Journal reflections
1/6/15
I didn’t really do much today. I noticed that the class did not immediately quiet
when the class started or when told to. I will have to pay attention to that and make
adjustments for when I teach, especially when my supervisor comes in for
observations. The last class that I was here for, I went over their final exam. I made
a few mistakes while going over it. I was used to solving problems in a slightly
different manner than they were used to, so I had to try to make some adjustments
to my understanding to try to give better instructions. I didn’t really stop and check
for understanding because the day was shortened to a half of a day. I definitely need
to be able to do that from now on.
1/9/15
Today marked the first full day of classes this semester. Most of my involvement
today consisted of only being involved in the monitoring of laboratories in
Chemistry I classes. I did notice that after I made a suggestion to a group of students
to add only a small amount of water when dissolving their silver nitrate crystals that
Mrs. Smucker included it into her pre-lab discussions. This means that I have some
good ideas to contribute to the classroom. I just have to take more initative to do
things and make my ideas heard.
Later in the day, I volunteered to give the pre-lab for the next two days of the
laboratory experiment. The next step in becoming more involved in the class would
be for me to volunteer to teach one of the lessons for the Chemistry I class.
1/13/15
Today went okay. I was in charge of giving pre-lab instructions for day 2. Most of
the classes, periods 2 and 4, waited until I was completely finished giving
instructions before getting up to start their lab. The fifth period class though, moved
almost immediately after I began to give instructions. In the future, I need to
preface any instructions I give with some kind of phrase, like “After I am done giving
instructions, you are to…”, so students understand that they are to begin with their
activity after I give all of the instructions.
I felt as though I was a bit stiff when giving the instructions. By this I mean that I felt
as though I was just going through the motions while experiencing a feeling of fear
inside me. This was mostly due to me not wanting to mess up with my first real
responsibility in the classroom. In order to move forward and become a better
instructor, I have to give up the idea that I can never make a mistake. Once I accept
that fact, I can become more flexible and, in turn, become a better instructor. I was
also nervous because I wanted to give the students enough time to work on their
experiment for the day. I may have felt better if the school weren’t on a two hour
delay, but I still need to be flexible in order for me to deal with any issues that arise
throughout the day, or any time in the future.
1/14/15
Today I was in charge of going through the calculations to the lab so students would
have one less thing to worry about when writing their lab reports. This was done
because it was the first time they had to do calculations for a lab. Additionally, the
last time they covered this topic was right before winter break, so going through the
calculations helped to remind students how to carry out their calculations.
I felt that I didn’t try to elicit their prior understanding enough. I did ask
some questions to get them to think, but I could have done more especially when
showing the students how to solve the problems. If I ever do this type of lesson
again, I will try to ask more questions of students on how they would solve for the
answer instead of just mainly showing them.
I also noticed that some of the students got lost. In all future lessons, I have
to make sure to allow time for students to follow along with what I am saying and
then to carry out the calculation by themselves. In short, I really need to work on
my pacing.
In regards to INTASC principle #5, there were some students carrying on
side conversations while I was going over how to carry out the calculations. I called
out the names of a few of the students, since I was unable to leave the board where I
was doing the calculations. I could have found a way to make better use of
classroom management techniques. Ideally, I would have liked to give a question
and have students work on it. I could have then gone over to the students and asked
them quietly to stop carrying on their side conversation.
1/16/15
Today I was in charge of a lecture. The lecture went okay. I still have an
uncomfortable feeling when giving a lecture in front of students. This is especially
true when it is a lesson planned by another person. I feel as though I don’t want to
mess up their lesson, so I have a feeling of being uncomfortable. This feeling will
hopefully subside when I give lessons that I plan out.
One of my goals was to do more and take more initiative. I made slight
progress toward this goal. I personally would have preferred to do more, such as
give more lectures, however, I realize that my supervising teacher still is getting
evaluated regardless of whether I teach the lesson or not, so I understand that I
cannot teach ever period of the day. But I can still help out my supervising teacher
by teaching the second and fourth periods more.
In regards to taking more initiative, I have made significant progress toward
this goal. I have graded papers voluntarily without prompting and have been
willing to offer advice to students on solving problems or offer ideas of different
ways to teach the same topic when asked even if I am not in charge of directly
teaching the class at the time.
1/19/15
One of the goals I had for this week was to take the lead in instruction more
often if I am able to. In respect to this goal, I have made some excellent progress so
far this week. I took the lead in two classes to give the lecture. I noticed after giving
one lecture that some of the students had forgotten to pay attention to when they
were using diatomic elements in their stoichiometry problems. Not paying close
enough attention to those types of details will result in incorrect answers. I adjusted
my lecture by the next period to include in the concluding remarks that the students
should be careful of problems that involve diatomic elements. A few of the students
still had trouble with the problems after the explicit warning.
My supervising teacher taught the next class over this topic. She noticed that
students were stilling missing the diatomic elements even after being told, so she
changed the practice problem to one where a diatomic element was used in order
for the students to have an example to look at in which a diatomic element was used.
This proved to be a far better strategy for the students, as almost no student got
confused when completing a problem involving a diatomic element.
As a teacher, I need to be constantly thinking of strategies like that in which
the students get more clear examples. I need to be more aware of alternative
teaching strategies in which I would be able to make smarter teaching strategies
than to just warn students to watch out for more difficult problems.
I have also been working on my classroom management skills. During my
supervising teachers lecturing, I noticed a couple of students in the back of the class
carrying on a side conversation not related to the topic at hand. I was able to get the
students to stop talking after quietly telling them to stop talking and standing right
behind them as the other instructor worked. In the future, if I encounter such a
problem, I should be able to put up a PowerPoint presentation or some other
presentation program and operate it near students carrying on a conversation so
they will be more inclined to stop.
1/21/15
Today I gave a quick lecture over Hess’s Law. I then went over problems
over Hess’s Law that the students were assigned to do on a worksheet they were
given to complete. My supervisor recommended while I was teaching to have
students reflect on the rationality of the answer they arrived at. The problem she
recommended having students reflect on was easy to see what the correct answer
should be. This was because the ratio between the moles of the starting reagent was
half the amount needed to produce the indicated enthalpy change. Most of the
students understood the rationality of the answer. This strategy is definitely one
that will need to be incorporated into future lessons that I teach.
1/22/15
I gave a couple of lectures over calorimetry today. During the instruction of
the lesson, I felt that the lesson was going over pretty well especially in the second
period class. The students seemed more interested when I showed a demonstration
than when they were just supposed to work and follow along in a lecture. The
students in this class also seemed to have a good command of the concepts taught in
this lesson. In the second class that I taught this lesson to, I feel as though the main
concepts didn’t get through to some of the students. When working on the
worksheet they were assigned to, many students had difficulty working with the
equation taught and identifying the variables to be used. The hardest problems
involved the use of equating heat values. Many students seemed perplexed during
this part of the lesson. I really don’t know what went wrong. It seems as though
they were having problems with what values to associate with each variable to use
even though I went through multiple types of problems like the ones on the
worksheet the students had. I think one possible reason for this was students
getting hung up or worried about the purpose of what they were doing instead of
just using the equation to solve problems. The next time I see these students, which
will be quite a few days from now because most students will be away on a
convocation, I need to clarify to students that they really only need to be worried
about what type of equation to use and how to solve for the correct variable. The
main problem was that I made the assumption that the students would be able to
directly apply algebra skills that they should have already had to the problems. I
have to always assume that there will be at least one person who struggles with
algebra. If I always assume that, I can plan to make the math more explicit and show
the students how the equation is changed to get the desired result.
1/28/15
Today the general chemistry course completed a lab over calorimetry. I did
not take the lead in the pre-lab instructions because I wanted to give Mrs. Smucker
the chance to practice what she was going to say during the pre-lab instructions
because she was being evaluated this afternoon by the principal. I assisted her in
the instruction by gathering supplies to model for students how to complete the lab.
I then assisted by monitoring the laboratory groups as they worked. Even though I
was not as able to meet my goal of directly instructing students I am still working on
my fifth INTASC principle of using classroom management techniques. I had to
firmly remind students to wear their safety goggles. I had to be firm because it is
very important for students to be safe while completing labs in schools, especially
when chemicals are to be used that could be toxic to the health of the students.
1/29/15
Today the students and I spent the entire class going over a review
worksheet they had to do to practice for their upcoming test. During this time, I
decided it would be a good time to work on my goal of finding a way to write at the
board at a 90-degree angle. This is done so I can write and monitor the class at the
same time. Whenever I did technique, I found that my writing slanted upward
making it harder to read. If I want to keep using this technique, I will need to work
on it some more to make sure that my handwriting can be understood.
1/30/15
Today was the first test for the general chemistry class of the semester. I
don’t particularly enjoy these types of days. Just monitoring the class while they test
is not particularly enjoyable. I was shocked by the performance of the students. I
was worrying that the results may not be very good because I was teaching the
lessons. I don’t doubt that I can teach these students. I was worried that they had
not been paying attention during my lessons. It’s no surprise that the students who
did well paid attention. I will need to work on getting everyone’s attention during a
lesson and especially during my LAMP project.
2/2/15
Today the general chemistry students completed copying down the
vocabulary terms they will be learning throughout the next chapter. If I had been
better prepared for today, I would have looked over the vocabulary list for the
twelfth chapter. I didn’t realize that many of the vocabulary terms were undefined
in the textbook the students use. I should have looked through the vocabulary list
and determine ways to better explain the vocabulary terms that students had a
difficult time defining.
2/5/15
Today we did the flame test lab. I chose not to give the pre-lab for this
particular laboratory because the students and school were operating on a two-hour
delay. I need to work on my flexibility and be willing to adjust any plans on the fly
such as adjusting the pre-lab instructions to fit in a shorter period of time. It is true,
as one of my professors said during my practicum experiences, “flexibility is the key
to teaching”. Being able to adjust any plan or part of a plan is a key part of being a
teacher.
2/6/15
Today I really had to be flexible. I taught the 4th and 5th period classes and
then my supervisor had to step out for the rest of the day due to feeling poor today.
I had to teach the class by myself and the students knew it. As a result, the 5th
period class was a tiny bit more disruptive than in previous lessons. I was able to
quiet the students; however, keeping the students quiet and engaged proved to be
more difficult than I expected. I knew the subject of the day would be difficult to
teach but I didn’t realize how difficult the concept would be for the students to
grasp. I know that all they have to do is follow along the periodic table to get the
answer, but even this strategy for a shortcut didn’t help them. I will have to always
think as an average student in order to better teach them.
2/10/15
Today the students were working in small groups to practice determining the
electron configuration of elements. Each student was in a group of 3-4 students.
Each student in the group was responsible for determining the orbital diagrams and
electron configurations for 13-16 elements of various difficulties. One student has
been disruptive during the whole time the unit has been taught. When he was
forced work with two high achieving girls, he paid attention and was more than
willing to work. I was able to teach this student how to correctly draw orbital
diagrams and determine the electron configuration of an element from the location
of the element on the periodic table. My supervising teacher and I discussed having
this student move to a different lab group to keep him better engaged during lab
activities.
2/12/15
One of my goals for this week was to attend the faculty conference for the
month of February. I had the opportunity to attend the Hoosier Association of
Science Teachers Inc. this year and present a poster I made over incorporating
geographic information systems into the curriculum. As a result, I was unable to
attend the faculty meeting like I wanted to. Fortunately, I learned about a computer
program in which students can build molecular models, model the gas laws, along
with several other simulations that could be very useful for students to learn. It was
convenient that I went and found this program at HASTI because the principal asked
the teachers to find some computer programs that can be useful to students due to
the school coming into some funds for technology funds. Even though I was unable
to attend the faculty meeting, I was able to help my supervising teacher out.
2/13/15
Today I led the lecture for the fourth period class over periodic trends. I
observed how my supervising teacher taught the students. I tried to follow the
same format she used because many of the students in the second period class
seemed to fully understand periodic trends. During the lecture I gave, there were
several instances in which the students seemed to have difficulties in understanding
the main concepts as I discussed them. After going over the notes again quickly and
giving more examples than on the note handout students were given at the
beginning of the class, most of the students in the class seemed to have a basic grasp
of the concept of periodic trends. Even more students were able to understand
these trends after working on the worksheet over this topic.
2/17/15
The lesson today went great. Even though the students were only reviewing
material for the upcoming chapter test, they were highly engaged during the whole
process. I was able to redirect students to focus on the activity at hand during both
the work time they had at the beginning of the class period and the end of the class
period when I was reviewing the answers to the review handout. During the
portion of the class in which I went over the answers to the review worksheet, I feel
I did a great job meeting my goal of praising students for giving responses. I noticed
that a few students who normally have not provided answers to questions I pose
when teaching were offering up answers readily after receiving a short praise from
me. I definitely want to try to keep working praises into the class and especially my
unit plan for the LAMP project.
2/18/15
Today was another test day. My supervising teacher had to miss today due to
a prior obligation, which left me in charge of the class. I felt the students still don’t
trust me as an educator because they were constantly asking for my supervising
teacher even after I told the whole class that she would not be in the class today.
This is probably due to the fact that she has a great rapport with the students and is
what I should aspire to have with my own future students when I have a classroom
of my own in the future.
2/20/15
Today was the big day. The first day of my LAMP project. I decided to go
against the usual template that my supervisor has been using of giving vocabulary
assignments for students to work on during the first class period of the unit.
Instead, I chose to go ahead with teaching the students how to convent between
different pressure units, because they had already learned how to convert between
units in the past in addition to teaching the students how to solve problems
involving manometers. I felt a bit rushed to get through the material, as the school
was on a two-hour delay today; however, the students seemed to follow along with
the material pretty well. I tried several different ways of explaining the material in
the hopes that students would understand the concepts easier if I explained it in
multiple ways. I will just have to see how well students perform on the homework
assignment to determine if I need to review the material more.
2/23/15
The lesson for today wet well, still I felt my pacing was too fast; however, the
students seemed to understand the material as we discussed it together. My worst
fears came true when grading the assignments turned in from the previous week’s
lesson. Most students did poorly on one portion of the assignment that involved
manometers. I am sure this is because this was the last portion of the lesson I
taught and I had to finish it quickly to get through the material before the end of the
period. I have already decided not to penalize the students for not performing as I
had hoped due to the high probability that my pacing was the issue. Instead all of
the classes will get a review of this material to complete as additional practice as
well as time spent in class to discuss how to solve problems involving manometers.
I also found out a sizable amount of students were trying to cheat on the
homework by copying answers from a previous year. My supervising teacher and I
became aware of these incidents because I had created new assignments that did
not have the same questions as the problems from last year. I haven’t decided what
to do in regards to this manner. I don’t know how I want to bring it up because I
don’t want the students who have been working hard to feel punished in any way,
but I want the students who did participate in the incident to understand the
severity of what they had done.
2/24/15
I decided that instead of discussing the cheating incident with all of the
students in each class, I would just mark each of these students grades as zeros with
a note to come talk with me. When each of these students came up to discuss their
grade with me, I told them that they got all of the answers incorrect because they
had cheated. I also told them I knew they cheated because they had wrote down the
answers from the previous year’s worksheet exactly. One student admitted to his
mistake when confronted while the others tried to act innocent or unaware of what
they had done.
