            The ages and developmental levels of my students were reflected in the “Do you have a green thumb” lesson.  The developmental levels of my students were reflected in this lesson because students were active, but at the same time students had to think about what they were doing.  Students at this age need a chance to make their own choices.  They got this opportunity when they got to choose from a list of what experiment they would pursue when beginning their plant experiments.  Then they got the opportunity to set up their own plant experiment.  This was also an element of choice and freedom.  At this age students are also capable of keeping track of progress.  This lesson required this.  While students at this age are not quite capable of solid, abstract thinking, they are capable of thinking slightly outside of the box.  The students did this when they made inferences about why one plant grew better than the other plant or why their plant did not grow at all.  

2.  How did you link you students’ prior knowledge with the events and experiences of the lessons?

            Students’ prior knowledge was linked with events and experiences of the lessons in a couple of ways.  Students were asked to brainstorm ideas.  For example, in the lesson “Do you have a green thumb?” students were asked what they thought plants needed to stay healthy.  Students’ answers were recorded and discussed as the lesson progressed.  Students’ prior knowledge was also linked with the events and experiences of the lesson by asking students about past experiences in their lives.  This was evident in the lesson “See one seed, now see two.”  Students were asked if they had ever planted a garden with potatoes or strawberries.  This question was linked with how you plant these to grow a new plant, but without seeds. 

3.  How have you taken into account gender and culture in your planning with students?

            Gender and culture were taken into account in my planning, but not as much as it should have been.  Plants and seeds are something that students in a rural community are going to know more about than students who go to school in a urban community, but times are changing.  People are moving in from other places.  In this area though, there is still a big knowledge base of plants and seeds and I played off of that with my questions and my planning throughout this unit.  This is evident by having students plant their own plants and discuss the changes in their plant and having students discuss the various ways plants reproduce, other than seeds.   

Appraise:  Appraise the outcomes and impacts demonstrated through the evidence and/or artifacts included in this activity.

1.  What did you learn about your instructional practices from the unit you taught?

            I learned two really important things about my instructional practices from the unit that I taught.  The first important thing that I learned was about the use of multiple learning styles throughout the teaching of a unit.  I learned just how important these learning styles are.  In the bean part identification diagram questions of the post-assessment and in the questions that asked about the functions of these parts, I believe students did so well on these questions because they had a kinesthetic opportunity to learn about them in the unit through the bean dissection.  Students were given the opportunity to construct their own learning and write this learning in their journals, which brings to light the importance of journaling.  It was here that I learned how useful journals can be.  When students wrote things in their journals, they were more likely to remember them at a later date.  Keeping a journal can also help students to think critically and problem solve when they look back on earlier entries and make conclusions as was done in the “Do you have a green thumb?” lesson when students were asked to make a conclusion about what happened to their plants.  This could also be a visual way of learning.   I also learned why it was important to present directions in more than one learning style.  My instructional practice was to verbally give directions, but I noticed that I would loose most of my students and most of them would be asking me what they needed to do after I had given the directions, I learned that learning styles not only apply to teaching a lesson, but also when giving directions.  I also learned the importance of questions in a teacher’s instructional practice.  Questions can help guide students to the right answer, but if worded correctly can guide students to a deeper way of thinking.  From this unit, I learned that I can ask questions that are higher order questions and that the students can and do respond to these questions. 

2.  How did the use of varied teaching strategies increase your students’ opportunities to work with critical thinking and problem-solving activities?  What different teaching strategies might you try next time? 

            My use of varied teaching strategies did increase my students’ opportunities to work with critical thinking and problem solving activities throughout this unit.  By using varied teaching strategies, such as the hands-on learning in the bean dissection lesson, students were able to learn kinesthetically, as well as auditory and visually, to build their understanding of the parts of the seed and their functions.  This hands-on learning gave students the opportunity to think about each seed part concretely and gave them the opportunity to think critically about what the purpose of the seed parts might be.  In the lesson “What makes a healthy plant?” students were given the kinesthetic opportunity to match the plant parts to what these parts need for the plant to be healthy.  Students then had to think critically about why they made these matches.  The teaching strategies that I would try differently next time to incorporate critical thinking and problem solving into the unit would be to give students hypothetical situations about plants and plant growth and have student solve these. This could go with a couple of the lessons in the unit.  I would also have a chart in the photosynthesis lesson that has the parts labeled, but some missing and students would have to think through the process to find out what was missing. 

