OEL lesson planning May 15, 2010

This past week I participated in an OEL lesson planning session.  OEL stands for Observation of Evidence of Learning.  For this activity the science department from our school and science teachers from other schools who choose to participate come together to plan a chosen lesson.  After the planning a teacher will deliver the lesson(s) while the other teachers observe the class.    The lesson chosen for this OEL was a 7th grade science class looking at lung capacity.  Observing and identifying the different kinds of lung capacity we use.

These OEL sessions are a great opportunity for everyone involved.  Those teachers teaching the same grade or curriculum get a chance to collaboratively develop a lesson they can not only use but get to observe it being taught .  For those who are not using that curriculum the OEL is a great opportunity to collaborate with other science teachers and hear ideas about how they might approach a particular concept.  I feel we have a great range of teachers at the school I work at.  Some are great a making up work sheets while others are great at using movement in lessons.  The lesson we developed was a good mix of teaching strategies.  On day one the students were asked to make observations about how they were breathing as they sat there in their seats.  the teacher then led them as they did some jumping jacks.  The students then made observations about how they were breathing after the jumping jacks.  They then compared the similarities and differences as a class.  There was then a discussion about what might affect the way your lungs work, activity, lifestyle, disease, etc; followed by the writing of a hypothesis about the lung capacity of a normal seventh grade student.  Day one ended with the building of simple lung capacity measuring devices and measuring the different capacities of the class.

Day 2 began with students analyzing the data they had collected the day before.  They made comparisons of the data on the graphs and wrote about the findings they saw.  Day 2 ended with an activity modeling the residual lung capacity using a sponge and some water.

After the lessons were taught the teachers got together again to talk about how the lessons went and what could be improved.  It was good to hear what everyone had to say about the lessons.  There were questions about how structured the students writing prompts were, yet most agreed that the prompts helped focus the students thoughts.  The 8th grade teachers were in agreement about the need for students to be able to represent and interpret data in different forms of graphs.  Another thing we wanted to see was students able to make conclusions using the data they have and not making conclusions that can’t be supported by data.

I enjoy activities such as these in that it is a chance to observe many different teachers and see their thoughts on a particular problem.  All teachers have different styles and as a students teacher I try to absorb as many different of those styles as I can and add them to my tool box for future use.

Reflection for week of Oct 5th-9th Teacher observations October 17, 2009

As of now I have been able to observe several different teachers.  These teachers were recommended by my mentor teacher as good people to observe.  Sixth and seventh grade science teachers, an 8th grade math teacher, 6th and 7th grade history teachers, and an 8th grade language arts teacher.  I will just talk about some highlights of each teachers classroom.

The first science teacher I observed was Ms. Levine’s sixth grade science.  This was very early in the year, I believe in the first week. Her lesson was focused on following directions, visualizing, and brainstorming.  The day before, the students had started the lesson with some measuring and then a drawing of what they thought a scientist looked like.  On the day i was observing they talked about their drawings and what they thought scientists looked like.  This task was meant to help students understand that scientists aren’t just old white guys in lab coats, but that anyone could be a scientist if they wanted to.  It was good to hear the students thoughts about what a scientist looks like and see their stereotypes.  It was also good to see that several students were already thinking outside of the stereotype.  This was followed by the direction following, brainstorming, and visualizing activity in which the students had to make a border for their picture with two loops of paper and making only two cuts.  Ms. Levine led the students through the activity and solicited input from the students on how to proceed at different times.  I thought this was a fun activity in which the students got to be creative, and active, and had to use some visualizing to try to see what an action would do before they took that action.

The second science teacher was Mrs. Mosco.  She also teaches 6th grade science.  Her activity on that day was focused on careful observations and detailed drawings.  The students were split  into groups of 2 or three and each group was given a leaf from a tree.  Their task was to draw and describe their leaf in as much detail as possible.  After they were finished with their descriptions, the leaves were collected and the descriptions and drawing were shuffled around to different groups.  The groups had to then try to identify the leaves using the drawing and descriptions of other groups.  This was a good exercise in being detailed with observations.  If a  group couldn’t identify which leaf another group was trying to describe then their observations aren’t good enough for scientific research.  Scientific observations are meant to allow scientists and lay-persons alike to understand the research they are attached to.

Mr. Ohashi is a math teacher and is highly regarded by everyone.  My observation of his class was a study in organization.  His handouts were beautiful and perfect.  His quiz was neat and efficient with an activity included for students who finished early.  His lesson was well organized and he made sure as many students were included as possible.  In his 9th year he seems to have his system down pretty good.

Mrs. Aleverti is a history teacher.  Her lesson that day was a continuation of a lesson on early man started earlier in the week.  The students used clue cards  with facts about different time periods and readings in their texts to connect the different varieties of early man to their time period and identifying characteristics.  This activity had the students working in groups so they could cooperate and share their ideas of which species of man belonged to which time.

Mrs. Clark’s 8th grade Language arts class was working on identifying and recognizing characteristics of literary works.  The first half hour was the teacher reading aloud with pauses for questions regarding setting, character traits, character interactions, and inferences about possible story directions.  Most students stayed attentive during the reading, with a few squirmy ones in the back of the group.  Who doesn’t like being read to.  The book they were reading was “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck,  a story I found engaging  when I read it in high school.  For the second half of the class students went back to their desks to read their individual books looking for the same things they were discussing in the first half of class.

Mr. Miller 7th grade history.

Class started with a discussion of the previous days readings about a historic Chinese ruler.  The class began with the students sorting themselves in a continuum based on whether or not they thought the ruler was a good ruler or a bad ruler.  The students then discussed their reasoning as to why they are where they are in the continuum.  This was a great activity for getting students standing and helped with keeping them focused.  It also allowed students to voice their ideas and show what they learned about the ruler and his deeds.  For the second part of the class the students were assigned a reading and the task of creating a journal as if they were Marco Polo traveling east through Asia.  They were then assigned the task of creating a travel brochure to teach others about what they saw on the journey.

I like creative lessons like these.  When the students do creative projects they learn without really thinking about it.  It is almost like tricking them into learning and hopefully they have some fun along the way.   Students are also constantly looking for excuses to get out of their seat so activities like these that get them out of their seats and learn at the same time can be a win-win situation.

A common theme in most classes was the use of group work.  Students were able to talk to their partners and work together to complete a task.  We use a lot of group work in our classroom so the students are able to help each other and share knowledge.