Reflection of Thursday, March 24th

My Professing Advisor came in to watch this lesson and he observed 1st and 2nd periods. Overall he was very impressed with how the activity went, and I couldn't have been happier, it was a good teaching moment. From 2nd period I adjusted my technique a little bit because we went through the activity with multiple groups more quickly than we had first period. I then required that table partners need to tell us what will happen next so that the actors would do it. This made students more accountable for their learning. Although it felt a little awkward for me to put that amount of pressure on them, I think it was good to show them that they were responsible for getting this on more of an individual level. Plus, it helped me to see who really grasped the concept and who needed more work. 4th period, my class with exceeding personality, who I expected to really have fun with, surprisngly didn't buy into the activity as well. I think there were several contributing factors to this including, not enough background information to make the activity meaningful, I was not as energized as I had been earlier in the day, and finally, perhaps it was just an off day for them, they were having trouble focusing and staying engaged, so the whole thing was more painful to try and get them to get and stay on track. I would definitely use this activity again in the future but I would take more time developing the background information required (which I already knew going into it). I would also like to think of something to use for the cellular membrane (maybe the rest of the students linked up?) Also it's important to clarify that we are only using a single pair of chromosomes, where in humans this process is happening with 23 chromosomes. I asked for student feedback and most of the kids found the activity worthwhile and very helpful, only a few thought it was a waste of time.