Observations of a High School Science Teacher

At Penn Manor, where I have been observing for the past week, the science department is very near to the agriculture classrooms and facilities.  As part of my student teaching experience, myself and the other members of my cohort have each been tasked with observing a science teacher outside of the agricultural realm at our student teaching placement.  Thus, I had the wonderful pleasure of observing Mrs. Ames 3rd block AP Biology course today.  

Initially, I was very happy to see one of the FFA members and Agriculture students who I had traveled with to the National FFA Convention sitting in the class.  I was also pleased to see that the students in the class got right to work pulling out their binders and getting all of their materials prepped so that Mrs. Ames could begin class on time.  

Once the bell rang, she started the class off with reminding the class of any homework that was coming up or would be due that day.  She then set the stage for the class by explaining the days content topic.  After having taught this course for 6 years, she has a system where she makes daily planners for the students that contain the course content for each day and reminder of homework and assignments that are due each day.  These are posted on google classroom at the beginning of the course.  After having introduced the lesson topic, she mentioned the previous days lesson content and asked the class questions pertaining to what they learned the previous day.

She then proceeded to lead the class through a combined ppt and lab on Mitosis and Meiosis.  She used gummy worms and gummy bears to represent chromatids and a napkin to represent the cell structure.  As she flipped through the ppt slide on the phases of mitosis and meiosis, she had the class recreate or model the phases using the materials she provided.  This allowed the students to stay engaged in the lesson and replicate what they were learning using a hands on approach.  

As the observer, I noticed that the class was quite attentive to the lesson and I heard several oohs and ahhs when a student had made a connection in their mind or understood and concept for the first time.  personally, I thought the lesson had a huge amount of variability that allowed all of the students in the class to stay engaged and understand the content.  Additionally, the content was portrayed and spoken about very clearly and sometimes repeated just to make sure that the concept was understood before moving on.  At the end of the class, the students were allowed to eat their gummy worms and bears while working on their homework or working ahead by reading and taking notes for their class the next day. 

My biggest takeaways from observing the science classroom are that asking lots of inquiry based questions vs only talking from a ppt encourages students to stay engaged.  Having lots of variability in how the content is delivered is key to keeping students involved with the lesson, holding their attention, and in helping them understand the concepts better.  I hope to involve food or some other type of visual or hands on activity in one of my lessons this semester.  

Ms. Kachel, over and out!