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.