Teaching: A Learning Experience

Over the last few weeks, the new quarter has started.  So far, the students have finished learning about  cellular respiration and photosynthesis.  The school I work for supplies the lessons that I have to teach the students, and sometimes I see students check out when I'm teaching.  For example, this past week I taught the students about the light reactions of photosynthesis using a PowerPoint on Tuesday and then on Wednesday, students were expected to answer a whole packet of questions based on their notes from Tuesday.  The students were thoroughly confused about the questions; they had just learned the topic the day before and they didn't have an opportunity to reinforce that knowledge in their brain yet.  On Thursday, I was supposed to give them even more questions about a whole new topic.  I didn't want them to move on before actually understanding the light reactions; so I printed out a summary of the light reactions that I had been working on for a few days and I spent the first 15 minutes or so reading the summary as a class.  I then asked the class some questions:

• Which method works better for you: learning from a PowerPoint or from summaries?  (There was a pretty even split from two of my classes between the two methods).
• Since it seems there's an even split for the preferences, we could just do both.  Would you want the PowerPoint first or the summary?  (Students stated that they wanted to learn from the PowerPoint first to get the general gist of the topic and then learn from the reading a few days later). 

From this experience, I learned that I should trust my gut.  Rather than following the plans that are given to me verbatum, I should make the necessary adjustments based on what works best for my students. 

Although I gave students an opportunity to give feedback on what type of activity helped facilitate their understanding, I havn't had an opportunity to really let students explore their own interests.  This is a problem because often I'm as bored with the lesson plan as the students are.  I think the packets of questions are getting really dry, and I have been brainstorming some ideas for a project.  I have assigned an extra credit assignment that allows students to create a drawing or song based on the topic of their choice, and I saw that students really enjoyed it.  Next, I want students to create a lab report or research paper on a topic that they like.  I want to give students an opportunity to explore the areas of science that they really enjoy. 

Reaching a Diversity of Learners

About a week and a half ago, students had midterms. Midterms and finals are big in my school: there is a teacher proctoring every classroom, but not their own. The students sit in silent rows, can't use their own writing utensil, and can't get up or look around for hours on end. On a fancy website called Illuminate, the scores that students get are averaged together and data is analyzed with a click of a button. Teachers can see what each one of their classes got wrong, what all of their classes averaged together scored, and what their scores look like compared to other teachers scored. The biology department had an average of about 50%.

When I looked through the questions the students got wrong, I could see that the questions that were straightforward had higher scores than questions that were worded confusingly. So, I decided to give students a lesson with really confusing questions to develop their skills in deciphering the meaning in questions (AKA critical thinking of question mastery). It sounded like a good idea, and it still does, but it didn't pan as well as it sounds. Students were frustrated to the point they shut down. 

I want to try to find a way to reach the different levels of learners in my class. The students in my classes truly range from high, medium, and low learners. When I explain things at an average rate, there are about five students that are frustrated that I'm teaching too fast and about five students that are frustrated that I'm teaching too slowly. The flaw in my confusing questions lesson is that while my top learners were thoroughly engaged and enjoying the challenge, my average learners and lower learners were confused to the point of giving up. 

Over the next couple of weeks, I have one mission: find a way to reach out to all levels of learners. One method that I found engaging for all of my students is having them present something to the class. I think I will have the students have some sort of teaching method where they have to become experts in one topic (glycolysis, photosynthesis, Krebs cycle, etc.) and then teach the class that topic in 1-2 minutes. I will also put a variety of question levels on the worksheets so that each student has some questions that are accessable to their learning level.