Analysis of a Science Lesson Every teacher I have observed has had a different method of recording lessons, and many different delivery strategies. Often, teachers can simply note the day's task and complete the rest during class time. This kind of lesson planning comes with many years of experience. However, even the most experienced teacher will have aspects of their lesson that worked well and others that did not. Typically, these aspects change based on the student body. Some students excel in group learning, while others struggle with simple social tasks, making group work impossible. The key to a good lesson is knowing your students and recognizing when things need to be adjusted or changed throughout the lesson. I observed an 80-minute science class that involved class discussion and group work.
The students were engaged in what they were doing and were able to work with their partners to conduct the experiment, collect data, and represent it with a model or poster. However, the class discussion that was supposed to take place during the 'Do Now' fell apart. The teacher attempted to facilitate and model what a "Growing Ideas" discussion looked like, but only two students participated. At this point, the teacher suggested that the students looked sleepy and needed to stretch. Although this was probably the right move for the class period, in instances where a discussion is being facilitated, there are several things that can be done to get the students engaged. One approach could be to pose more questions to the students. However, if the discussion is not progressing, it may be necessary to abandon it and move on. In situations like this, it may be helpful to incorporate movement into the lesson and then try the discussion again.
In the play “The Piano Lesson”, August Wilson utilizes two main characters Boy Willie and Berniece to present the theme of gender roles and sexual politics. The reaction of the siblings toward the piano illustrates the role of a man and woman during the conflict. Throughout the entire play they argue over the piano and struggle with an underlying problem of choosing to honor their ancestors or leaving the family’s history in the past. Boy Willie wants to show respect to his ancestors by selling the piano to continue the Charles’s family legacy. He wants to buy Sutter’s land because Sutter was a white slave master who forced his ancestors to work on the land. However, Berniece wants to keep the piano and doesn’t want to use it because of fear. The disagreement between the siblings shows the play’s representation of gender differences.
The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is taking place in Pittsburg because many Blacks travelled North to escape poverty and racial judgment in the South. This rapid mass movement in history is known as The Great migration. The migration meant African Americans are leaving behind what had always been their economic and social base in America, and having to find a new one. The main characters in this play are Berniece and Boy Willie who are siblings fighting over a piano that they value in different ways. Berniece wants to have it for sentimental reasons, while Boy Willie wants it so he can sell it and buy land. The piano teaches many lessons about the effects of separation, migration, and the reunion of
In my Teaching Professions with Field Experience class, we were to create two lesson plans throughout the semester; one that involved the use of technology and the other without. The rules that went along with the lesson plans were as follows: the speaker is supposed to act out the lesson that they have prepared and their classmates were supposed to act accordingly to what grade level the lesson pertained to. Lastly, during the presentations, the students were to write three good qualities the speaker or the presentation had. In addition, they had to write one wish which was something a student thinks would make the lesson better. For the first project lesson I constructed, I incorporated the use of technology to discuss the identification and use of monochromatic colors for the sixth grade level.
Grant Wiggins is the narrator of the novel. He was born in the plantation just outside of Bayonne, Louisiana. He lived there until he went away to college, and when he went back home, he was detached from the people in the town because of his education and different religious beliefs. He is easily angered and often very selfish. This is seen in the way that he acts towards Vivian. He consistently does not give her the attention or respect that she deserves. He refers to her children as simply, “the babies,” and only cares about the names of his and Vivian’s future children. Grant goes from shallow and selfish at the beginning of the story, to caring and loving at the end.
In the last twenty years, the population of linguistically diverse school age-children has increased exponentially (Short & Echevarria, 2004, p.9). In order to effectively serve students with different language backgrounds it is important that teachers use strategies that benefit all students. Adrienne L. Harrell and Michael Jordan (2008) found that students need strategies that use explicit language objectives, provide constant reinforcement of academic language, make connections to prior knowledge, and give opportunities to read, write and speak in English to support their language development (p. 5). The presence of these strategies in a classroom with a mixture of ELL students and native English speakers only enhances the learning experience
In the play, The Piano Lesson, music played an important role. The piano in the play represented the African American history and culture. The ghost of Sutter represented the pain and trauma that had been endured throughout the generations in the Charles family. Berniece did not play the piano because she associated it with pain and the bad things that happened to her family members. She did not want to accept the things that had happened in her family’s past. She thought that she could deny everything and act like it never happened. She believed if she continued to run from everything and everybody that the pain would go away. Berniece was burdened and haunted by the ghost of Sutter until she gave in and played the piano after all of those years. After playing the piano, Berniece was no longer burdened or haunted by the past. She was free from all of the denial. She escaped the pain through the music and reflecting on the carvings on the piano, which represented her heritage. Berniece’s brother, Boy Willie, told her “Berniece, if you and Maretha don’t keep playing on that piano… ain’t no telling… me and Sutter both liable to be back” (Wilson 108). By saying that, he meant that if she did not allow her daughter to continue playing the piano and learning about her culture that she would end up going through the same things that Berniece had gone through. Music has a huge impact on the African American culture in several ways and many things about the past can be learned through it.
