Task 1
My TPA is based from Walhert Catholic High School in Dubuque, Iowa. My field experience was completed in a 10th grade general biology classroom.
Most students in this class were at the target level for their grade in this content area, with a few above and a few below. The students all spoke English and had little to no difficulties in spoken language. As they were a 10th grade room their social/emotional development was lacking, with a handful of students responding to the primary teacher in the room disrespectfully (ex. ignoring directions). They all come from catholic families and have grown up for at least most of their lives in and around Dubuque's upper-middle class areas. I made sure to modify my lesson plans to deal with the students lacking social/emotional development by creating a lesson that is both exciting and surprising, as well as rigorous and relevant.
I will be teaching my students in a lesson on nutrient cycles of planet Earth. I plan on starting out by lecturing for a short amount of time to give the students ample information on the cycles before they begin exploring it on their own. I plan on creating a led-discussion type environment wherein I guide the students to answer questions about the cycles being introduced. One of the ways in which I will monitor student learning while they are being taught is asking questions to every student as well as to specific people who are not following along. After the discussion I will lead into a short lecture about the varieties of nutrient cycles through use of a PowerPoint presentation. After this I will task the students to play a carbon cycle game. The game will take the students on a journey through the carbon cycle as a carbon molecule. Along the way they will hit questions which they have to answer to proceed. They will also run into fact boxes on reservoirs of carbon. They must all write down six questions and their answers, and six facts about reservoirs (an in-depth look at the lesson is shown below in the lesson plan section).
Scientific language is an important language to describe any scientific content in. It is important to me to support lecture with relevance as well. So it will be key to express to the students why the lesson of today will be important for them to learn.
Most students in this class were at the target level for their grade in this content area, with a few above and a few below. The students all spoke English and had little to no difficulties in spoken language. As they were a 10th grade room their social/emotional development was lacking, with a handful of students responding to the primary teacher in the room disrespectfully (ex. ignoring directions). They all come from catholic families and have grown up for at least most of their lives in and around Dubuque's upper-middle class areas. I made sure to modify my lesson plans to deal with the students lacking social/emotional development by creating a lesson that is both exciting and surprising, as well as rigorous and relevant.
I will be teaching my students in a lesson on nutrient cycles of planet Earth. I plan on starting out by lecturing for a short amount of time to give the students ample information on the cycles before they begin exploring it on their own. I plan on creating a led-discussion type environment wherein I guide the students to answer questions about the cycles being introduced. One of the ways in which I will monitor student learning while they are being taught is asking questions to every student as well as to specific people who are not following along. After the discussion I will lead into a short lecture about the varieties of nutrient cycles through use of a PowerPoint presentation. After this I will task the students to play a carbon cycle game. The game will take the students on a journey through the carbon cycle as a carbon molecule. Along the way they will hit questions which they have to answer to proceed. They will also run into fact boxes on reservoirs of carbon. They must all write down six questions and their answers, and six facts about reservoirs (an in-depth look at the lesson is shown below in the lesson plan section).
Scientific language is an important language to describe any scientific content in. It is important to me to support lecture with relevance as well. So it will be key to express to the students why the lesson of today will be important for them to learn.
Analysis and Reflection
Knowing about your students is important in planning lessons for many reasons. For example, this class is a sophomore class that has a difficult time staying on task. A long lecture on nutrient cycling would have been a poor choice to keep these students engaged in learning. Therefore, I have planned a game which they can play on their own in order to gain the knowledge that they need. Students in this classroom are all at different learning and developmental levels so I chose to make my short lecture slides very basic to help each student to best understand the content. Then the game filled in some more specific gaps in the lecture. The lecture itself was done using scientific language in a very basic form. Most students responded well to this and were able to understand scientific jargon and key words and concepts that helped to explain nutrient cycles.