There were a a few different strategies involved in teaching this lesson - collaboration, digital and non-digital visuals with discussion, a personal story about a game the class was familiar with to faciliate connection, physical use of a manipulative. There was work done collaboratively with a partner (during the assessment piece) and class participation (initial animal slides, apple and invisible man slide discussion). Visuals, both in digital and non-digital form, were provided and in conjunction with a discussion to make the learning more concrete. The discussion was done primarily in the form of open-ended questions, having students talk about what they saw in the pictures and how it related to camouflage. The initial question about the hide and seek game followed by the story/example of hiding behind the bush offered a personal connection that the class could relate to for understanding. Discussing camouflage in terms of people, animals and art offered a variety of connections that were complimented by the students' own pondering of our questions, which I believe helps them build analytical and critical thinking skills.
I believe having a discussion with use of questions is a good way to get the students to engage in critical thinking and problem solving. However, fewer individuals participated than I had hoped and some questions were answered by the same couple people regularly. It made me realize that if I want more involvement, then I need to find a way to increase participation. I may have needed to pair up students sooner and call on the pairs to answer questions, ask someone who hasn't already answered to answer, be more patient, rethink my questions to determine whether the wording is clear or offer different/additional questions. The reason I want more involvement is so I can assess whether all the students are really engaged and understanding the concepts along the way so I can hone in on the areas that may require more clarity.
I noticed that as we mixed things up (from question, to story, to picture discussion, to partner collaboration, to art topics,etc.) students continued follow along. I didn't notice anyone working on something else or looking elsewhere. The students appeared to stay focused on both of us throughout, and I attribute some of that to us changing things up over a relatively short period of time. This tells me that I need to be cognizant of time and be aware of changes in student behavior as an indicator that something may need to be changed, but if we move too fast the students may not be learning the concepts well enough. Doing this exercise it became more apparent to me that time ongoing assessment is very important so I can keep a good pace that maintains engagement while allowing the students sufficient time to learn.
The collaboration among the pairs was enlightening. Hearing the pairs' conversations where they would agree, disagree or question each other along with expressing their reasoning, logic and thoughts provided a way to do an informal assessment of understanding. I think it would have been more beneficial to have gone over the slides they assessed shortly after they submitted their responses so misunderstandings and errors could be addressed sooner than later. I would make that change going forward.
When I mentioned the hide and seek game and told my bush story, the faces of the students changed. This gave me the impression that they were listening and relating. Because they were familiar with the game and could relate to hiding places, it seemed to me that connections were starting to be created with this lesson. This reaffirmed to me the value of relating concepts to familiar things.
The apple too was a familiar item but I think the value was for the students to be touching and moving the object to watch how the light "changed" on it. The students were actively looking and moving their apples around to see the light and discern whether it changed or not. Seeing the students have a hands on opportunity that they seemed to enjoy and really think about was also an affirmation of the value that can come from appropriate physical manipulatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment