Lesson Study:
Cycle Two
During this lesson study cycle my team and I looked to answer the question of how we can get students more interested and gain more understanding in science or more formally, as our equity based research question poses, "How can we use interactive tools and critical thinking strategies to make science concepts accessible and engaging for all students?"
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Research Base
Description of Inquiry Cycle
In the slideshow below you will find artifacts from this lesson study such as my teams memorialization document, lesson plan, student work and so much more. Click on the buttons on the slides to go to the full documents.
Reflection
This lesson study cycle was very eye-opening for me for a plethora of reasons. I feel like I have grown so much as both a person and a teacher throughout this course and cannot wait to implement the things I've learned both into my life and my teaching. As someone who has always had a love for science it was so bewildering to me that there are so many children that do not see a need to learn it or even a want to do it. I think that this often comes from the lack of science education they receive in elementary school but also their misunderstanding of all of the aspects of science and that sadly it is not all cool labs and explosions. I have often found myself talking to my own students about the need for science and how even if they don't enjoy it that they will have a use for it later on in school and in life. ​​
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I think the biggest thing I learned about myself during this lesson study cycle is that I am not someone that does well with disagreement. This is not to say that I don't handle confrontation well but that I am someone that likes to keep things moving forward, despite having the full picture, rather than focusing on the small details and making sure everything is "perfect". Perfect is in quotes to denote that I do not think that there is anything that is perfect. Over the winter break I found myself repeating a mantra while sewing that I brought into my teaching and lesson study, it goes as follows, "it can either look really great or you can have a good time doing it. Both things can rarely coincide." In adding this to my life I find myself enjoying the things I do so much more.
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The biggest takeaway I have for my teaching is actually quite similar to the realization I made about my life. I found that during the lesson study that some of the student grasped onto the information very quickly while others did not understand what was going on - which is totally normal. But it mad me think about how things are not perfect, lessons are not perfect, we all have our off days, and how the classroom is a place where good times should be had. I feel like my group got so bogged down in developing the perfect lesson that we missed the fun of it, and maybe so did the kids.
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All in all, I'm very proud of the work I did and cannot wait to implement some of the things that I saw and did into my classroom more.
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