Lesson Analysis
In general terms, I felt like the lesson went quite well – the students seemed authentically engaged, they collaborated constructively, and they presented evidence of learning. After a brief outline of the lesson below, I provide specific reflections regarding different attributes of the lesson.
Brief Lesson Overview
The lesson plan is essentially broken into six stages:
1. Independent observations of a single rock or mineral specimen
2. Paired observations of differences between partners’ specimens
3. Paired classification task with a larger number of samples, identifying traits and classifying individual samples accordingly
4. Whole group classification task, in the form of a “20 Questions”-style game
5. Whole group discussion of the defining categorical traits of rocks and minerals
6. Individual writing task, presenting opinions regarding defining categorical traits for rocks and minerals
Collaboration and Engagement
Of the four students in my group, three of them have a reputation for becoming both distracted and distracting; it was a pleasant surprise to me to see all four students quickly and deeply become engaged in quiet observation.
Brief Lesson Overview
The lesson plan is essentially broken into six stages:
1. Independent observations of a single rock or mineral specimen
2. Paired observations of differences between partners’ specimens
3. Paired classification task with a larger number of samples, identifying traits and classifying individual samples accordingly
4. Whole group classification task, in the form of a “20 Questions”-style game
5. Whole group discussion of the defining categorical traits of rocks and minerals
6. Individual writing task, presenting opinions regarding defining categorical traits for rocks and minerals
Collaboration and Engagement
Of the four students in my group, three of them have a reputation for becoming both distracted and distracting; it was a pleasant surprise to me to see all four students quickly and deeply become engaged in quiet observation.
Science - Solo work.avi from Jesse Gottschalk on Vimeo.
The entire five-minute period was not as silent as this excerpt, but most of the chatter was in the form of observations and questions (some directed at me, some directed generally at the group).
The first partner activity was also primarily quiet. This was not my intent – I was looking to produce collaboration, yet the students were mostly working independently while sharing observation specimens. However, I realized that I hadn’t particularly set up the activity to inherently encourage collaboration – there weren’t any parts of the task that were explicitly facilitated by collaboration, and in fact, it seems likely that my encouragement of quiet work in the previous activity was probably assumed to extend into this activity. With some prompting, however, they did eventually begin to collaborate more – particularly after I encouraged them to examine the rocks next to each other rather than separately.
By the time they got into the second partner activity, however, they were talking much more freely. The construct of the lesson called for a division of labor – one partner sorting, the other recording – but one that could be flexibly exchanged. Their response to this component of the task made me thankful for the flexibility – observe what happens when I ask them to divide jobs, but before I tell them that they can trade off.
The first partner activity was also primarily quiet. This was not my intent – I was looking to produce collaboration, yet the students were mostly working independently while sharing observation specimens. However, I realized that I hadn’t particularly set up the activity to inherently encourage collaboration – there weren’t any parts of the task that were explicitly facilitated by collaboration, and in fact, it seems likely that my encouragement of quiet work in the previous activity was probably assumed to extend into this activity. With some prompting, however, they did eventually begin to collaborate more – particularly after I encouraged them to examine the rocks next to each other rather than separately.
By the time they got into the second partner activity, however, they were talking much more freely. The construct of the lesson called for a division of labor – one partner sorting, the other recording – but one that could be flexibly exchanged. Their response to this component of the task made me thankful for the flexibility – observe what happens when I ask them to divide jobs, but before I tell them that they can trade off.
Neither pair ended up enforcing a “balanced” system – in each pair, one partner wrote the first item, then the other partner wrote all the remaining ones. I did not, however, enforce the restriction that only the non-writing partner could do the sorting, for two reasons: first, because all partners showed clear evidence of active engagement in the activity (which was one of the primary reasons for the division of roles); and second, because in many cases both partners were involved simultaneously in the sorting. One pair (the boys) were more quick to collaborate (seen in the video below), but the other pair did become more vocal in their discussions (unfortunately, they were further from the camera and usually quieter than the boys, so I don’t have a very good video demonstration).
In just this short video clip, you can see a variety of forms of collaboration: asking each other questions, argumentation, providing specific assistance (spelling), dividing responsibility, and demonstration (“feel that!”). In debriefing the task with my Penn Mentor, we both agreed that the collaboration had appeared quite valuable – not only did the children draw each other into the activity, but they challenged and questioned each other in what seemed to both of us to be productive ways.
Engagement remained strong during the next phase of the lesson, with students cooperating reasonably well in the group game; attention seemed to wane and distraction increased, however, during the subsequent sections, as will be detailed in the discussion of management below.
Teacher Moves and Strategies
Throughout the lesson, I employed a variety of strategies and tactics – some planned, some improvised.
