UNIT TEACHING REFLECTIVE SUMMARY



Unit Teaching Reflective Summary

Teacher Candidate for Science Endorsement: Chelsea McConnell

Instructor: MSP Staff

School: Shallowford Falls Grade: 1st Grade

Unit Topic: Vertical Alignment Culminating Unit: (Pedagogy) Animal Classification

Write a 1-2 page summary of your experiences teaching this unit, addressing the following questions:

• How well were the unit’s student performance objectives attained? Were there opportunities for the students to develop conceptual understanding through engaging in the learning cycle (5E’s)?

• How did you use formative assessments to inform instructional decisions during the unit?

• Were the lessons/tasks scientifically worthwhile for all students? Were there students that had difficulty achieving the goals of the unit?

• Was there evidence of a classroom culture that honors inquiry, wrong answers, personal challenge, collaboration, and disequilibrium as opportunities for new learning by all students?

• When you have the opportunity to re-teach this unit, what will you do differently (strategies, teaching tools, assessments, etc.) to improve student learning for all students?

Use this page as a cover sheet for your summary.

My lesson focused on teaching my first grade and a class of 4th graders all about animal classification. Throughout my animal classification unit, I addressed the following standard: S1L1.d: Compares and describes various animals –appearance, motion, growth, and basic needs.

I believe that throughout both the first grade and the fourth grade lessons, students were actively engaged with the standards and objectives. Students had many opportunities to attain the objectives through the 5E lesson format that I used. We focused mainly on how to classify animals based on their appearance throughout the 5E lesson for first grade. The engage, explore, explain, extend, and evaluate portions of the 5E learning cycle were all involved in both lessons.

For the first grade lesson, the engage portion involved reading What if you had animal feet?, discussing different types of animal feet, and playing freeze dance. The explore portion was when students researched animals using different resources. During this time, students were able to explore why certain animals have certain feet. Students then chose one animal to complete more research on. The explain part of the lesson was when I introduced a chart of animal feet and discussed with students what differences there were between the animal feet. Students were able to be extended by having access to the books: What if you had animal hair? And What if you had animal teeth? These stories were an extension of animal features and their basic needs and students were able to read them together with a partner or in small groups. Students researched and wrote about two different animals for extension. As I had students do this portion of the lesson, I added another part that I would definitely have in my lesson for the next time I teach it. My students compared and contrasted the two animals they researched using a Venn diagram. They were able to choose what they wanted to compare and contrast depending on which two animals they chose to research. To evaluate students on this lesson, they wrote an informational piece about the animal(s) they chose to research based on extension or not.

As we discussed different parts of animals, I observed students’ knowledge of animals and provided students with information that I thought would be beneficial to them. I didn’t necessarily use many more formative assessments, but I did pull students when needed to help with research.

I feel that this lesson/unit gave students a way to work and research scientific facts about their animal(s). My students enjoyed being able to research independently and share their facts with me and the rest of the class. They seemed to really take pride in having information to share about the animal(s) they chose. As far as research and the informational stories are concerned, all students met the goal I had set for them. While my students enjoyed researching, since for most of them this was the first time they really researched anything, it was quite a challenge for them. I found myself modeling finding facts and researching a lot in the beginning of this project. Once I had modeled how to research, most all of my students seemed to catch on and work independently. Students definitely felt comfortable asking questions and working with their peers and me to find describing features of their animal in order to classify it.

When re-teaching this unit I plan to have a class set of iPads and/or laptops. For this particular time, we used 4 iPads and 3 computers. Those students who were not using the iPads or computers were researching their animals using encyclopedias and non-fiction books. I feel that all students should be able to use the internet and/or apps for research at the same time next time I teach this lesson.

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