I talked with each one of them about how important it is to complete the
work on their own. When one student told me he had been busy the previous
evening, I told him that I am flexible with the due dates if he comes to me before
school starts so I can be prepared for his work to be tardy. Finally, I told each
student that they had the opportunity to turn in the assignment and that it would
not affect their grades, but that they had to show their work. I believe that this was
a fair agreement for the students since this was the first time that they had been
caught cheating. If this happens again though, I will not be lenient with the students.
2/25/15
As a goal for this week, I wanted to work on grading assignments as quickly
as I received them in order to get grades into the online gradebook for students to
monitor their grades and growth. I have been very efficient in meeting this goal so
far at getting the assignments graded. I haven’t been as good at putting the grades
in the gradebook however. I have been keeping track of all of the grades in an Excel
spreadsheet until I can get access to my supervising teacher’s computer to input the
grades into the system.
3/3/15
One of my goals for this week was to try to give more praises to students.
This was a goal of mine because I wanted students to become more engaged in the
learning process instead of being passive learners of information. I was able to
remember to give praises during my lessons over the kinetic molecular theory.
After giving students some simple praises, students who were usually
nonresponsive during a lesson were volunteering answers at a rate that was very
unusual for them. I will admit that I was more than a little surprised at how a simple
compliment or praise of a student willing to offer up answer to a question could
cause such a dramatic change in the overall willingness of the students to
participate. I’m definitely going to work on giving more of these as they seemed to
help quickly motivate students.
3/5/15
Today’s lesson was definitely my weakest of the whole LAMP project. I made
the assumption that this lesson would go a lot smoother than it did because the
basics of the concept of gas stoichiometry should have been familiar to the students
as they previously discussed it this year and have been using the concept
throughout the year. When combining the new material presented in this chapter to
the previous content the students should have remembered, the end result was far
worse than I would have liked to see. Few of the students were even able to do the
stoichiometry that needed to be done before including the gas laws into the
problem.
The experience wasn’t totally lost however. I learned a valuable lesson from
this experience. I learned to never make an assumption about the knowledge
students have or what they remember as it most likely leads to a undesirable result.
I need to emphasize stoichiometry on the review tomorrow for the test that has
been scheduled. Students need to continue to work with this skill as it is essential to
successfully working in a chemistry class.
3/6/15
Today my supervising teacher had to step out to complete some work she
had to finish by the end of the day. This left me to teach the classes all by myself.
Even though this wasn’t the first time I was teaching by myself in the classroom, I
still felt nervous. This was mostly due to the results from the previous day.
Students seemed to have less trouble with the concept of stoichiometry today. I just
hope the concepts stick with them and they remember them for the test tomorrow.
3/7/15
I gave and graded all of the post assessments for my unit plan today. The
averages hovered around the mid seventies for all of the classes. I would have liked
for the averages to be higher, but considering that some of the students were absent
for excessive periods of time before the test, I can’t say that the results are shocking.
I am surprised that most of the students didn’t even attempt to solve the problems
over gas stoichiometry. Even if students start the question correctly they receive
points but most didn’t even do that. There were other students who didn’t give
their full attention during my lessons either. When I have my own classroom in the
future and set the expectations up early in the year, I am sure that students will pay
attention then which should also help improve average student performance as
well.
3/9/15
Today was a very unsatisfying day. All I did was make two solutions for a lab
the AP Chemistry class was completing tomorrow. The solutions took so long to
make because the recipe that was used called for the solutions to be tested and
calibrated to allow for the correct time to elapse before a noticeable color change
occurred. I finally got the solutions to work by the end of the sixth period class.
When I choose activities for students to complete, I will be sure to pick as many labs
as possible that do not require more than five hours of prep time to get the
chemicals ready to be used. I would rather spend my time being with students and
not in the stockroom.
3/10/15
Today the chemistry classes completed a lesson over molecular geometries. I
didn’t directly instruct the class, but I did provide visual aids on the whiteboard as
my supervising teacher did most of the direct instruction. I was responsible for
drawing the Lewis dot diagrams for the molecules and holding up threedimensional representations of the molecules for students to observe. I do wish I
had done the direct instruction instead of choosing to draw the molecules on the
board. When thinking back to my unit plan, I am aware that the students do not
view me as an instructor yet. This teaching opportunity would have been another
opportunity for the students to see me as a teacher instead of a student teacher.