I was open to bringing a degree of flexibility into the lesson, for multiple reasons. For one thing, I wanted to make sure that the lesson would be responsive to the students’ interests and background knowledge; I recalled some of the readings and discussions from class (for example, in Chapter 4 of Ready, Set, SCIENCE [Michaels et al. 2007]) where we considered the possibility of allowing the lesson to be adaptable to student questions and interests. Another reason for wanting to be flexible was knowing that I had possibly over-planned for this lesson, which I had done with the intent that I could adjust individual components to take more or less time depending on student engagement, interest, and learning.
In practice, my biggest changes were logistical rather than affecting the lesson content. My first case of improvised adjustment, however clumsy, came almost immediately, when students asked if they could select their own rocks to observe (I had been planning to hand them out).
Engagement remained strong during the next phase of the lesson, with students cooperating reasonably well in the group game; attention seemed to wane and distraction increased, however, during the subsequent sections, as will be detailed in the discussion of management below.
Teacher Moves and Strategies
Throughout the lesson, I employed a variety of strategies and tactics – some planned, some improvised.
I was open to bringing a degree of flexibility into the lesson, for multiple reasons. For one thing, I wanted to make sure that the lesson would be responsive to the students’ interests and background knowledge; I recalled some of the readings and discussions from class (for example, in Chapter 4 of Ready, Set, SCIENCE [Michaels et al. 2007]) where we considered the possibility of allowing the lesson to be adaptable to student questions and interests. Another reason for wanting to be flexible was knowing that I had possibly over-planned for this lesson, which I had done with the intent that I could adjust individual components to take more or less time depending on student engagement, interest, and learning.
In practice, my biggest changes were logistical rather than affecting the lesson content. My first case of improvised adjustment, however clumsy, came almost immediately, when students asked if they could select their own rocks to observe (I had been planning to hand them out).
While I feel that my reaction here was appropriate (and my observing mentor agreed), there was one minor problem it presented: students chose rocks that resembled their future partners’ rocks more than the pairs of rocks I would have assigned (which I felt limited responses in the following activity). I realized that I should have anticipated that students would want to select their own rocks; I could have then avoided the ensuing problem by only offering a limited and more diverse selection of rocks. (Note: when I taught the lesson for a second time with a different group, I did precisely this: I pre-selected five rocks for the four students to choose from, offering only those which seemed most diverse in identifying traits. This approach seemed to work well.)
I relied on some of the teacher talk moves we had read about and discussed in class. Most commonly, I relied on use of open-ended questions, which I used partially to evaluate student understandings, but mostly to push them to think more deeply and to translate their basic observations into specific descriptors that could be written on their organizers.
I relied on some of the teacher talk moves we had read about and discussed in class. Most commonly, I relied on use of open-ended questions, which I used partially to evaluate student understandings, but mostly to push them to think more deeply and to translate their basic observations into specific descriptors that could be written on their organizers.
Science - questions.avi from Jesse Gottschalk on Vimeo.
Other talk moves that I used (drawing on the list included in Ready, Set, SCIENCE!, p. 91) included revoicing (often in the form of attempting to help students restate things they had just said in ways that were more clearly categorical), “prompting students for further participation,” and “asking students to explicate their reasoning.”
Another strategy that I relied on (fairly effectively, in the impressions of my mentor and myself) was modeling. While I could have benefitted from the use of a whiteboard, I used example graphic organizers and rock specimens to model most of the student tasks before handing out the materials they would need; by modeling the tasks without providing much in the way of content support, I hoped to make the task “invisible” – making the task more simple and familiar so students could focus primarily on the content of their observations and thoughts.
I did provide a fair number of suggestions and tips as the lesson went along (for example, my suggestion at the end of the last video above); while ideally I would prefer to be more hands-off and let the students be responsible for figuring out more of the task themselves, in execution I ended up giving many such tips, primarily in cases where students seemed to be losing focus or becoming less attentive to the deeper components of the task. At the same time, I also had some suggestions I was prepared to give, which I held back on until the students really seemed to need them. For example, in the first partner task, I wanted to encourage the partners to put their rocks next to each other and compare them side by side, as I believed that would be an effective means to highlight differences (and would likely strengthen collaboration by drawing students’ focus together). When the task began, however, students immediately exchanged rocks and looked at their partners’ rocks; I decided not to discourage this, and instead waited until individuals began to seem lost or inattentive before recommending they put the rocks together (at which point, collaboration quickly seemed to grow).
In addition to my use of talk moves, I also managed several of what felt like extended periods of silence, which excited me because it meant that students were sufficiently engaged and productive that I didn’t feel compelled to encourage or push them. However, in reviewing the film, I realize that the longest of these was less than two minutes – I would like to work on reaching a point where I can become hands-off for longer than that, although I expect that that is something that requires practice (both for myself and the students).
Another strategy that I made use of (mentioned briefly above) was flexible timing. Or rather, I carried the intention of using flexible timing. However, I actually managed to keep my pacing almost precisely according to the time estimates included in my lesson plan, though not always deliberately, and not in a way that I felt required sacrifices to maintain the pace. Although I used my watch for some degree of timing, I tried to also adjust my timing in response to student engagement. For example, during the first partner activity, I was prepared to let students continue beyond the 5 minutes if engagement remained steady, only to cut the lesson off when distractions suddenly threatened to take over (in other instances I attempted to manage the distraction, but here it seemed likely that their distractions were at least partly tied to losing interest in the activity):
Another strategy that I relied on (fairly effectively, in the impressions of my mentor and myself) was modeling. While I could have benefitted from the use of a whiteboard, I used example graphic organizers and rock specimens to model most of the student tasks before handing out the materials they would need; by modeling the tasks without providing much in the way of content support, I hoped to make the task “invisible” – making the task more simple and familiar so students could focus primarily on the content of their observations and thoughts.
I did provide a fair number of suggestions and tips as the lesson went along (for example, my suggestion at the end of the last video above); while ideally I would prefer to be more hands-off and let the students be responsible for figuring out more of the task themselves, in execution I ended up giving many such tips, primarily in cases where students seemed to be losing focus or becoming less attentive to the deeper components of the task. At the same time, I also had some suggestions I was prepared to give, which I held back on until the students really seemed to need them. For example, in the first partner task, I wanted to encourage the partners to put their rocks next to each other and compare them side by side, as I believed that would be an effective means to highlight differences (and would likely strengthen collaboration by drawing students’ focus together). When the task began, however, students immediately exchanged rocks and looked at their partners’ rocks; I decided not to discourage this, and instead waited until individuals began to seem lost or inattentive before recommending they put the rocks together (at which point, collaboration quickly seemed to grow).
In addition to my use of talk moves, I also managed several of what felt like extended periods of silence, which excited me because it meant that students were sufficiently engaged and productive that I didn’t feel compelled to encourage or push them. However, in reviewing the film, I realize that the longest of these was less than two minutes – I would like to work on reaching a point where I can become hands-off for longer than that, although I expect that that is something that requires practice (both for myself and the students).
Another strategy that I made use of (mentioned briefly above) was flexible timing. Or rather, I carried the intention of using flexible timing. However, I actually managed to keep my pacing almost precisely according to the time estimates included in my lesson plan, though not always deliberately, and not in a way that I felt required sacrifices to maintain the pace. Although I used my watch for some degree of timing, I tried to also adjust my timing in response to student engagement. For example, during the first partner activity, I was prepared to let students continue beyond the 5 minutes if engagement remained steady, only to cut the lesson off when distractions suddenly threatened to take over (in other instances I attempted to manage the distraction, but here it seemed likely that their distractions were at least partly tied to losing interest in the activity):
As a result, the lesson lasted almost precisely 45 minutes, and managed to incorporate practically every component of the lesson plan without feeling too jam-packed.
A breakdown of the timing estimates and approximate actual times:
A breakdown of the timing estimates and approximate actual times:
- Introduction
- Estimated: <1:00
- Actual: 2:00
- Independent observations of a single rock or mineral specimen
- Estimated: 5:00
- Actual: 5:10
- Paired observations of differences between partners’ specimens
- Estimated: 5:00
- Actual: 5:10 (including transition, 5:40)
- Paired classification task with a larger number of samples, identifying traits and classifying individual samples accordingly
- Estimated: 10:00
- Actual: 9:30 (including transition, 11:10)
- Whole group classification task, in the form of a “20 Questions”-style game
- Estimated: 10:00-15:00
- Actual: 9:10
- Whole group discussion of the defining categorical traits of rocks and minerals
- Individual writing task, presenting opinions regarding defining categorical traits for rocks and minerals
- Estimated: 10:00-15:00 for both of these together
- Actual: 6:50-12:30 (5:20 for discussion, between 1:30 and 6:10 for independent writing)
- One student could have taken longer, but it was lunchtime and I allowed her to conclude.
Science - goofing.avi from Jesse Gottschalk on Vimeo.
Although I sometimes ignored this behavior, I sometimes responded verbally – sometimes directing questions to those students, sometimes specifically asking them to tune in, and on two occasions resorting to “threats” (telling the students that we’d have to end the lesson if they weren’t engaged with it). The other major management issue I encountered was misuse of the materials – in particular, when I handed out plastic gems at the end. Warning before watching this video: it’s pretty adorable, but it ain’t pretty.
