Student Teaching Reflection 13

This week, I was in the classroom Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, I had an observation where I designed and ran a Jeopardy-style review game for the biology students’ test. This game was a little bit of trial and error, but by the second section of the class it ran very smoothly. In the first section of the class, the students who were not answering the question were not engaged in the review and didn’t get as much out of the game. To fix this in the second section, I awarded half points to any team who had the correct answer when it wasn’t their turn. This allowed all of the students to earn plenty of points even though we only had time for 2 turns each. This competition aspect helped the students stay engaged and focused on the game. In addition, the winning team earned a bonus point on their test. In the future, I would like to find a game that has a competitive component but has the students answer individually to track who is prepared. We have tried a Kahoot review, but the students easily get off-task and take a long time to get their devices out and signed in.

In addition to the test review this week, I also got to see how my teacher handles SLOs in her anatomy classes. She handed back and reviewed the quarter 1 SLOs. She reviewed the three components that students should have in their responses to the scientific questions: claim, evidence, and reasoning. She also gave a sample response, but specified that it was not the only correct response.

Finally, I was able to observe a different teacher’s conceptual biology class to compare similarities and differences to my mentor teacher’s classes. This class was very similar to my mentor teacher’s conceptual biology classes, but only 1 teacher instead of 2 co-teachers.

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.

Student Teaching Reflection 11

This week, 2 out of my 3 student teaching days were in-service days.  I got to see a little more of the planning side of teaching and my mentor teacher's thought process when planning. I also got to see more about SLOs and the work that goes into them. I saw the process of creating the SLOs, grading them, and how they are used. On the third day, the biology class was preparing for their test and I assisted them in their test prep. This was especially interesting because we are trying to teach the students how to study well so they are better prepared for class tests as well as their standardized biology test at the end of the year. We spent the first 20 minutes of class walking around the room keeping students on task as they practiced quizzing each other. This was interesting to see, because many of the students didn't even know where to start. Some students were just reading their notes or study guide. My mentor teacher, her co-teacher, and myself spent time with each group modeling appropriate questions and helping them study more productively. By the end of this 20 minutes, it was clear that the students had a better idea of what their teachers mean when they say to study. This is such an important skill, and now I know that in the future it may be valuable to spend a little time in class teaching my students how to study effectively.

Student Teaching Reflection 10

This week I observed and assisted with several notable things. The first was in my mentor teacher's Anatomy and Physiology class. During their class this week, the students were strengthening their knowledge of their current unit with lab stations. My mentor teacher placed 12 stations around the room that corresponded with different activities in a lab packet. Some examples of activities were to label the bones in an adult skull model, put together an x-ray of a full skeleton and label it, and use balloons to model the fluid in joints. The students traveled around the room in small groups at their own pace and completed the activities. Some activities, like the x-ray activity, required a teacher to sign off once they completed it, and others were independent. As I traveled around the room helping students and observing their work, I was impressed with the discussions I heard and the work that I saw. The students were very engaged in these activities and clearly working hard at it. I like the design of this type of activity, because the students were able to go at their own pace. Because of that, there was no down time or time to get off track. There were also several lab activities that could be completed in the packet without a station, so if all of the stations were full, students were still working. I also liked that this type of activity was very independent for the students. It ran over several days, so the students would come in and get straight to work. The students took responsibility for their learning.

This week, I also observed how my mentor teacher grades projects. I was not able to assist her with this grading because it was in her Project Lead the Way class, but I got to see how she sets up her rubrics. Her rubric is slightly different from the kind that I usually see. Her rubric had three sections across: Directions, points, and grade. In the first column, she copied and pasted the directions that she had given her students. These directions were itemized in the rubric. In the next column was how many points each direction was worth, and in the final column, she wrote their grade. She then wrote a description of why points were taken off under the directions. I liked some parts of this rubric, but there are other parts I would change. The first thing I liked was that the directions on the rubric were exactly the same as the directions that were given to the students. I also liked how she itemized the rubric. All of the sections were worth 2-6 points, and many were either the student included it or they didn't. However, she didn't specify on the rubric how many points would be taken off for certain discrepancies and the rubric only described what would be included in an exemplary projects, unlike a regular rubric. Overall, I might consider using a similar rubric in the future, but with some variations.