3/16/15
Today the students were working on polarity notes. For the first period
class, I was teaching by myself while my supervising teacher was away. This gave
me the opportunity to teach by myself and experience what it really feels like to
teach. The lesson went pretty well. The students seemed to pay attention. My
university supervisor noted that a couple of the girls were constantly looking back
at one another whenever I was looking at the board. I know that polarity is one of
the more difficult concepts to grasp by some students. This is why I tried to use my
supervising teacher’s approach of looking for positive and negative ends first. This
isn’t the way I learned the concept or think about polarity, but if it helps students
grasp the concept better, I am willing to try it. I’m sure it will work because my
supervising teacher has much more experience than myself. I have started to make
some decent progress toward my goal of being more active in the classroom, when I
am not planning the unit.
3/18/15
The students worked on a lab over molecular geometries today. I gave a
quick introduction for one of the classes today. I spent the majority of the time
today just monitoring and helping students understand the material. What I could
have done to become more proficient in the INTASC principles would be to not give
the correct answer too quickly. I should have had students try to understand what
atom in the compound would be the central element and how to construct the
structure of the compound when using deductive reasoning. This would have been
challenging for most of the students, but I believe now that it would have been a
better learning opportunity.
3/19/15
Today the students were tasked with completing a short review over the
material covered in this past chapter. Students were given the formula for several
compounds and had to draw the Lewis structure, determine the polarity of the
molecule, state the bond angles in regard to the central atom, and finally give the
hybridization on the central atom. Almost all of the students were able to answer
these questions before the end of the period, so I gave a review of the material and
had students state their answers to the questions. If a student had a direct question
to me, of which most were about determining the polarity of a molecule, I gave a full
response. Additionally, I made sure to give the shortcuts for determining the nature
of the polarity for a molecule. This shortcut is that all polar molecules have a lone
pair of electrons on the central atom.
3/23/15
Today will probably be the only entry I give for the week. For the rest of the
week students will be watching a movie instead of doing classwork. This was
determined to be the best approach for the upcoming week to avoid having to spend
time re-teaching material to the students. I don’t know how I feel about showing
movies during this time. For most of the students, they remained in school up until
their spring break; however, some families chose to go ahead and take their child
out of school due to planning out a vacation in advance. Because some students
miss the class during this period of time, it seems unfair to have them miss valuable
class time. What could be done is to record the teaching of the class and send a copy
of a video of myself teaching the lesson to allow the student the opportunity to view
the video as if he or she was in the class learning it. To avoid the issue or view of reteaching material to be a hassle when returning from break, a short review activity
could be utilized to have students review the material before advancing into the
next topic of discussion. These are just some possible ideas; it is possible that I will
come up with other alternatives to showing movies during these periods of a lull in
the class.
4/7/15
The Chemistry I classes today were working on solving problems that
required them to convert given information into the appropriate unit of
concentration. These students were only responsible for learning the following
concentration units: molarity, molality, and mole fraction. My responsibility today
was to instruct one period in the correct use of units of concentration and how to
solve problems that required students to solve for units of concentration. I was
given the opportunity to teach another period, but I wanted to observe my
cooperating teacher and see how she approached teaching her students how to
determine the concentration of a solution. I know I need to take more initiative to
teach classes whenever the opportunity arises. If I don’t capitalize on these
experiences, I won’t be able to enter a classroom as a teacher by myself with much
confidence. Having someone there to back me up if I make a mistake now will help
in building my confidence in my abilities now.
