Task 7

Reflections after implementing the T.U.

Hi it’s me! Sciiiiiientist Txell!
I’m sorry for the delay, you know I’ve been veeery busy these days working with little
scientists.

Let me explain you: they are second graders from Mogent School.
They were very interested in the human body, so their tutor teacher decided to do a project
about it, and they asked me for help.

You know, I’ll tell you a secret. I am not only a scientist. In fact, I’m more into education than
they think. I could say… that I am almost a teacher!

And everytime that I help some students in a project I like to reflect and evaluate my
implementation so I can improve myself as a teacher. And that’s what I’m going to do now.

Description of the implementation

So, as I have told you, I was implementing in second grade. My implementation was part of
a bigger project called “the human body” which contained other systems like the digestive
system, the circulatory system, etc.
I am proud to say that it the topic of the T.U is aligned with the competences and contents
meant to be worked during the 1​st cycle of Primary for science. It works the dimension of
health and personal balance. It helps them to understand themselves as humans, how their
body works and how it relates with the environment.
Moreover it also works English’ dimension of oral communication and dimension of
plurilingualism. Regarding the English dimension, I talked with the English teacher and she
told me that in the first cycle she was only focusing in oral comprehension and speaking, so
this is what I did. Moreover she oriented me of which was the level of the pupils in the class.

Now, seeing it in perspective, I think that it could have also been good to work the writing
dimension but in a very simple way. For example, writing the name of the parts of the
respiratory system or filling the gaps of a simple sentence.

I think that one weak point of my T.U is that while implementing it, I was a little bit in a rush.
The term was about to end, so the pupils had lots of work in every area, and we had little
time to do everything. Of course, it was not only depending on me, but in general we could
have done less things and more deep and relaxed instead of trying to reach everything but
being stressed while doing it. (SOLUTION)
If I had had more time, I would have followed the suggestion that Helena gave me during
one tutory in the uni, and I would have added a session with small groups activities.
For the respiratory system, I would have done a fill in activity in groups.
For the nervous system, I would have done an oral activity in groups of 3. I would have
created cards with examples of different situations and the messages that the different
nerves could carry. Then, they would need to guess which nerve carries each message and
they would self-assess themselves by checking the answers’ sheet.

I think that my weakest point is the assessment.

As I was relieved to know that the English teacher had already her marks and the
assessment is not one of my strongest points as a teacher, I think it was not very good.
My T.U contained a lot of explanations to understand how the body systems work. These
explanations were not only from me to them. They were actively involved and I was checking
their understanding because I was asking them many times to give me examples and to
explain the processes to the others, but at the end this assessment was not meaningful
enough, because it was in general.
In the classroom you have those students you notice the most because they are very bright
and quick and then you have those who have more difficulties. And you notice all these
students, but in every classroom the main range of students are medium. During the last
activity that I did (the interactive activities of the nervous system), as we were doing them by
groups of 5 students, I had the chance to really notice their level of comprehension. The
problem is that the T.U. was not thought like this, so following the plan, in that session I
would have had the whole class. And then it is impossible to check all of them one by one.

The interactive activities of the nervous system assessment were good, but during the T.U
we had not being working a lot on the names of the parts, neither how they are written.
(SOLUTION). I should have proposed some activity like this so the students could feel more
confident during the interactive activities. Moreover, Educaplay, the website that I used, does
not allow to save the results, so if children change the screen I cannot see how well they are
performing. I could have done a chart with their names so everytime they finished one
activity they could write the results and the correct solution for their mistakes. This ensures
that they keep learning even though they are in the assessment activity.

I would not change anything of the quiz of the respiratory system, because I think the
questions in the quiz were relevant (as they were focusing on their “What do we want to
know” display) and it was an individual activity which helped me to assess one by one. It was
also good because this quiz was included in the human body system report, so it was also
part of the final product.

During my implementation the observation done during the lessons represented a huge part
of the assessment, and I think I could have planned it better. (SOLUTION) I could have
created a rubric to analyse under the same criteria, and in each lesson focus on a
determined number of students. Then filling the students’ mark during or at the end of each
session.

Then, regarding the aspects that I am more proud of my T.U., I would say that the materials
is one of them. (SHOW MATERIALS)
I tried to use a lot of visual tools in order that the English language was not an impediment to
comprehend the concepts, that’s why I used a cartoon video that clearly shows the inside of
the human body, many card names, displays, cards to remove and use while explaining…
This also helped them to link the pronunciation with the way it is written.

I think that the language support was well planned in advance and anticipating what I could
need during the lesson. A part from that, I was also able to improvise scaffolding.

I think I used effective management strategies like shared timing and giving clear
instructions.
Moreover, it happened to me that in the first session I realised that I had planned the timing
as it was a Catalan implementation, but in fact an English implementation takes longer,
because the foreign language requires more effort and more time to make yourself clear.
Then I could take this into account for the following sessions.

I liked that in the previous implementations that I had done, attending to diversity was one of
my weak points, but in this T.U. I have achieved this purpose of mine. I provided adaptations
for both the students that had more facilities and those who don’t.

For the classroom communication I planned one answer question that was:
“One, two, look at you!” (x2). It worked well.

I think it was also a good point to use books for doing research in the very first session.
Maybe I would have thought about the same idea but using computers, so that they could
work on a 21st century competence at the same time, but in this school they start doing this
when they are older and have more criteria. In second grade they are used to check at the
project’s library in order to find the answers they look for. One thing that worried me was that
the books were in Catalan, but at the end it went well because they were so familiar to them,
and it also helped developing the plurilingualism competence.

I have also brought student’s real assessment on my T.U. This is the last part of the quiz,
and the final question was: “Have you liked the project?”: and the answers were: “Yes”, “No”
and “I have not understood the respiratory system”. Almost all of them answered “Yes” with
smiley faces and 100% signs. ​I think I could have asked for a more completed feedback.
Even though I was asking them when I finished the lessons, I could have asked for a formal
feedback from them.

Anyway, summarizing everything, I am proud of the T.U. I implemented and I would repeat it
again, improving those aspects that I have highlighted.