I taught my science lesson at Benjamin Elementary in my 2nd
grade PDS placement. Before I taught my lesson, the class has been learning
about five of the animal classifications. Those were birds, fish, amphibians,
reptiles, and mammals. When it was time for me to teach them they had learned
about each of these classifications so it was time to wrap up the chapter. I took
the students to the San Diego zoo website because it had great pictures and
facts. I reviewed with them again the characteristics of each type of animal. I
also emphasized the differences between amphibians and reptiles. After we
reviewed each group and taught a few new facts I took the students to animal
classification game. This is fairly easy for the students. They were engaged
and all wanted a chance to pick with group the animal belonged in. I created a
Smart board activity with multiple pictures of each animal group. I asked the
students together to identify which group was what animal classification name.
I created this activity to help with the aid in the next activity. I wanted to
see what my students knew about each animal group and give them the opportunity
to draw those animals as well. My cooperating teacher and I give them
opportunities to be “published authors” and share what they have learned with
the other grades. Before they began they knew what was expected of their work
and that they needed to take their time. I created a flip book and each page
had the animal classification group. They were to draw a picture of that type
of animal and write two to three facts as well. I gave the students different
resources to use while completing their flip book. We had books pulled from the
library so I distributed those to each table and I provided pictures on the
Smart board.
I think that I had many strengths from my lesson. All of my
students were engaged in each and every activity that we did and they were
excited as well. The students love going to different websites and playing
games in our classroom. The websites that we went to were engaging and provided
them with new information. I also did not have to keep getting the students
attention. I had their full attention and was able to engage all of the
students. I also used a strategy that I learned from TCH 277. I told the
students to blow the answer into their hands and then let it go by whispering.
This allowed for all of the students to answer the questions that had one
answer to them and they all were able to participate. This group of students
has difficulty following directions and asks a million questions after you have
given them the directions. I decided to try writing all of the directions on
the board for the flip book. If the students asked me questions after they were
dismissed to work I told them to refer to the white board. This eliminated me
repeating myself over and over.
There is one area of a weakness in my lesson that I know I
need to improve on and this has been a goal for myself in my PDS placement and
that is classroom management. I have struggled with from the start establishing
my role as the students’ teacher in the classroom. I am improving on keeping
their attention and managing the behaviors that occur in the classroom. The
group of students that we have is very talkative and active. There are certain
students who shout out and talk whenever they feel like it. This happened often
during my lesson. I did my best to control those outbursts and gave out
warnings to those students. I need to improve on following through with the
consequences I have given them such as moving their clips or taking away dojo
points. I did not follow through with these consequences and am improving on
that. I think that it would have helped my lesson go more smoothly if I handled
those behaviors better. I also have been working on transitioning the students
in the classroom from one activity to the next or even within the activities.
In this lesson I struggled with this and I think I could improve on this a lot.
I need to have smoother transitions instead of directly moving into the next
activity.
I feel as though my knowledge on the content was decent. I
had read through their book and other resources to gain more knowledge about
each animal classification. I think that my knowledge on amphibians and
reptiles could be stronger. These two are easy to mix up and get confused. I
also think I could be more knowledgeable about the specific animals from each
category especially the amphibians and reptiles. Then I would be ready for
questions from the students if they were not sure which category the animal was
in. Other than those two animal classifications I am not sure what else I could
more knowledgeable of.
I was able to observe how much the students knew and could
tell if we needed to go back and review an animal classification during the
game. However, this did not allow me to observe all of the students because
only one student was answering at a time and not all of the students were able
to participate. I was able to observe their understanding in the flip books. I
was able to see if they drew the correct animal on the page and I was also able
to see if they had the appropriate and correct facts on each page as well. Some
of the students took it even further and labeled parts of the animals which
showed even more understanding of the animal classifications!
I am happy with how my lesson went and it makes me happy to
reflect on the lesson when I am really able to tell that the students are
engaged and excited. I have learned more from this lesson on the ways I can
improve on classroom management. I was able to reflect on the feedback I
received from the cooperating teacher as well because she also commented on my
classroom management and transition skills.
These are two pictures of the wall display of the flipbooks. This
display was in the hallway for other classes to see.
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