Reflection for Team Teaching

Team Teaching Reflection- Part 2A

Kailey, Kelsey and I worked with a group of 5^h and 6^th grade students at Lucas Elementary school.  We taught the students a lesson about mysterious powders.  It went great! I was extremely pleased with our lessons.  The parts of the lessons that went the best were the sections that were the most interactive.  I also learned that behavior issues in the classroom were eliminated when students were engaged in the learning.  The changes we made after our feedback was extremely beneficial to our group.  After our peer teaching our peers recommended us to find a different way to distribute our materials because with all of the liquids and powders on the table at the same time- it was very confusing and overwhelming.  For our lesson, we chose to distribute the liquids one a time.  And then when the table was done with the particular liquid, they would raise their hand and a teacher would provide them with the next liquid to test. 

On the second lesson we asked student volunteers to read our crime scene information, the suspect bios and the breaking news aloud to the class.  Because the students were so excited about the crime scene and the information, they weren’t listening to their classmates that we reading the information.  If I were to teach the second lesson again I would have each table read their information aloud to just their table members.  This could even be made into a competition with the other tables. 

The students met and some exceeded our learning performances.  On the first lesson when the students were filling out their data collection sheet they were using their prior knowledge about powders and when they have seen them before.  By the end of the lesson, the student’s descriptions of the reactions excelled.  In fact, about 5 of the students went home after the first lesson and did some of the experiments we did in class! That was so exciting to hear and I was thrilled when the students told us the next morning. The students exceeded our learning performances on the second day.  Many of the students were able to identify the mysterious powder just by doing one reaction with the liquid.  Many of the students already had educated guesses about the powder just by looking at it, which really showed their progression from the first lesson.

For the most part, our lessons went according to plan.  On the first lesson we did not get through all we had planned. The students took more time to experiment with the different powders which we did not anticipate for.  The first lesson we finished with some students who just started the powder identification sheet and others who were close to being finished.  Then, our group meet again after our lesson to discuss any revisions we thought needed to be made to our second lesson.  We started off the second lesson by finishing our first lesson, which ended up working great because it allowed the students to revisit some of the ideas we explored on the first lesson. 

I learned how much fun it is to actually be teaching lessons in the classroom instead of just creating lesson plans for classes.  I also learned that behavior issues in the classroom truthfully disappear when the lesson is inquiry-based.  By observing our classroom prior to our lesson, I had a general idea of students who I knew were going to finish early, students who would have a challenging time staying on task and others that would finish last.  During the portions of the lessons that were less hands on, such as reviewing over descriptions and explanations of the powders, is when we had very minor behavioral issues.  I quickly learned that almost immediately when the students bored, that was when there was issues in behavior.  There was one student in particular that just needed some extra guidance to stay on task, but during the experimental and crime scene portion of the lessons, he was great. I also learned that when teaching inquiry there are issues that come up on the fly.  This was a bit challenging to do while teaching with two other members because it was difficult to make a quick decision and inform the other teachers.  I learned that inquiry based lessons need to be thoroughly thought out prior to teaching.

I honestly would not change much to our lessons.  The lessons went great and the students were for the most part, always engaged and seemed to enjoy the lesson.  The only thing I might to differently is choose another indicator such as iodine that has more reactions with powders.  Some of the reactions were not as obvious as I would have liked them to which made it a little difficult for students to use the flow chart.