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?

Movement is good for engaging the class, but fidgeting with materials is not.
Coming up with and executing a POE is more work that it may seem, but the learning that is gained seems to
be better remembered and more thoroughly enjoyed by the class
Working with another presenter can assist the flow of the lesson by breaking up one persons speech

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?

Seemed a little disorganized at first, so being more clear and concise about what is going on may be helpful
Students come in to a new classroom and all there is is a tub of water at the front and the teachers are holding
lasers, spiking curiosity.

How did your demo finish

off? Tell me what you think
about the finish.

Some trouble with laser at first, but then it began to come together.
Students were interested and a small discussion concluded the demonstration
Students were guided to the explanation of why the laser curved the way it did.

How did your transitions

between components of your
demonstration go?

Transitions for the most part ran decently smooth, helpful to have two presenters to trade off and be prepared
for the next segment.
changing music, lighting, and mediums to work on made the transitions interesting and kept the class
engaged.

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?

Time was not difficult to manage

Practiced presentation prior to demonstration time
Typically I go under time.

Where did you get stuck or

struggle? How might you get
past these struggles?

We struggled with the environment because we needed a very dark space and we didn't exactly have that.
We needed to get very strong lasers for the demonstration to be successful in a semi dark room
We need to figure out a way to pour the sugar so as not to disrupt the natural settling

Is there something that you

wish that you'd done
differently in retrospect?
If you were to do a POE about
a completely unrelated science
topic, what main things would
you do the same?

differently
asked for more feed back from the class
begun demonstration with more clear instruction
same
included music
asked for student input on solutions
asked why students believed their answer would be an observation

What part did you find easy?

Tell me why.

what
asking the students for their input and prompting thoughtful answers
why
Students were already interested on account of the lasers, and they possessed some knowledge of how light
works through fluids

What surprised you?

The amount of responses for what would happen to the laser after it went through the solution
the difficulty to see certain lasers through the solution in a dim room compared to a dark room

Other thoughts?

Remembering to remind the students that their answers are a reasonable persons, and not their own for a more
safe environment

!
Teacher presence and physical effectiveness
What did you do, physically
or with your voice, that was
effective? What was
ineffective? Thoughts about
improvements?

effective
Walked around the front,
looked at the students for answers,
talked to many students for answer
clear voice
ineffective
played with laser
improvement
even when not presenting stay on task and promote student learning/model good listening behaviour

Where there any times that

you felt nervous or panicked?

I felt nervous when the laser wasn't working well in the room
luckily we had back up stronger lasers for the demonstration

How did your interactions

with your 'students' go? What
worked well and what could
be improved?

Interaction with students was generally well done

More promoting of answers could be improved

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Conveying learning
How well do you think your
scientific principle was
conveyed?

I believe my scientific principle was conveyed well, but not so specifically that it cannot be interoperated for
the remainder of the unit, which would be grade 10 optics.

What worked really well for

your student's learning?

The safety of giving answers, the engaging music as well as materials kept the students interested in the
demonstration

What things would you

change or tweak to create an
even better learning
experience for your students?

More clear instructions on what is going to happen during the demonstration

maybe more explanation on how a POE is run ( or a refresher on how it is run)

!
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.

thinking not just watching

asking for student volunteers
asking for student input on what they thing is happening
disengagement
during the demonstration pouring of sugar
We included music and a little mystery about the demo so students would stay engaged

Did you students have

opportunities to interact with
one another? Tell me about
that.

interaction
question each other, solve each others questions
collectively come up with solution to demonstration result

Were you able to connect the

We did not connect this experiment to real world experiences
science with real world
To have done this we could have talked about bending of light through air and then water, like when a pencil
experience? If not, how might
looks broken when seen from the side half in a glass of water and half out
you have done it?