Kanah McDannell

Lesson Plan Reflection

What did the students find out in the experience? Were there any surprises?
o Students were learning about the skeletal system. From this experience I want the
students to be able to indicate where the Cranium, Spin, Rib Cage, Collarbone,
Shoulder bone, Femur, Pelvis, Ulna-Radius, and Humerus are located in their
body. One thing that surprised me about this activity was the disconnect between
the paper and the students body. The students had difficulty taking the bones that
they labeled on the paper and finding them in their own body. I personally thought
that it would be easier for the students to find them in their own body then to label

them on the paper.

How did the students in each group work together? Were there any problems?
o Since I was only working with the 3rd grade group I only had 9 students so I had 3
groups of 3 students. 2 of the groups worked extremely well together with no
problems but one group did not work out so well. The CT and myself worked
together to place the students into groups because this class did have special
requests from parents to not allow certain students to work with one another.
Originally, I was confident in the groups but them two boys in one of the groups
decided that they hated one another so much that they could not be around each
other. I pulled each of the aside separately and explained that they had to work it
out to get through their project because the is what big kids do. They did not work

together perfectly, there was a lot of silence but the assignment got completed.
Was the activity open-ended enough, or did each group do more or less the same thing?
o I think that the project was kind of in the middle. I did give the student guide lines
and expectations but I also allowed the students to discover things outside of these
expectations. Once the students named the required bones they were allowed to
see what other types of bone they could name. I should have allowed the students

determine all of the bones they were going to label.

How did the students extend the investigation?
o The students were able to extend the experiment after they were done labeling the
required 8 bones in the body. After they were finished they were able to label any
other bones they wanted using their science book or the diagram in their agenda.
It was interesting to see how the students ran with this. Every group had bones
labeled that the other groups did not have. I liked seeing the bones that the groups

Kanah McDannell
Lesson Plan Reflection
chose, they were very random and detailed, normally small bones you would

never think to look at.

How did the students connect this experience to their daily lives?
o These students were particularly excited about the idea of breaking bones. In
many of the discussions I heard them say things like, I wonder what you would
have to do to break this bone. Or I know someone that broke their or One
time I broke my All of the students doing this activity were boys so there
should have been no surprise that this was the only thing that they were talking
about. It was good to hear them using all of the correct terms, as well, as knowing

where the bone was in their body.

How did I accommodate students with learning and physical differences?
o For ELL I provided them with a diagram with the skeleton label in their native
language. In this classroom we did have students who spoke Spanish but did not
need the assistance of these diagrams but I provided them just in case. Some of
the English speaking students looked at this diagram to see what the bones were

named in Spanish.
Did I use technology effectively?
o I displayed the information on the smartboard but I did not give the students the
opportunity to use technology. I could have had the students finds the bones on
the internet but I felt that the students would be overwhelmed and distracted by
the information they would get. Yes, I do feel like I used technology effectively

by limiting the use of it.

Overall, what do I think the students got out of the experience?
o From this experience I believe that the students gained the ability to work in
groups on semi large scale project. Students also learned to identify the different
bones in the body. The students learned how to use one another as resources to

learn from and to get information from.

What do I remember most about this science activity?
o There are two things that I remember about this lesson. First, I remember the
problem with the groups. I dont feel as though there was ever going to be perfect
groups, there was no flexibility for the groups and it bothered me that I never got
to see different groups work together because they were stuck with the same
partners. The second thing that I remember from this lesson was how excited the

Kanah McDannell
Lesson Plan Reflection
students were to hang their work up in the hallways. They were so excited to

show all of the bones that they knew and wanted all of the other kid to see it.
Would I do it again? How would I plan differently the next time?
o Yes, I would definitely do this lesson again. I feel that the students were engaged
and excited to work on their skeletons. When I do this lesson again I would like to
give the students more freedom on the assignment. I also would like to find a way
to included more technology in the lesson. I think that with some more freedom
and the use of technology that they students would get more of the activity and

learn even more.

What did you learn about yourself as a learner and as a teacher during this lesson?
o In this lesson I learned that I struggle to teach indirect lesson plans. I can write
them but executing them is a much different story. I struggled with the idea of not
teaching like I do in a direct lesson. It took me releasing some of my control to
allow them to learn on their own. I also learned how difficult it can be to manage
multiple groups. I made my way from one group to another during the activity to
see how they were doing. The students did not have a lot of questions but instead
they all wanted me my attention. Once I got them settled down and excited about
sharing, they settled down. Now that I have a feel for how to teach an indirect
lesson I feel that with some more practice it will be easier to allow the students to
do more self-discovery.