Science Classroom Observations

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day Three 

Science Classroom Visit: Exploring Science Education at Cumberland Valley High School

Essential Questions for Today:

  • What are the teaching techniques used in a traditional science classroom?

  • What can I use in my classroom that will make my own classes more science-based?

When I think about my own ideal Agricultural Classroom I can't help but think about STEM in the Ag Classroom.  Which means that I want to see how the science standards are taught in a science classroom.  So this is why I was excited to visit an actual science classroom this week.  I visited with Mrs Anderson's Physics class. 

 Mrs. Anderson was teaching a lesson on 7 different situations of momentum and using an experiment to let the students determine the answers themselves.  
Major instructions that were on the board for students to follow.

 What I saw Mrs. Anderson use would be what I'd consider Inquiry Based Instruction. She gave the students a demonstration but the demonstration to me was the kind of demonstration that an experience teacher would do showing the students how to use the equipment and clarifying aspects of the experiment that students in the past have struggled in understanding.  She wasn't giving students answers just more clarifying instructions. So the students were answering the question on their own which I think is important to consider.

Then the students worked.  What I noticed was Mrs. Anderson was involved in the process but not in a manner that was overwhelming but more of here I am if you need my input or feedback.  She never gave the answers but instead would ask a question which would lead the students into realizing that they were doing it wrong or needed to retry the math.  

 The big take away I got was that students know that in a science class they will do experiments.  And that they will make connection with their experiments with their main lesson over time - but not necessarily right away. The students were focused the entire class which I think is also important to consider. I think my take away with this is keeping students busy is easy when you have an activity going on. 

 I cannot wait to see how I'll make things like this happen in my own class.  And it was also cool to see IBI used in a traditional classroom as well. 

To Be Continued  . . .


Comments

  1. Tiffany MoreyJanuary 11, 2018 at 5:19 PM

    George, way to go with knocking out your science teacher observation in week 1! It's great that you got to see a mix of both IBI and PBL in action. What were the most successful parts of the lesson you observed, and which do you think were the most difficult for the teacher to implement successfully?

    ReplyDelete

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