Science Lesson 1: Reflection

Overall today's lesson was somewhat successful, however I think it lacked several things. But, positives first. First, I liked the way I opened up the lesson by asking the students what type of behavior they should display during the lesson. That way, they could be responsible for their own behavior and each student knew what to expect. I liked that the technology aspect was included in this lesson; I used an ELMO document camera to complete a worksheet, make a list of students' responses, and show a video from Discovery Education's website. I thought that the video was very age appropriate and presented valuable, simple explanations of plant parts and their functions. The students seemed to become really excited with the arrival of new technology in the room (probably because they are so used to the overhead). At the beginning of the lesson the students were really engaged (probably mostly due to the ELMO), but as the lesson drew on they became more and more restless. Another positive about the lesson was the inclusion of a real plant in order to get students' attention, get them excited about plants, and show them the parts of a plant in an authentic way. I also liked that I compared the parts of plants to the parts that humans have. By showing the students that like humans, plants also have parts that serve specific purposes in order for them to grow and live, students could make meaningful connections between what they already know and new information they are learning. Finally, I liked that I incorporated a graphic organizer into the lesson because it was something that was new to the students and I think they appreciated the change from the norm. I also think it is a good way to organize the students' thoughts, give them practice with writing and penmanship, and allow them to remember the parts of a plant and their functions.

Now, on to the negatives of the lesson (or places that need improvement/modifications). Although the students were engaged at the beginning of the lesson, they lost interest towards the end. I'm not really sure why the students faded off at the end of the lesson, but it may be because the model of the graphic organizer took to long or maybe the fact that the lights were off towards the end of the day made the students tired. While I liked the incorporation of technology into the lesson, the sound on the video did not work well (without speakers) and because of this, the students couldn't really hear and retain the information in the video. Next time I will make sure to bring my portable speakers so that all the students can hear the video clearly. I think the fact that the video was hard to hear impacted the information that the students came away with. Many of the students had questions about what function each plant part performed and I was a little confused by this. I know the video was hard to hear but some of the students wrote down total misconceptions on their graphic organizers. This may be because students were bored and weren't really listening or paying attention during the video or lesson. This could also be attributed to the fact that the video was extremely hard to hear.