4/8/15
Today the Chemistry I students were working on a worksheet over the notes
they took the previous day over the units of concentration. My role for all three of
these periods that I help to teach was to monitor the responses students were
putting in order to make sure that they were solving the questions correctly. I was
able to work on my classroom management skills during this time by redirecting
some students’ focus. During these work times, many students have been trying to
utilize them as a time to discuss the latest events of the school day, especially with
prom quickly approaching. When I am a teacher in my own classroom, I want to try
to avoid these circumstances as much as I can. These periods, in which some
students only talk with their friends, has led to some students, who normally do
very well, to lose their focus because they were forced to involuntarily listen to the
conversations of those around them. Right now, I do not have a good method of
controlling these kinds of small side conversations besides giving an ultimatum to a
student. While these methods have worked for me in the past, in my practicum
course, I don’t know how effective it would be at the high school level. What I can
do is keep researching different teaching strategies as suggested by more veteran
teachers on the Internet.
4/9/15
Today students were completing a laboratory over determining the solubility
of a substance, specifically potassium nitrate, in water. For this experiment,
students were to dissolve a given amount of KNO3 in 1 mL of water in a test tube
that was placed in a hot water bath of boiling water. Students were to then take out
each test tube, one at a time and record the temperature at which the first crystal of
the potassium nitrate formed. Students during this time had a great number of
difficulties getting the solid to dissolve fully in the water. To solve this issue, I was
able to think quickly and have the students add an additional milliliter of water. The
only step that would change would be in the calculation of the solubility of the
compound. I learned, yet again, today how important it is for a teacher to be flexible
when teaching any lesson because it is impossible to know when a quick change will
have to be made to accommodate any unforeseen circumstance.
4/14/15
Today students were to work on a chapter 14 test review in which they were
to review all of the types of problems they had encountered while solving problems
involving solutions. My role for this day consisted of mainly walking around the
room and helping to answer questions as needed. In addition to this anticipated
role, I also found myself able to practice some classroom management as well. I had
to redirect the focus of some students, who were more interested in socializing than
completing the review by the end of the class period. For the most part, I was able
to get students to refocus their attention to the review worksheet, but I do have to
admit that one student in particular has still been troublesome in regard to
refocusing his attention. When he does turn in work, it is always good, but the
problem lies in getting him to work on the assignments. I don’t want to employ
management strategies that seem far outside the usual types of techniques my
cooperating teacher uses, but the usual techniques haven’t been working with him.
I need to try and research some type of method to work with this type of student
especially for when I am solely responsible for a class full of students.
4/16/15
Today students were given the chance to graphically display and determine
the solubility of potassium nitrate in water based on the crystallization
temperatures each group collected. This was also a time for students to work on
answering the post-lab questions and to have any questions answered by my
supervising teacher or myself. During this time, I learned how much trouble
students have using programs on a computer. I remember when I was in high
school, I had a high grasp of how to work and format documents in all Microsoft
based programs and applications. Granted, I had to take a class to learn these skills,
but I had previously figured that most students would be more adept at using these
programs as technology has become more integrated into society. This just goes to
show that even though technology is used in almost all aspects of life, the basics of
computer operation still need to be taught to students otherwise they will be utterly
confused on how to work certain programs. This is definitely an observation I will
need to be aware of when making lesson plans in the future that requires the use of
programs other than word processors.
4/17/15
Today students spent the entire class period working on vocabulary for the
upcoming chapter on acids and bases. I know I have stated this before but I really
don’t think these days are productive. As an instructor, I feel as through these days
would be better spent working on an activity that would be beneficial to learning
the material or working through the first lecture or topic to be covered. I really
can’t see a good reason for taking class time to work on a simple mindless activity.
The only possible reason for spending class time to work on vocabulary would be
because it allows some student, who never complete homework at home, a chance
to finish the worksheet and turn it in for credit. Although it causes a small increase
in the grade of a student, it still is a positive gain. Even though this type of activity
can cause an increase in a student’s grade, I still think these types of activities
should be done at home and not during a whole class period especially when the
student is in high school. When I am a teacher, I plan on assigning vocabulary
assignments to be completed and turned in by the beginning of the next class
period. I think this is an appropriate way to have students work with the
vocabulary of a chapter given that the process of writing down vocabulary is simple
in principle.