Kaitlynn LaPoint

ELED 3221 003

April 1, 2015

Lesson Plan Reflection

The first lesson I taught during my IMB experience was science
and it didnt go according to plan, in all honestly. I know you should
constantly be altering your lessons and adding or removing portions
based on what your students are showing you, but this was the first
lesson plan I had taught that was longer than 15 or 20 minutes; it was
nerve-wracking. I had long discussed with the teacher I was working
with, in depth about what the class would be covering during my two
weeks in her room. Unfortunately for her, she had just come back from
weeks of leave due to personal reasons and when she came back
there I was. Her first day back was my first day observing her teach. No
doubt she is an extraordinarily educator of whom I was able to watch
and learn so much from, but her class was just coming off from having
a sub for all that time. She wasnt entirely sure what the sub had been
able to successfully teach and what the students still retained, so we
decided on phases of the moon.
I asked my CT how she usually goes about teaching science and
what tactics she typically finds effective with her students and she
shared them with me. I wrote up a version of the plan and e-mailed it
to her and she quickly replied with some advice on aspects to edit and
what might be helpful to add. With that, she mentioned how she was
pleased with the preparation I had completed and predicted my lesson
would run smoothly. I really appreciated that because I felt like I had a
leg-up on the lesson and was prepared for teaching it.
One part I hadnt entirely taken into consideration was how the
students in this grade at this particular school ran on blocked
schedules, and co-taught. I had seen them moving and shifting class to
class, but didnt think of how that would affect my lesson. I was
scheduled to teach at 10:15, but by 10:25 students were still trickling
in because of MAP testing that was going on that week; my CT advised
me to wait until everyone was there before continuing. I waited until
the students were there and called their attention to myself at the front
of the room. I went through the lesson and described, drew, labels and
encouraged discussion about the moon and its phases. I had planned
to show the students 2 short videos as aides, but when I saw the time I
reduced it to the key parts of one. I instructed the class on what and
how theyd be completing the hands-on portion within groups and they
were engaged and responding accordingly.
It was running smoothly and I was feeling confident until I
actually started handing out the materials for the students to create

the moon phases from Oreos. The clock told me it was 10:44 and it was
pure chaos after that. I begun handing out materials in an orderly
fashion, but groups who I thought would take more time were ready for
the next step and vice versa. At this point I should have altered the
assignment to have students only create the 4 main phases rather
than all 8, but of course I didnt think Id have the time to even pull
that over on the students. I called the class together at what I assumed
was 10:56 to put a closure on and tie any loose end up in regards to
the lesson and then had them clean.
Ultimately I saw that the students understood what I taught them
since they answered questions I asked appropriately and themselves
asked and talked about aspects of the moon, Earth and sun. A large
majority of the class pairs successfully demonstrated mastery by
pasting the phases on the plate and carving Oreos accordingly. While
these groups finished, their work process was messy and hectic but
could you really expect anything less when doing this type of activity?
There was one group that worked diligently and every time I talked to
them, they were closer and closer to being finished. I ended up using
this groups work for the student work part of this project since I was so
impressed! The few groups that did not demonstrate mastery were
only under that category because they didnt finish. This was
understandable and I didnt entirely view it as a loss because the ones
they did complete were correct.
Overall, I think I learned a lot about time management as well as
the importance to continually be altering your lessons. If I could teach
the lesson again, I would have possibly taught the class about all 8
stages, but only had them recreate the main 4. This would result in
more thoughtful creation and less of a scramble just to get the
assignment done in time. I also liked the feedback my teacher offered
about possibly including a book and would definitely do that if I were
teaching a moon lesson over the course of a few classes. I thought her
input about using an online timer on the board, and sound Apps were
awesome tips for future reference as I could tell just from our
conversation that the kids would be more responsible for their time
and noise level. For the future I will definitely at least have this lesson
to look back and laugh at, but it was something I learned so much from
that I can later enact in bigger and better lesson plans.