Student Teaching Reflection 9

This week, my mentor teacher showed several videos to her classes, and I got to see how she utilizes video as a tool for her teaching. One thing that I thought was very productive was that she had students in one class complete several questions after watching the video to make sure they got something out of it. This forced students to pay attention to the information in the video as well as reflect on it afterward. Some videos that she showed this week were mostly informative, while others were very engaging as well. It was easy to see that students got more out of the more engaging videos, and I noticed that the less interesting videos were only shown in her advanced classes. This makes sense, because these classes are mainly Seniors who have higher expectations and are preparing for college. A video like that would not be productive in her lower level classes, because these students are much less intrinsically motivated by the information and need a little extra help engaging.

Student Teaching Reflection 8

This week, I observed some commonalities in my mentor teacher's practices throughout her classes regardless of their ages and academic levels that I found interesting. The first was in how she goes over tests or quizzes. She uses a program to score her multiple choice questions that records how many students got each question correct as well as what percentage of students chose each of the responses. Once she has this information, she looks to see if there are some common misconceptions or reasons students might be getting questions wrong. When she discusses the tests in class, she uses this information to determine which questions to go over in detail and how to address misconceptions. For example, one common mistake on one question was that all of the students who answered incorrectly chose "D. All of the above." She made sure to point out that this could be solved by reading the questions more carefully, and she let the students know that "all of the above" is clearly not always correct in her class. Another teaching practice that I think is helpful for her classes is that she writes a "Do Now" task on the board for each class. Sometimes this is a question that they need to think about or find the answer to, and sometimes it is a task they need to do to prepare for the lesson. This helps get all of the students on task, and in the classes with Juniors and Seniors, often the students are prepared when the bell rings to start class.

In the Anatomy class, I also got to see a guest speaker come in and speak to the class this week. The speaker was a Forensic Biologist. I thought this was a cool way to showcase a career that could come out of a Biology degree, since a lot of the students in Anatomy enjoy the sciences. It also helped the students see some real-world applications of the topics they are learning about. In addition, the students were engaged because it was a different experience than a regular class period.

Student Teaching Reflection 7

This week, on Tuesday, I had my first observation. During the class period that I was being observed, my mentor teacher first introduced the topic with a question to get the students thinking: “What is a similarity between photosynthesis and cellular respiration?” The students had already had lessons on both photosynthesis and cellular respiration, so they were familiar with the equations for both and the purposes for both. The students talked in groups about this questions for several minutes and then the teacher asked for their ideas. She guided the students to think about the commonality of energy in both processes. Once the class had discussed the question, we passed out the POGIL (worksheet) and split the class into 3 groups. My mentor teacher, her co-teacher, and I each took a group and guided them through the POGIL. Given my background in tutoring, I was very comfortable with this small-group setting and was able to use questioning to guide students through the POGIL. This class is typically hard to keep on track and unmotivated to complete work in class, but this small-group setting helped them focus and kept them accountable for their work. I was able to help them come to the correct answers on the POGIL, and I was able to use questions to spark discussion beyond the questions on the POGIL.

This Thursday, I also got to see a class play Kahoot. This experience was as entertaining as it was helpful. The teacher offered lollipops to the top three scorers during the game, so the students were working hard to get a high score. This competition could potentially help improve the students’ speed in recalling information, it helps them practice their vocabulary, and it increases their motivation. After each question, the teacher addressed any incorrect answers and offered tips to help students get answers correct next time (ex. oris sounds like oral because they are both related to the mouth). A downside of review games like this is that it does not allow for deeper thinking; the questions are only multiple choice. This is good when reviewing for part of a test or reviewing things like vocabulary, but not when studying for tests that require a lot of critical thinking or applying concepts to new situations. Keeping this in mind, I would definitely use Kahoot in my own teaching because it is still valuable practice and it did improve the students’ motivation.