Observations and Reflections
Reactions and Reflections from My Mentor's Observation Notes:
My UPenn mentor was very encouraging after my lesson was completed. I knew that she had witnessed my students being very engaged but also a bit rowdy and behaviorally out of control at times. The discussion portion of the activity was a struggle because of constantly having to stop to correct behavior problems and took far longer than I had intended. I conveyed to her how disappointed I was that the active, hands on portion of the activity was cut so short because I hadn't been able to properly reign in the introduction and discussion in the beginning. She was very kind an insisted that I showed great patience and stayed consistent. However, she also noted that although I began the lesson with a review of my expectations for behaviors, I never really stated any consequences for when those expectations were not being met. I could've been much more explicit about that. I also may have been over ambitious with my objectives for the lesson. I believe students met the overall objective of identifying animals they could observe in their urban surroundings and identifying the types of evidence/clues that animals could leave behind. The objective of having students use the term evidence themselves may have been a far reach for this lesson alone. Many of them were just being introduced to the term and I although I modeled use of the term many times, I could've done a better job setting an explicit expectation for them to use it. Also she suggested that if it was important to me to hold a productive discussion with the students and allow them to practice their listening skills and habits of discourse, then that should've been it's own objective for the lesson. Then it would merit taking the large amount of time on discussion that we did in order to meet that objective. If it isn't part of my objective for the lesson then I may have spent too much time on it.
My UPenn mentor was very encouraging after my lesson was completed. I knew that she had witnessed my students being very engaged but also a bit rowdy and behaviorally out of control at times. The discussion portion of the activity was a struggle because of constantly having to stop to correct behavior problems and took far longer than I had intended. I conveyed to her how disappointed I was that the active, hands on portion of the activity was cut so short because I hadn't been able to properly reign in the introduction and discussion in the beginning. She was very kind an insisted that I showed great patience and stayed consistent. However, she also noted that although I began the lesson with a review of my expectations for behaviors, I never really stated any consequences for when those expectations were not being met. I could've been much more explicit about that. I also may have been over ambitious with my objectives for the lesson. I believe students met the overall objective of identifying animals they could observe in their urban surroundings and identifying the types of evidence/clues that animals could leave behind. The objective of having students use the term evidence themselves may have been a far reach for this lesson alone. Many of them were just being introduced to the term and I although I modeled use of the term many times, I could've done a better job setting an explicit expectation for them to use it. Also she suggested that if it was important to me to hold a productive discussion with the students and allow them to practice their listening skills and habits of discourse, then that should've been it's own objective for the lesson. Then it would merit taking the large amount of time on discussion that we did in order to meet that objective. If it isn't part of my objective for the lesson then I may have spent too much time on it.
Moving Forward...
Myself as a Teacher
I have learned so much from this lesson. Possibly the biggest take-away is that I need to continue to think about how to balance engagement and freedom with structure and management. I think I may have been asking too much by starting this lesson with a quiet discussion. I have since thought that maybe I could've focused our discussion better and gotten off to a better start by engaging them in a read aloud activity. There are many titles that I have learned about that would fit my goals for the lesson including the following:
In addition to the read aloud. I could also have focused their attention better during the discussion if they had been provided a task to accomplish during the discussion. They were very engaged when working with the clipboards. I could have distributed the clipboards with a graphic organizer for recording our ideas about urban animals and then also the evidence of urban animals. For example they could be filling in a web themselves as I did a class one on the whiteboard:
This emphasis on providing structure in order to focus their attention would also have been helpful in guiding them how to organize their note taking. I would provide a template that showed what I expected to see in their notes while still retaining some space for them to write freely their reactions, what they noticed and have questions about:
I would've also have liked to provide them access to the pictures we used during discussion to help them make connections and stay on task. Looking back I wished that I had set up a station with the images all spread out to reference during their independent work time. I wanted those images to be more than just an instructional tool used during whole group but also to be a reference tool for students to access on their own.
I also realized that the extension activity related to drawing their own scene with evidence of animals is too ambitious for inclusion in this lesson. Instead, I would propose this as a following up lesson that could have some strong literacy connections. See the suggested next lesson in the other "Students" column. |
My Students' Next Steps
I was so incredibly pleased with the level of engagement my students showed during this lesson. The students and I both seemed to feel disappointed when the lesson was over and we were done engaging with these ideas. It seemed as though they were all just beginning to really dig into the content and connect it with their own experiences and ideas on the subject. Therefore I would like to continue to engage them with this topic by suggesting that the next lesson be a literacy focused lesson where they create their own animal evidence detective stories. This would provide the students an opportunity to now apply what they have learned about discovering evidence of animals to a creative writing task.
From the previous lesson, I learned that my students sometimes work better and are more focused when they are reigned in a bit with structured tasks provided by the teacher. So instead of just jumping into an open prompt for this writing activity, I will read a book aloud that models the type of story they will be telling, like the following: After reading aloud together, we will revisit our list of urban animals. This time instead of brainstorming all different types of urban animals and types of evidence, students will apply this knowledge to one animal of their choice. Each student will be responsible for writing a mystery story using evidence left by a specific animal.
Before beginning to write, students will participate in some very structured and limited research about their particular animal. This was something that some students already started to do on their own during the previous lesson by making use of the animals book bin in the library corner. I will need to provide them with specific books, images and reference items so they can collect the information about what kinds of evidence their specific animal leaves behind. They will be provided with a worksheet/graphic organizer to help them know what will be expected to be included in their story: Students will then draw one picture for each piece of evidence or clue and write about it. They will be provided with paper already with an appropriate layout for including an image and writing (these should also be labeled with which type of evidence each sheet is for, one sheet would be labeled "tracks" for example). We will then put the pages together with the final page revealing what the animal is.
I believe this type of lesson would be a wonderful way to integrate a science topic and understanding with an authentic literacy task. The finished book products could then be "published" and shared within the school or with families.
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Other Possibilities
I'd also like to think more about how to incorporate a hands on activity related to tracks. The first thought I had was that we could connect to thinking about permanence of natural evidence (weather, erosion, etc.). We could set up a small raised bed to make tracks in, either with our feet or with large animal molds/stamps. If a dirt bed outside can't be arranged or is impractical they could just make track impressions with stamps in a tub of wet sand or silt. Then they could either wait to see how time and weather affects the outside bed or discuss how weather would affect the evidence in the indoor tubs and model it somehow.
It could also possibly connect to discussing trace fossils as evidence of animals and life from much much longer ago than the tracks we discussed in class. As noted in my second lesson attempt. Some students are already very engaged with and excited by learning about dinosaurs, so I would be able to use that to teach an extension about what kind of evidence supports our understanding of dinosaurs!
It could also possibly connect to discussing trace fossils as evidence of animals and life from much much longer ago than the tracks we discussed in class. As noted in my second lesson attempt. Some students are already very engaged with and excited by learning about dinosaurs, so I would be able to use that to teach an extension about what kind of evidence supports our understanding of dinosaurs!