Electricity and Magnetism

Reflection

The lesson for this learning experience was designed for my first student teaching placement in February of 2009 at Thomas Edison Elementary School in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Union Free School District. After teaching an entire unit in mathematics, I was asked to take over teaching science in a whole-group setting. This lesson was the last in a unit I taught on electricity and magnetism. I wanted to do a whole-group lesson for this learning experience, including all of the learners with special needs. I also wanted to incorporate technology in this learning experience as a culmination to the unit. The students had been completing several hands-on experiments in this unit, and I wanted to try something different and exciting with the students. I was able to do this with the students, using a variety of resources including my PowerPoint Jeopardy game, video, and online electricity and magnetism games. Bringing technology into the lesson seemed highly beneficial for the students. I chose this lesson for my learning experience because it allowed me to see the connections that can be made between subject areas. Through the key ideas and performance indicators I chose, I wanted to see how deep those connections could be.

This learning experience was developed to give the students an opportunity to review concepts related to electricity and magnetism. I wanted to create a learning experience that would incorporate different subjects and styles of learning. By using both Science and ELA standards, I was able to allow the students to express their ideas in a variety of ways.

After completing the learning experience, as well as scoring the assessment pieces, I believe that the students met my intended objectives. The students were able to identify key vocabulary words both orally, during the Jeopardy game, and in writing, using the acrostic poem. I was somewhat skeptical that the students would fall short of my objectives, but they far exceeded my expectations. I was very surprised when several students were able to answer a Double Jeopardy question relating to a topic that I had only discussed very briefly in the previous lesson. It was at that moment that I realized that my students really were retaining this information. The differences in the pre- and post-test scores also indicated that many of the students had a strong understanding of the concepts. Many of them scored in the distinguished range for their poems, with several students scoring at a borderline proficient-distinguished level.

The concepts reviewed in this learning experience are an essential part of everyday life for the students outside of school. Electricity and magnetism are all around us, and it is important that the students understand how these concepts work. After learning about electricity and magnetism, students might take that extra minute when turning on a light to think about what makes the light turn on and off. The students also get the opportunity to work with their peers during this learning experience. The idea of teamwork, a concept that is essential as the students grow older, is enforced in this learning experience. When playing the review game, the behavior of each student was a reflection of their entire team. This concept of taking responsibility for one’s actions to be successful as a team is an essential life lesson for the students.

Overall, I feel that this lesson was a success! A student who usually struggles with writing proudly handed me his acrostic poem and said, “I think this is the best work I’ve ever done. I actually get this stuff and it’s cool!” To see that student produce such a wonderful writing piece and feel confident about his work is something that will stay with me forever. I tried something new with using technology, and luckily, the students responded well!

This learning experience was peer reviewed during EDU 327: Teaching to the Standards, on the Daemen College campus on March 26, 2009. The focus question for this peer review was related to improving my assessment plan and/or assessment rubric. During the peer review, I received comments and suggestions from my group members focusing on how to improve my rubric. With help from Group JELLA, especially Jamie Morawski, I was able to modify my learning experience by adding magnetism and electricity pictures to each level of the rubric. I also changed the names of the levels on the rubric to make them more appropriate for the lesson, as well as more student-friendly.

I really felt that this learning experience was successful when one of my group members, Leslie Myers, said, “Your LE is too good—I can’t think of any cool comments to write!” I would like to thank all of the members of Group JELLA for their help and suggestions during the peer review process. I would also like to Professor Andy Steck for introducing me to the peer review progress, as well as Jamie Reardon for supervising Group JELLA’s peer review sessions.

One of the most rewarding aspects of completing this Learning Experience was having the opportunity to publish it online. I was able to become proficient in using the Dreamweaver software, and I am very pleased with the results. Being able to look at Learning Experiences completed in previous years during the EDU 327:Teaching to the Standards class was very helpful to me, and I would like to be able to do that for future students taking the class. I am also very grateful for the opportunity to partcipate in the TLQP Summer Program, which allowed me to get feedback from and share my Learning Experience with current Buffalo Public School teachers.