I was very excited to present the super human information to the students. It is a fun topic and I hoped it would get students excited to learn about the human body. I was super pleased with the students engagement and conversations during the lesson, and would change where we go next in the plan. The following questions and answers will tell you why I was happy with the students and the lesson, and why I would change the plan from here on.
What did I learn?
I learned that students can have awesome behavior and do amazing work when they are excited and engaged in a topic. The super human subject matter really intrigued the students. They were excited to talk about supers, watch the video, and then research why they were special. They were able to make connections between the super humans and animals in nature. This connection and research diffidently helped them to make predictions of what was going on in the super humans body that makes them have the super powers. I also learned that students have prior knowledge about the organs in our bodies. they were able to draw and place organs in the model with ease. Observing this while they drew the models lead me to what I would change.
What would I change?
I would change where we will go next with the plan. In the 5 day plan, next we would go to what living things are made of and learn about cells. Now that I know students have such nice prior knowledge or organs I think it would be better to go to body systems and work our way down to cells, instead of starting with cells and working our way up to organ systems. I think this change will help students connect to prior knowledge easier and then make connections as they explore.
What did the students enjoy?
Students really enjoyed talking about super humans. They also really enjoyed researching something in nature that might be able to help them explain what is going on in the super humans body to make them super. Drawing the model was also enjoyable to them. Writing the explanation was the most challenging for them, but the researching really help to support them in making a claim and to have evidence.
What did the assessments tell me?
The assessments told me that students need more practice and support in writing explanations. We need to discuss how to write a Claim, Evidence, Reasoning explanation and practice with non content subjects. I also learned that students know a lot about how our bodies work already and there is a lot of prior knowledge we can hook on to and connect new learning too. That is important to do because that is how we learn.
What did I learn about planning and the implementation of plans?
I learned that you have to be flexible with your planning. Even though I have the whole unit planned to go from cells up to body systems, I need to be flexible to switch the flow of the unit to better connect to students prior knowledge. Flexibility is key when planning and presenting lessons.
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