In order to be an effective teacher there needs to be an understanding that we all learn differently, this means that no single teaching strategy is effective for all students/learners all the time. This makes teaching a complex process because you need to understand and meet the requirements of all of your learners. Students learn best when they aren’t asked to simply memorise information but when they form their own understandings of what is being taught. When a student has successfully learnt a new idea they are able to then intergrate this information with their previously learnt information and make sense of it. To be an effective teacher you need to work jointly with students to asses where they are at, be able to give feedback on how the student is going and ensure that they are understanding the lesson (Killen, 2013) According to Lovat and Smith (2003) students learning must result in a change in a student’s understanding of the information being taught. In order to show understanding they must be able to share this information with others and want to learn more (Killen, 2013). In order to have a deeper understanding of what is being taught they need to be aware of the relationship that exists between what they knew previously and the new information that is being learned (Killen, 2013).. Students need to be given goals that they can achieve in order to feel a sense of mastery over their own learning, this gives students motivation that they are able to complete tasks and to keep going.
Students will identify the correct how to find the area of circles. We are going to do this first by deriving the formula for the area of a circle ourselves. Students use these operations to solve problems. Students extend their previous understandings of finding the area of a shape: This learning goal meets the Common Core Standard CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.G.A.3. The students are going to learn find the area of only the doughnut, excluding the hole in the middle. For the formative assessments during the teaching of this unit, I will keep an observation log, where I note any student progress, whether it be positive or negative. I believe it will be important to record observations any time a student has difficulty with a particular task. For example, if a student has trouble solving the problems with the formulas. to purchase an item, I should write down particular actions, attitudes, and behaviors that stand out, as well as the specific issue. Any time the students are doing independent work, I will monitor the learning activities and record observations.
Lesson study refers to a Japanese program of developing teachers’ profession during their teaching experience. It is a translation from Japanese word Jugyokenkyo which literally means study or research (Fernandez & Yshida, 2012). Fernandez and Yushida (2012) define it as “lessons that are object of ones’ study”. It means that through lesson study, the teachers explore their teaching-based research goals through the several steps which they have defined them earlier. These steps include: collaborative planning, observation, discussion, revising, re-teaching, and sharing reflection. Also, Dudley (2014) defines lesson study as a procedure in which teams of teachers do planning, teaching, observing, and analyzing learning and teaching collaboratively.
Scarnati, J. T. (2001). Cooperative learning: make groupwork work. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 67(Fall), 71-82.
Our subjectivity is heavily influenced by the amount of education that we receive. The effort that people contribute to enhancing academic excellence today is what makes learning possible and effective. Through the proper use of our academic knowledge we can construct society together. Schooling is an evident pathway toward generating social change and it is important that education is properly enforced and easily accessed by all people. Because education enables a person to grasp an understanding of his or her society, we as educated people have a crucial responsibility for contributing to social advancement.
After finishing the teaching part of the lesson, I realized that not everything goes according to plan. For example, in our lesson plan, we had the explain portion detailed and outlined to teach students the technical terms of what they were seeing in the stations and other activities and make it a collaborative effort within groups to work with the vocabulary words. However, the teaching of the plan was not well executed. Also, I learned that teaching a topic does not have to be boring or just full of worksheets. Fun, engaging lab stations and interactive activities can fulfill the standards and requirements just as well, if not better, than basic worksheets and PowerPoint lectures. Lastly, I realized that lesson planning and teaching require a great deal of effort and work, but it is all worth it when a light bulb goes off in a students’ head and they learn something new and are excited to be learning and extend their science
All in all, I felt that this lesson implementation was a good experience for me, I learned a lot from last semesters practicum, and feel more comfortable teaching the children while being observed and am able to manage the class much better, although I am still quite nervous, which is something that I will continue to work on.
In the process of completing this coursework, I have realised that every teacher should be all-rounded and equipped with adequate skills of educating others as well as self-learning. As a future educator, we need make sure that our knowledge is always up-to-date and applicable in the process of teaching and learning from time to time. With these skills, we will be able to improvise and improve the lesson and therefore boost the competency of pupils in the process of learning. In the process of planning a lesson, I have changed my perception on lesson planning from the student’s desk to the teacher’s desk. I have taken the responsibility as a teacher to plan a whole 60-minutes lesson with my group members. This coursework has given me an opportunity
The students that I observed in the classroom were of middle to high school. I went to see 8th, freshman, 10th , and seniors classes, they seemed excited and very curious to why I was there. The middle school was more alive and rambunctious while I observed them. The High school kids were more relaxed, more comical. Some were paying attention while others seemed tuned out to the lecture or involved in socialization with friends within the class. By the end of the class Mr. Hasgil had restored the attention of everyone by using tactics such as history jeopardy with candy as the prize with the high school kids. In both he middle school and high school the kids were mostly Caucasian with a mixture of black, Asian , and Hispanic in the classes.