3.  What was the most effective lesson and why?  Least effective and why?

            The most effective lesson in this unit was “Bean Dissection.”  I feel that this lesson was the most effective lesson because it was a hands-on lesson and it allowed students to concretely build their own understanding of what the seed parts were and what their functions were.  It was an activity that kept the student’s attention throughout the lesson.  Each minute they were actively engaged in what was going on.  They were interested in what would be the next thing to come off of the seed.  When students are actively engaged and building their own understanding in a lesson, they are gong to be learning.  This learning is evident in the item analysis on the test items that ask students to identify the plant parts.  Percentages on the pre-assessment for these items went from the 20% range to the 70-80% range on the post-assessment. 

            I believe that the least effective lesson was “See one seed, now see two.”  I believe that this lesson was least effective because students were not engaged for the majority of the lesson.  I believe that this is mostly due to the size of the PowerPoint projection.  Students could not see it, therefore, they were not engaged and not inclined to pay attention.  Even though there were a lot of things in the PowerPoint that the students would recognize and be familiar with, they could not see it.  By the time we got to the examples that I brought in, the student’s attention was gone.  This is what made this lesson very ineffective. 

4.  Which media tools have been the most and least effective in your classroom?

            The media tools that have been most effective throughout this unit have been the whiteboard.  The whiteboard has given me the opportunity to present difficult vocabulary to the students as a whole.  It also gave me the opportunity to draw, label, and demonstrate various processes, such as the process of photosynthesis in the lesson “How do plants grow? – Photosynthesis.”  The whiteboard was used in almost every lesson throughout the unit.  I felt that the least effective media tool in this unit was the PowerPoint presentation in “See one seed, now see two”.  While the presentation presented material that third graders would be familiar with, the students did not seem interested during the presentation.  Students could not be engaged despite the connections made to their lives.  The size of the projection from the cart was very small on the screen; this could have been the reason for their lack of engagement and interest.  However, when actual hands-on examples that were shown in the PowerPoint were brought out, student engagement drastically increased. 

Transform:  Explain how the insights you’ve gained from reflection have led to the transformation of your teaching practice.

1.  If you teach this unit again, what instructional and assessment techniques will you change, and why?

            If I were to teach this unit again there are a few things that I would change.  The first thing that I would change would be my use of media.  I would find some posters or other ways to illustrate the points that I am trying to get across, like the process of photosynthesis, other than merely talking about it with the students.  I appealed to the auditory learners, but not enough to the visual learners.  While the whiteboard provided me with the opportunity to illustrate this process, my drawing can only do so much.  I would defiantly change the way that I presented directions.  I would give students a handout with the directions for the activity on it.  I would not merely give verbal directions and leave it at that.  I now feel that students learn best when directions are seen and heard.  I would also give students a list of difficult vocabulary ahead of time so that they would have it for when they encountered it during the unit.  This way they would have seen it multiple times and heard it before any assessment was given.  Hopefully, this would help students become familiar with the vocabulary.  Planning wise, I would think things out better before I actually taught the lesson.  While I know that it is impossible to think of every thin that could happen during a lesson, as a teacher, I now realize that I need to have procedures in place.  If I were to teach this unit again I would think through my lesson, mainly the lesson where students are setting up their own plant experiments, and make sure that procedures for each step of the set-up are well thought out and in place.  I would also use different assessment techniques.  I would not plan such a long test.  I realize that students who have difficulty reading are going to be frustrated with a test that has a lot of scientific words on it and is long.  I would also have more pictures for multiple choice answers, as well as diagrams on the test.  I would also watch the way that I worded questions on test because I now realize that the way that I word questions can have direct impact on how my students perform on the test.