Monique Czaczkowski

Ed. 4214 Science Education

Sept. 2014

P.O.E. REFLECTION
General concepts
What was the major
learning (in terms of
teaching practices) that
you took away from this
exercise?
How would you
characterize the start of
your demo? Did you
have a distinct 'hook'?
What might you change
to better draw your
students in?
How did your demo
finish off? Tell me what
you think about the
finish.
How did your transitions
between components of
your demonstration go?
How was the timing for
you? Was it easy to
manage? What
techniques did you use?
Do you think that you
have a tendency to go
over or under time?
Is there something that
you wish that you'd
done differently in

-Longer wait times

-Simple POEs at the start of the lesson can get the students engaged and ready to learn
-You can relate these to every day experiences
-There are many resources that can help teachers use different strategies to present
information and drive curiosity
-The start of the demo was organizedAll the materials were neatly presented on the
desk, the blackboard was erased and the class was quiet
-The hook for our demonstration would have been the title Dancing Raisins as it gets
the students thinking right away as well as our question regarding what was in pop that
makes it fizz
-We could have provided the students with a bit more background on terms such as
density or buoyancy to get the students thinking on the right path
-The demo finished off by asking students why they think the results happenedStudents
were engaged in the discussion and they were listening to others (overall I think the
ending went great)
-We could have tied it into more real life experiences though
-The transitions went smoothly from my point of viewthere were no major distractions
and the class seemed engaged the whole time
-The timing of our experiment was a bit short compared to others so it was easy to
manageWe did practice at home so we knew it would work in the time allotted
-Usually I am pretty good at gaging time, if anything I would say I typically go a bit over

-I think including different objects to drop into the carbonated beverage could have
helped expand on the predictions and maybe get students to focus on the physical
properties of the objects as well

Monique Czaczkowski
retrospect?
If you were to do a POE
about a completely
unrelated science topic,
what main things would
you do the same?
What part did you find
easy? Tell me why.

-Introducing the experiments name and materials would be something I would continue
to do because it captured the students attention and also got them to start thinking
-Ask students what a reasonable person might think instead of what they think might
happen
-Have students vote covering their eyes again
-The easy part of the POE was actually doing the experiment because the steps were
straightforward and quick
-Also asking students to predict and then raise their hands was easy because students
were used to doing this for previous demonstrations
-Keeping the students engaged seemed easy because students were actually interesting
in the end result based on their reactions (it was also fairly quick)

Teacher presence and physical effectiveness

What did you do,
physically or with your
voice, that was
effective? What was
ineffective? Thoughts
about improvements?
Where there any times
that you felt nervous or
panicked?
How did your
interactions with your
'students' go? What
worked well and what
could be improved?

-The predictions were neatly written on the board

-My voice was loud enough for all students to hear
-When asking the students which predictions they think are correct, I raised my voice at
the end like I was asking a question and then waited for their response by a show of
hands
-I felt calm throughout the presentation because it was in front of my peers that I have
been with now for 2 months (and everyone is very accepting!)
-I think my interactions with students went well; because it was such a short presentation
it was hard to see this
-It was good that students were asked questions throughout the demonstration and each
of their ideas were addressed
-Even more eye contact/questions
-Greater wait times after asking a question

Conveying learning
How well do you think

-Fairly wellBuoyancy was visually observed when the carbon dioxide bubbles attached

Monique Czaczkowski
your scientific principle
was conveyed?
What worked really well
for your student's
learning?
What things would you
change or tweak to
create an even better
learning experience
for your students?

to the raisins, increasing their buoyancy

Density was also observed; the raisins were initially more dense than the
liquid, and therefore they sank to the bottom
-The raisins reacted quickly with the carbon dioxide from the spritethey were able to see
all the steps (the bubbles attaching to the raisins ridges, the raisins floating to the top,
and then returning to the bottom of the glass) and the purpose of the experiment quickly
-Do the same experiment but with other objects that have the same properties or even
other drinks with different levels of carbonation (I.e. small, more dense than water, and
rough surface) allow the students to determine what these properties are that allow
them to dance in carbonated beverages
-You could also have the students actively participate in the experiment by allowing them
to drop the raisins or objects into the carbonated beverage

Engaging your students (getting them thinking)

Is there anything that
you did to make sure
that your students were
thinking and not just
watching? Were there
any times that it would
be easy for a student to
be disengaged? Tell me
about that.
Did you students have
opportunities to interact
with one another? Tell
me about that.
Were you able to
connect the science
with real world
experience? If not, how
might you have done it?

-We asked them questions (1) predict outcomes (2) what were they observing (3) why was
it happeningthis made sure that students were thinking and not just watching
-Tried to keep eye contact
-The experiment was relatively short (~5 minutes) so there wasnt a lot of time for the
students to become disengaged
-The experiment was easy/fast to set up and the results of the raisins dancing happened
very quickly so it kept the students attention
-Yes, students were interacting with one another when they were bouncing off each
others hypotheses and ideas to explain why the raisins would bounce

-We didnt connect the science to real world experiences but on way we could have would
involve water wingsthe child floats because the density of the child is less than that of
the pool water

Monique Czaczkowski