Reflection of Teaching Changes in Matter Unit Overall, the students had a good grasp of changes in matter by the end

of the unit. It was a neat experience to see them grow more in the concepts of the unit as the week progressed. At the beginning, the students had a hard time understanding the concepts of physical changes on its own without being compared to chemical changes. However, they understood physical changes better once I officially introduced the idea of chemical changes. The hands-on experiences and real-world examples helped students visualize and relate to the content. The variety of activities appealed to all learners including visual, auditory, musical, kinesthetic, and logical learners. The graphic organizers used throughout the unit allowed students to organize the content they were learning. I loved seeing how the webquest required students to use higher-level thinking skills in an engaging activity on the computers. Teaching this unit I planned affirmed the fact that a great amount of planning is impertinent for teaching! I also learned how to think quickly and be flexible when technology didnt work or we ran out of time for Science class. On day 1, the students had great comments and questions to add to the KWL chart at the beginning of the class. As we filled out the Frayer Model worksheet together, I had to wait longer for all of the students to finish writing down the information. I should have given a completed copy to those students who take longer to write down notes. Plus, our ELMO and projector were not working. I had to be flexible and write down the Frayer Model diagram on the board. For the practice, the students were finding examples such as taking decorations on and off the window. I had to stop and re-explain a physical change. I reminded the students that a physical change is a change happening to one object.

On day 2, the students were already predicting what a chemical change was at the beginning of the lesson. This allowed them to think more deeply about chemical changes in the PowerPoint and Jigsaw. The students had great questions and comments during the PowerPoint. The students were able to fully participate in the Jigsaw and identify the attributes of the chemical changes. They did a great job of following directions in the Jigsaw and their learning was evident based on their conversations in their home groups. I think they really enjoyed getting to move around in the Jigsaw activity. For the read-aloud at the closure, the students became disengaged even though I was asking questions in between each page. I think they would have been more engaged at the end of the lesson if I had shown the video of the Magic School Bus episode. On day 3, In the nature observation activity, the students did not use their time wisely to find physical and chemical changes. About half of the students found a decent amount of physical and chemical changes. Nonetheless, it was still neat for them to be in nature to observe and apply their knowledge of physical and chemical changes. I should have played the video twice in order for the students to write down all of the physical and chemical changes. The Venn diagram was excellent for organizing and comparing the content. The lab activity was great to see real world examples of physical and chemical changes. It was very engaging! The concept maps became homework because we ran out of time. The students really enjoyed the online game and every student I called on was able to identify the change as physical or chemical. In this lesson, the students with severe special needs were able to participate in all of it, including the online game at the end! On day 4, I played the engagement video twice in order for students to really absorb the information due to the fact that the man talked really fast in the video. Some students could

relate to the video because they had been camping and had to use an exothermic or endothermic reaction to cook their food as well. The students enjoyed the experiment because of the big reaction with bubbles! The experiment did not turn out the way it is supposed to. But, I was flexible! First, I tried to add different amounts of baking soda and vinegar in an attempt to get the desired result. Then, I decided activate the students background knowledge and use them as a resource. I asked the students who had done this experiment before about the results they got and used that information to draw conclusions about the experiment. On day 5, I could not have imagined the engagement activity going any better! The students had a lot of fun and worked together nicely to sort the changes. They had insightful discussions and debates about each change in matter in their teams. When we were completing the review worksheet together, we ran out of time due to a last minute assembly. We had to complete it quickly and I should have given copies to students who take longer to take notes. I was flexible and told them to copy off of a partner since we were doing it altogether anyways. The students did really well in the webquest and seemed to enjoy it as well. I decided to let everyone work in partners chosen by myself since many of the laptops were not working that day. The essays took longer to complete than I expected but majority of the class did really well!