A group and subject discipline that I decided to
focus on was Science that was completed by Tahani, Kaitlynn, and Subha.
Immediately when I saw that the group was going to
integrate student’s cellphones in the lesson of explaining electromagnetic
radiation, I knew this was going to be a great lesson plan. The reasoning being
that they would have students interests almost without even trying because of
the fact that cellphones are so common and people are normally eager to
participate when they already have the materials to do so. Furthermore, this
lesson plan helps with integration into the students own lives which is
normally asked either by the students who is completely bored with an
assignment they do not like or by the teacher who is trying to find ways to
raise motivation among students in the classroom.
Electromagnetic radiation can be an extremely large
and broad subject but Tahani, Kaitlynn and Subha did an excellent job of giving
very simple and easy to follow steps to complete the assignment on the students
end and the lesson plan on the teacher’s side. This is important because
instruction isn’t affected if for some reason the teacher cant be in class on a
specific day and a student also knows what exactly it is they are working towards and what they will learn as a result. Another aspect that was great was the use
of group work and actually having an assignment that would require both to use
the entirety of the time in the class as well as something that was challenging
but not impossible to do across the board for students. Often times in schools
students complete assignments before a period is finished and as a result of
that students disrupt the class or become disinterested in the class subject
altogether, which is bad for both the student individually and the class as a
whole. Since this assignment is a little
difficult in nature it forces all students to work together to foster a
community of learning but at the same ensures that they will be busy throughout
the entirety of the class.
The only question that I had about the lesson plan
was why have the youtube video and determining whether or not it was real or a
hoax? I am a little unsure on how whether or not it works relates to the lesson
plan.
An important detail that I learned after reading
through this lesson plan is making sure to be clear as possible. This is
something that I believe I will really have to work on as I am not clear often
times on giving directions as well as teaching certain content in the English
concentration. Furthermore, I need to make sure that I am engaging students on a
metacognitive level with the questions that are being asked as they pertain to
the subject. Failure to do so will result in not only disinterest from the
students but also a lack of trust in me as a teacher in delivering the content
in a way that the students feel that they are actually benefitting from. All in
all, a great lesson that I cant wait to use certain aspects from in the future.
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ReplyDeleteHighlights from your blog post for me are that it:
ReplyDelete-describes the science lesson in great enough detail where I, the reader, feel as though I have a real sense of what the lesson was about and how it could be used.
-indicates their are clear lesson objective and goals.
-explains that "Tahani, Kaitlynn and Subha did an excellent job of giving very simple and easy to follow steps to complete the assignment" which any student could appreciate.
-indicates that the lesson plan is so thoroughly detailed that anyone could give the lesson.
-tells the reader about the strengths of the lessons and it appropriately uses all time available.
-picked up on the pros of the lesson topic and how easily students could be interested in it. And want to explore and investigate it more.
-discusses the need for metacognitive discussions and questioning.
-AND clarity is key!
I appreciated you review of the science lesson plan. You picked up some details of it that I think I would not have. Like people's eagerness to participate in something when they already have the materials. Thank you for sharing you thoughts and interpretation of the lesson plan.
I'm so glad you enjoyed our lesson plan! We ended up getting really into creating this lesson plan as Subha was a cell phone engineer (I can't remember the official title in my very sleepy brain). We definitely created a lesson plan that was more on the style of a unit...but thought that, as you stated, students would be instantly hooked by talking about cell phones.
ReplyDeleteThe reason we had students watch the youtube video was that it showed a number of cellphones' radiation being able to pop popcorn kernels. There is some debate to whether this can actually happen, and if it can what the right circumstances would have to be. The point of including this was to provide a hook to get students doing calculations to figure out if this is possible. We know how much energy it takes to pop a kernel so we could figure out the energy that is transmitted through the electromagnetic radiation.
Anyways, I could get a lot more into the science but we were just trying to engage students with a phenomena. I'm glad you liked aspects of our lesson plan...it was definitely something we were excited to share!