April+21,+2011

Reflection 9 – Thursday April 21, 2011

We were working with group one today. This group has nine students. One of the students was absent today but it ended up working out because that is the group that has three students. Having the students write up the results of their experiment and put the entire scientific method on a tri-fold board took a little longer that we were anticipating. We were thinking that the review of the six parts of the Scientific Method, problem, research, hypothesis, experiment, and results, would be quick and simple since we had went over the process on Wednesday. It took a little more that simple propping to get the students to figure out the six steps again. After we finished the review, we went into having the student write up their conclusions. We had the students write their conclusion in their lab notebooks so that they could just get their thoughts out. This part of the process for today took about 15 minutes. We then handed out a rubric. To most of the students, a rubric seemed foreign. This was interesting to us because in our planning, we had not thought about the students not understanding a rubric. The rubric was not a stopping point for the lesson though; it was simply an obstacle we quickly overcame without hesitation. We had the students read through the different categories of the rubric and then broke down the basics of what we were expecting of them. Before we had the students write on their tri-fold boards, we handed out the same paper that we worked with when discussing the scientific method. So, the sheet that we were having the students fill out was familiar to them. We had the students with the best hand writing from the group copy what they wrote down in their lab notebooks for each of the six sections. After all of the section were completed, one of us spell checked their work to make sure it was all spelled correctly. The final step that we gave the students was to write all of their information on their tri-fold board. There was an example on the board in how we wanted the poster laid out. It surprised us that the students did not use the example like we though they would. Still, it was nice to have the example there. For the groups that did not have time to work on their posters, we decided that we would write down were each of the six sections needed to go and they could erase and re-write the section headings. As we ran out of time, we told the students that the poster was now their homework and that it was due back in Mr. Lewis’s room by 9:00 am on Thursday May 5. For next time, I think it was beneficial to have the sections already wrote on the posters for the students to see. So, we will write on the poster ahead of time. A few other things we need to think about is terminology. The biggest word that we should be using is draft. We should use this for when the students copy their lab notebooks onto the previously seen sheet. This is just reinstating what we are doing. We also think that it was a good idea to give the students homework. As a group, we do not have time to complete everything and as long as we give them a nice start they should be able to complete the project on their own.