Student Teaching Reflection 12

This week, my mentor teacher used a lot of hands on activities that I liked. Monday, she had the biology students complete a page in their journal independently, where typically they complete it as a whole group. This was to teach them how to read through the book and improve their comprehension. As they worked, we walked around and helped them find information in the book and enhance their understanding of the material. I noticed that although there were many students who worked hard, there were almost as many who wanted us to just give them the answers. I think that this could be prevented by starting the year with the expectation that they will work hard independently. On Tuesday, the students put together a DNA model with plastic pieces and modeled DNA replication. I really liked this activity because the sets they were working with used different shapes for different bonds and parts of the DNA molecule. My mentor teacher and myself walked around the room and helped the students make connections. I thought this was a very valuable activity. The last day I was there this week, the students created their own flashcards on mitosis. They had to write the main processes happening in each step of mitosis and then match these descriptions to pictures. I thought this was a valuable activity because they had to rewrite the descriptions and use pictures to visualize the process. It really lent itself to different styles of learners.