Field Experience

A class of eighteen students was assembled for the fifth period by the science teacher specially for my lesson plan demonstration.  I began setting up getting a streaming video ready on a laptop connected to an overhead projector.  I also wrote key vocabulary words on the white board for front loading, which would be especially helpful for ELL students.  The teacher introduced me to the class as a future instructor and I was greeted with a warm applause.  I announced the topic of the day as States of Matter and Phase Changes.

For a pre-assessment, I began by asking the students about their prior knowledge of solids, liquids, and gases, as a bridge to the lesson.  About half of the students expressed verbally or with body language that they had an idea.  I began with a discussion of something they know really well--water--to build up confidence.  Students were able to answer these easy questions in unison, and they seemed interested to see where this was going.

I began to ask more related questions, like the difference between physical and chemical changes, and asked them for real world examples.  I then turned over to the white board and went over vocabulary words.  Whenever a word was confusing, like “rigid”, I drew examples with objects in the classroom. I also drew illustrations on the board to illustrate the motion of molecules.

At this point, I had the students refer to some handouts I passed out.  I had typed up the transcript for the video on the handout.  I instructed them to circle any words that they did not know and that we would discuss them later on, depending on time, as a class, one-on-one, or in think-pair-shares.  I allowed them to circle any word they didn't know, whether it was a technical, scientific word, or any non-technical word, so that EL's have an opportunity to learn any English words they did not know.  I also specifically chose a video with closed captioning, so that students can also read the words for reading reinforcement, without taking their eyes off the screen.  Instructions were pretty easy and straight-forward, so modeling was not necessary.

I started the video, States of Matter (2013), which had wonderful animations and further provided contextualization and text re-presentation.  After the video ended, I started the post-assessment.  I sketched a table on the board with the three states of matter on the top and various features on the side.  I asked the students to describe the features of each state of matter.  As I filled up the table with students' answers, I was also creating a graphic organizer and a metacognition technique to organize their thoughts.

The rest of the activity was more about building from what they know from experience.  An example was associating the concept of pressure to squeezing a balloon.  Another drew upon what they knew about phase changes.  I even talked a little about different words that are related to the word vapor, such as vaporize, and evaporate, to get them to dissect word meanings by their root.

After conducting the lesson, I feel one thing I would change would be to try to get more participation from one corner side of the room where a few students were less engaged.  I would like to incorporate pre- and post-assessment methods that would either get even participation among the students or do not require verbal participation at all, so that I know how well every student understands the content.

I enjoyed the whole experience in general.  The majority of the class showed interest and were participating.  I had received another round of applause when I concluded. Seeing the faces of the students when they “get it” and receiving appreciation makes it feel so rewarding.