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Chloe Poltonavage

EDUC 344

Professor Smolleck

Teaching Reflection

November 6, 2018

Diving Deeper Into Lessons Plans, One Lesson at a Time

“Why Do Objects Sink or Float?” was a lesson planned and designed to focus on a few

essential questions. When considering the implications of the lesson we presented to first grade

students at Kelly Elementary, it is important to consider both the national and Pennsylvania

standards the lesson was planned around. Throughout the entirety of the lesson, students had the

opportunity to dive deeper into a hands-on activity that incorporated science as inquiry, which in

turn promoted a different type of learning than the students may have seen prior to the lesson.

When creating the lesson plan, the major goals included student inquiry, student interest

and collaborate teamwork in groups, making predictions, determine values, create and

manipulate objects to either sink or float, and have an overarching and thorough understanding

of the difference between mass and volume. Students having the ability to conceptualize the idea

of sinking and floating, and the terms ‘mass’ and ‘volume’, is crucial through the entirety of the

experiment. The goals that have previously listed directly line up with both the national

standards and the Pennsylvania state standards in terms of expectations for learning at a

reasonable rate for the grade level it was intended for. This lesson is extremely current in the first

graders lives when considering real world applications. More specifically, the objects the

students were exposed to are real-world, actual objects that a majority of the students have felt or

seen prior to the experiment.

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Because we began the lesson by asking students whether they thought two different

objects would either sink or float (a sponge and a marble), the first graders had the opportunity to

exhibit curiosity, define questions from current knowledge, and propose their own preliminary

explanations or hypotheses (NRC, 2000, page 7) This credits the student’s ability to give their

undivided attention throughout the demonstration to the student teachers and moving into the

student-run part of the experiment.

Like many aspects of life, teaching calls for the ability to change lessons last minute or to

adjust what one had originally planned. This naturally occurred in a matter of minutes as we

began the second set of lessons. More specially, after speaking to the first classroom teacher and

asking her for feedback, she suggested that we only give the students one object at a time in the

first stage of the investigation. This was really positive feedback from the host teacher in which

we were able to apply immediately to the following lessons. In the next class, we saw significant

change in the student’s behavior when they were only exposed to one object at a time. This

allowed the students to focus on one item in comparison to multiple and get distracted more

easily.

I would also dive deeper into the summative assessment as touched on in the lesson plan.

Though we did not have time within the lesson to give students the opportunity to create posters

to justify their own findings, this is definitely something I would utilize in a future lesson by

potentially making this a unit plan to expand over a longer period of time opposed to strictly a

one-day lesson. This runs parallel to Table 2-6: Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry and

Their Variations, where essential feature one describes learners engaging in scientifically

oriented questions. More specifically, I would try to elaborate on the “learner engages in

question provided by teacher, materials, or other source” (NRC, 2000, page 29) This would be
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elaborated on by asking more specific questions about outside examples of objects that sink and

float to try to probe the students into considering other ideas and thoughts.

When considering Table 2-7: Common Components Shared by Instructional Models, I

feel as if we did in fact reach phase 5, even if we barely touched on them. (NRC, 2000, page 35)

Phase 5 states that students, with their teachers, review and asses what they have learned and

how they have learned it (NRC, 2000, page 35) In the future, I would plan to dedicate more time

to asking students more personal and one-on-one questions to assure the comprehension level is

at the expected level.

Moving forward, if I were to do this lesson with another group of students, I would do

very little differently because I feel like the lesson as a whole was very successful in terms of our

essential questions being able to be answered by the students. In my own classroom, I would

extend this lesson even further and dive more in depth about other science terms and potentially

have students design their own experiment with objects they are interested in finding out more

about. I would also love to take Kaelyn’s teaching style with me as I continue my path to become

a teacher. I admire the way she uses her voice to engage the students and continues to repeat

herself until she gets a sense of understanding from her students.

In an article published by Dr. Malcom B. Butler, he talks a lot about student-driven

learning. This type of learning, and teaching, looks very different to a lot of different people. As

Professor Smolleck has described in class, it may seem as if the teacher did not put a lot of

preparation into a class experiment or discussion, however the more pre-planning that is done in

advance creates a more inviting and open atmosphere for students to explore things that interest

them. This connects to our experiment in that exact way, and something I would do more with in

the future when I use this lesson. As Dr. Butler discusses through his research, we know children
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have an affinity for nature and science, so having the ability to connect the science to be learned

to the reality of their lives is extremely important. One question I still find myself wondering, is

how do we begin these conversations or experiments with children without seemingly

generalizing their background, culture, or previous knowledge?

Overall, I feel as if our lesson, “Why Do Objects Sink or Float?”, lined parallel to both

the national and state standards for the specific group of children we were working with. I think

it is also important to keep in mind the timing of the school year. By late October, early

November, students have had enough background knowledge to have understand the basis of the

point we were trying to get across. At the end of the day, I think my most valuable takeaway

from our teaching experience was to have patience and understand things are not always going to

go the way you had planned for – and that is okay. It is about how you react to the bumps in the

road that makes grit become strength.

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Sources Cited

Butler, Malcom B. “Motivating Young Students to Be Successful in Science: Keeping It Real,

Relevant and Rigorous.” Best Practices in Science Education. National Geographic,

NGL.Cengage.com/ELT.

Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning.

National Academy Press, 2008.