This week in math we began our unit of polygons. This is an area that I remember most from my time as a resident last year in third grade, though it is very surprising to see how much the curriculum and objectives have changed from year-to-year. Concepts that I remember students working through last year have been omitted completely and new concepts are being prioritized.
Though I was not in the classroom for the entire unit due to my FTCE, I did lead a lesson on parallel and perpendicular lines later in the week. Part of this required students to go around the room and identify objects that had these features. As a student and a teacher, I have loved that geometry and polygons are areas in math that seem to provide a lot of opportunities to engage in hands-on learning.
With this week so close to testing and with pressure to expose students to the maximum amount of content as possible, I often times felt frazzled to know exactly what I wanted to say and how best to have students to experience their learning. As a race against the clock and calendar, it has been a challenge to know how to pace and move through a lesson while still building a developed understanding. I guess you could say it has made me a bit of a control freak and it has difficult to give up that control to the students. I do know, however, that allowing students to drive the lesson it is best and they have proven to me many times that they are invested to do so. I continue to work to break my misconception that must hold all of the control. I believe the first step is to increase my preparedness behind the scenes so that I can feel more comfortable and flexible in the moment.
As part of our Earth and space science unit, I went through the coaching cycle for a lesson on how distance affects the appearance of stars. For this lesson, I set up stations of different flashlights that varied in size and brightness, and place them at different distances in the classroom. Students were asked to record their observations on a structured graphic organizer that I had created. Because my content coaching goal was on incorporating assessment, I also developed a roster that could be used to record the degree of understanding students had on the concepts needed for the essential question. As I was planning, I consulted with Natasha, my critical friend, and she gave me specific advice to make the most of my observation sheet and assessments. She was also very helpful in talking through some of the content with me so I felt more comfortable and natural when it came time to work with the students.
Unfortunately due to the amount of time I spent introducing the objective and how to use the investigation graphic organizer, students did not get the chance to have a discussion about their observations, or for me to adequately assess whether they met the objective. Despite having felt I had established and engaging activity to explore this idea, the execution was not what I had hoped. Transitioning students from station to station hindered my ability to facilitate conversations within the groups of students to probe their thinking.
After my lesson, I felt that my goal of assessment was still one worth pursuing. Based on this lesson, my problem was not so much about a weakness in planning or creating assessments, but more so structuring lessons to allow students adequate work time and opportunities to demonstrate their learning.
Without being endowed with the incredible powers that Ms. Frizzle and her Magic School Bus possess, it is very challenging to find activities that appropriately demonstrate different concepts without establishing misconceptions when it comes to earth and space sciences. I would love to explore better ways to channel students’ natural curiosity and attachment to outer space and allow that to drive them to investigate this subject area.
science-stars_appearance_investigation_guided_notes.docx |