In retrospect, I made two critical mistakes here. First, I probably shouldn’t have used these gems, which are familiar to students because their classroom teacher lets them add gems into a jar in response to good behavior. While I wanted to use a familiar rock-like object to highlight the difference between rocks and non-rocks, I nevertheless should have avoided these gems – since the students have only encountered the gems in the form of “gems in the jar,” they were apparently extremely excited to have the opportunity to explore the gems in another context (one of the students had noticed the gems in my “toolkit” earlier in the lesson, and had exclaimed on multiple occasions, “Mr. Gottschalk’s got gems in the jar!”), which in retrospect was not conducive to this lesson. More importantly, I should have established rules for handling materials before handing them out; looking back, it’s impressive to me how responsible the students were with the rock and mineral specimens even without much guidance on handling (apart from a few disclaimers, such as a caution to keep the stickers on).
Student Learning
Here are my observations – based on both informal observations and a review of students’ graphic organizers – of student learning in my lesson, broken down by the objectives I outlined in my lesson plan.
SWBAT make close observations of a variety of rocks and minerals IOT recognize and differentiate characteristics.
Student Learning
Here are my observations – based on both informal observations and a review of students’ graphic organizers – of student learning in my lesson, broken down by the objectives I outlined in my lesson plan.
SWBAT make close observations of a variety of rocks and minerals IOT recognize and differentiate characteristics.
- Each student, on their individual graphic organizers, identified between 8 and 16 unique features that could be used to classify rocks, between their individual and comparative observations.
- Each pair determined 7-8 traits to use for classification. Of most interest – each pair came up with three traits that split the rocks into two near-even groups.
- The average split between larger group and smaller group was close to 7-4, meaning many of the splits were fairly even (rather than producing 10-1 splits).
- My personal observations showed that all students were to some extent successful in meeting this objective.
SWBAT identify characteristics of rocks IOT enhance their understanding of what distinguishes rocks and minerals from other solid objects
SWBAT demonstrate use of multiple graphic organizational systems (i.e., data table, information web) IOT record information on observations and understandings
SWBAT understand basic principles of classification IOT sort objects by distinguishing features
- This is a hard one to assess – after all, this lesson wasn’t providing any content regarding the defining traits of rocks (which are actually rather complex), and thus, it is unfair to assess whether students came up with many on their own. What I chose to look for instead (primarily using their final graphic organizers) was how many traits they identified, and whether they could effectively differentiate rocks and non-rocks.
- None of the students was fully successful in listing traits that defined all the rocks; three out of four of them included the words “shiny” and “big,” both of which would only have described some of the specimens. Had I had more time, however, this would have provided a great jumping-off point to bring back the rock samples and have them determine which of their traits really applied to all rocks. At that point, it might have been appropriate to introduce the actual definition of rocks and minerals – but now I’m getting into the Next Steps section of this project.
SWBAT demonstrate use of multiple graphic organizational systems (i.e., data table, information web) IOT record information on observations and understandings
- Students were quite successful at using the graphic organizers: I observed many occasions (sometimes with prompting – especially early in the lesson – but sometimes independently) where students referred back to their prior graphic organizers in later tasks.
SWBAT understand basic principles of classification IOT sort objects by distinguishing features
- I assessed this both informally and semi-formally, through the use of the classification game we played.
- My informal observations indicated to me that the students were improving in their ability to succeed at coming up with effective classification questions.
- For a more formal evaluation, I reviewed the video, and observed that the students vastly improved their performance (in terms of efficiency) between the first and second time they played the game.
- For reference: playing the game optimally would involve finding ways to divide the rock options in half with every question; with 11 rock types, this would mean each game should require no more than 4 questions (first question reducing to no more than 6; second question reducing to no more than 3; third question reducing to no more than 2; fourth question determining the correct specimen).
- First game: 5:10, 7 questions;
- Started with questions such as “what color is it?”, which were not classification questions. Students asked multiple questions which only removed one or two rocks at a time, rather than asking questions that more effectively split the pile.
- Second round: 2:00, 4 questions
- Not only did they play much more quickly, but they actually managed to find the rock in the “optimal” number of steps – demonstrating that they were collectively much more successful on the second iteration than the first.
- The first video below shows an excerpt from the first game; the next shows an excerpt from the second game.
Science - Yes or No.avi from Jesse Gottschalk on Vimeo.
(In reviewing the video, it is clear to me that I should have set out the expectation early on that they would remove the appropriate rocks without my reminding them to. I think because I gave them guidance early on, they grew to expect and depend upon it. This would have been a much more compelling demonstration of learning if they had shown that they could identify which ones to remove, rather than just showing that they could ask effective questions.)
Other learning
Other learning
- While it was not an objective for this lesson, students also demonstrated some other skills, both literacy (using their graphic organizers) and math (one girl asked her partner, “What’s 11 take away 3?”).
[Click here to download notes from my Penn Mentor]
Michaels, S., Shouse, A.W., & Schweingruber, H.A. (2007) Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms. National Research Council. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11882
Michaels, S., Shouse, A.W., & Schweingruber, H.A. (2007) Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms. National Research Council. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11882