Current Event #4
Running head: REVIEW #1
Observations and Analysis of Oceanography Lessons on Seasons and the Coriolis Effect
Review #1
Andrew Stephens
California State University, Northridge
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Current Event #4
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Observations and Analysis of Oceanography Lessons on Seasons and the Coriolis Effect
Review #1
I videotaped portions of two sections of Oceanography on consecutive days within the
same week. The video gave me a new media through which to reflect on my teaching that I had
never engaged in before. The insights included positives and negatives and spurred further ideas
and questions for future action research within my teaching. The basic analysis took the
following path: what types/levels of questions did I ask? What was the time on task? What were
the student responses? How was my wait time? Were there any management issues? What was
the academic learning time? Were students learning? What other observations or analysis can I
make? Finally, how does this affect my future considerations for action research?
I happily found that many observations were positive. A thorough review of the video
proved to show a comfortable learning atmosphere where many students asked questions, most
students appeared to take notes, there was positive rapport, nearly the whole class time was spent
on task, and there were no substantial student disruptions. I contribute these effects to the
organized and planned structure of class. I have small class sizes, lessons planned out a week in
advance, and a sense of humor that I share with my students often. The interactive science
notebook is to be credited for the students organized note taking. During this particular lecture, I
used props, visuals, words, and inquiry to enrich student understanding of seasons. The lesson
had an appropriate interactive pace with many students asking questions and one student
engaging in the answering of her own question. The lesson harnessed as many as four
intelligences through spatial demonstration, verbal explanation, visual simulation, and
intrapersonal reflection.
While the lesson included many positives I quickly noticed a few negatives that could be
fixed for the next lesson. I missed an easy opportunity to involve a kinesthetic aspect for the
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lesson. Students could have easily acted out the tilt, rotation, and revolution of the Earth around
the sun in groups to touch upon two more intelligences; this would also remedy the issue of a
lack of movement during the period. That lack of movement extended to me as I sat for too great
a portion of the lesson. Even with a break imbedded in the long 80-minute period, I think that
every future lesson must include more movement and some variety of group activity to stimulate
interest and blood flow. In addition, I realized that while much of the lecture involved inquiry,
my wait time was too short. Due to this fact, a small group of students who think quickly said
many of the answers. This seemed to discourage other students to get involved. In addition, the
short wait time seemed to result in answers that lacked deeper thoughts. The knowledge based
questions and answers made me think that I need to add more analysis, synthesis, or evaluation
questions into the daily lesson to encourage thinking that is more critical. The short wait times
and quick answers, however, equaled a lot of time on task and a period full of academic learning
time. The final negative that I picked up from the video, that would have otherwise been missed,
was my overuse of the word “okay” when beginning sentences. Okay, easily remedied.
From the standpoint of student learning, I noted several observations as well. While not
all students were on camera, the ones who were exhibited learning through engagement,
questioning, posture, and facial expressions. The answers provided during random questioning
of students and informal checks showed a basic understanding of seasons. While the video did
not show all students, a later analysis of students’ output notes and weekly quizzes proved that
seasons was a topic they understood quite well. After careful viewing of the tape, I realized that
I should have included a more kinesthetic group oriented formative assessment of student
learning to give me a better understanding of student learning during the lesson.
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Videotaping and analyzing led me to conclude that it is an excellent way to observe your
own classroom and aid in action research. Therefore, I bought a video camera. Analyzing this
particular lesson led me to some possible future research questions as well. How does
technology affect student engagement/learning? How do different learning settings affect
engagement/learning? Namely, I am interested in the outdoor setting as science lessons are
everywhere with the variety of life, mass, and energy outdoors. My environmental science club
“The Mean Green Team” could serve as an observable group for this portion of the project.
Also, my oceanography class will be partaking in a few outdoor field trips in addition to many
technology based lessons within the classroom.