Clinical Science Reflection
This
week, I implemented my science lesson in my clinical classroom. This was very
exciting for me, because I have seen very little science implementation in my
class have experienced very little science throughout my courses here at ISU.
My cooperating teacher and I decided that I should do a lesson on weather,
because that is the new unit that the students are starting. She let me decide
what kind of weather lesson that I would be doing. I decided to teach a lesson
about clouds, because I felt that beginning a weather unit starting with clouds
would be a very good beginning lesson to start their learning of clouds. I
chose to do a mixture of a hand’s on lesson with direct instruction throughout.
Before
the lesson, my cooperating teacher asked that I include a Scholastic Weekly
Reader about clouds, so I chose to begin my lesson with that because it had a
lot of good introduction information about clouds, with some good vocabulary
words. After we read the weekly reader, I began my lesson with a hook of a picture
of clouds, and asked the students what they thought our next unit would be
about. We talked about how we would be starting our weather unit, and I
introduced the lesson of clouds. I talked about what clouds were, and then
talked about four different kinds of clouds: cirrus, stratus, cumulus, and
cumulonimbus. I had pictures of each type of cloud and definitions. We talked
about where we may see these clouds and when.
After
the PowerPoint, we did a hand’s on activity. I gave them each a piece of construction
paper, which they folded into four equal parts. With modeling and instruction,
the students labeled the first part of the paper with the word cirrus clouds. I
gave them each a cotton ball and instructed them to find a way to make their
cotton ball look like a cirrus cloud. They ripped apart their cotton ball and
glued it onto their papers. Then, we wrote a sentence about that type of cloud.
The students did this for all four types of clouds. As an assessment, the
children filled out the quick quiz on the back of their weekly readers. To wrap
up the lesson, we talked about how clouds can help us determine the weather and
how we can be safe during a thunderstorm.
Overall,
the lesson went extremely well. The children really enjoyed doing the activity,
and they were engaged throughout the entire lesson. They had fun trying to find
different ways to make their cotton balls look like the real clouds. I felt
that my overall instruction of the lesson was strong, and my cooperating
teacher felt the same way. The students had great comments to add to the lesson
as well. My cooperating teacher felt that one of my strengths was my focus on
vocabulary, especially with the word cumulonimbus. The children particularly
struggled with actually saying the word, but were able to understand its
definition with ease. We practiced the different vocabulary words several times
throughout the lesson in different ways. I had them clap out the syllables of
cumulonimbus as well as had them say it with me several times.
Another
strength my cooperating teacher said that I had was thinking on my feet. I ran
out of cotton balls at the end, and I decided to bring this problem to the
students asking what we should do. Many of them agreed to share their cotton
balls with their neighbors if they had extra from previous clouds; others took
extra pieces from their previous clouds, and others decided to just use crayons
to draw in the lesson. Another way I thought on my feet, that my cooperating
teacher was unaware of, was through my lesson closure. My original idea was to
look out the window and give a description of the clouds outside and have them
determine what kind of cloud it was. In the middle of teaching about stratus
clouds, I asked where we might see those types of clouds, and one student
raised her hand and said that we have those kinds of clouds outside right now.
So, at the end of my lesson, I decided to relate my lesson back to safety and
how clouds can help us determine when a storm is coming and when we should go
inside instead of playing outside. My cooperating teacher said this was a great
closure.
My
overall weakness was dealing with classroom management. My cooperating teacher
gave me a few different tips on different ways to control the classroom
environment during a hand’s on lesson like this. Since part of my lesson was to
have the students write a sentence underneath their cloud picture. However,
most of the students were so busy making their cloud, they completely missed
the modeling of writing the sentence. She instructed me that next time I should
not give them the cotton balls until we come up with a sentence together so I
can keep their attention throughout the important aspects of the lesson.
Another weakness was planning for time. I had only planned for this lesson to
be about 30 minutes, but it again ended up lasting an hour. This is something I
will definitely need to work on in the future because I need to be able to
correctly time out my lessons in order to fit everything in to my day.
The
overall students learning of the objective was very successful. They were able
to correctly identify the different clouds and when we may see them. The use of
the Weekly Reader assessment tool was beneficial because it allowed me to see
that they understood the information I had just taught. Through informal
checks, I was also able to see that they were able to understand because, even
though they had difficulties with the pronunciation of each of the cloud names,
they were able to give me correct definitions and examples of these clouds.
In
general, I was thrilled with the way that my lesson was implemented in the
classroom. The children had a blast doing the activity, and they were really
able to get the knowledge through the hands on activity rather than strictly
direct instruction. The modeling of each of the clouds was also very helpful
because it was a type of differentiation that helped the children who may have
been struggling with the vocabulary words. In the future, I would absolutely
implement this lesson again, with better use of classroom management. I will
also use Kira’s tip of “not giving away my goodies too early” because it can
sometimes really affect the way the children pay attention during the lesson
and they may miss out on the more important concepts.
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