Week 7 Observations

This week, I was able to go to another 6th grade classroom. They had finished a chapter
last week, and were moving into the next chapter. Most of this class consisted of introduction to
the chapter, and more of a lecture environment instead of hands on activities or labs. I
understand the purpose of this, because they need the foundational knowledge before diving into
the labs or activities, but the students did not seem so impressed. They were very antsy, their
attention spans was short, and the motivation seemed to be missing.
Although I felt the teacher was doing the right thing by giving the students this
introductory lesson to the new chapter, I feel that there needed to be something more to hook
them into it. Because they werent engaged, they may be missing key parts of the lesson to begin
with and it makes the lesson irrelevant to future labs or activities. I think that finding a way to
motivate them would have been helpful in making the lesson more engaging.
Motivation I think plays a key role in education and especially in a subject like science
where some students struggle to absorb the concepts and content. According to research done by
Zimmerman and Elliott, motivating students has been widely documented as an important part
of effective teaching and learning and identifying motivational factors that influence students
performances in science classes are essential in the improvement of science education (2011, p.
18).

This kind of motivation leads to self-efficacy and the students motivation will be

impacted. Overall, the teachers lesson was engaging for me, and compared to teachers that I
have seen was well put together with visuals and technology, but lacked student interaction.
Even though there wasnt a lab component to this, there are ways to include the students and
allow them to guide the lesson more. Technology like Socrative, or other polling apps could
help check for understanding from students, and help them to stay engaged, and focused.

References
Zimmerman, S., & Elliott, K. (2011). Beyond Attitudes: Recommendations for Teaching
Science from Middle Grade Students. National Teacher Education Journal, 4(4), 17-
22.