Ed.

4214 Science Education

Sept. 2014

P.O.E. REFLECTION
*This documents can be filled out in any form that conveys your meaning well
(it doesn't have to be pretty, full sentences). The questions are just prompts to
get you thinking. Feel free to change, delete, add or reorganize anything below.
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?

*Major learning was that something so simple can actually be used as a good activity to
get students interested in a variety of different subjects/topics (buoyancy, pressure,
gases, density etc.)
*Found that there is lots of resources out there to help you captivate student interest and
introduce lessons
* The start of our demo was a pretty basic introduction of what our POE was called and
what we were going to be doing.
*Could have given a little more background info on buoyancy or whatever lesson plan this
could be used for

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

* Our demo finished off by asking the students what they thought of the POE and what
they thought was going on with the raisins. I was quite pleased with the feedback as the
students seemed to have a good understanding on what was going on in order to get the
raisins to float to the top of the glass and then come back down.
* Smoothly. Multiple POEs presented before us so classmates knew the drill in terms of
what is asked of them in a POE
*Timing was a bit short because the components of our experiment didnt take all that
long to complete.

over or under time?

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?

* Maybe could have incorporated more substances or different objects to drop into the
glasses in order to of got everyone thinking a bit more and expand on the predictions

What part did you find

easy? Tell me why.

*Easy part was conducting the experiment itself because the steps were all fairly
straightforward

What surprised you?

* N/A

Other thoughts?

*Was happy with the class reaction to the dancing raisins. They all seemed to think it was
pretty cool

* Definitely would introduce the experiment and get a feeling for what the students know
about the materials used in the experiment.
*Provoke predictions regardless of the legitimacy of them.

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

*Made sure that my body was always moving, and constantly using hand
motions/gestures to keep everyones attention. Also tried to speak clearly and use
effective words, along with making eye contact with everyone while speaking.
*Could have maybe elaborated on a few things a bit more

*Felt pretty calm throughout

*Interactions went well, students seemed more than willing to raise their hand to predict.
Also a few comments made by them that allowed for a laugh, which is good.

could be improved?

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

*The concept of buoyancy was conveyed pretty well with the raisins floating to the top
very effectively because the bubbles that attached to them increased their volume. This
also directly relates to density in the fact that the bubbles purpose is to attach to the
raisins so that the density of the raisins is less than the water.

What worked really well

for your student's
learning?

*Being able to vividly see the bubbles attach to the ridges of the raisins, float to the top,
pop slowly and have the raisin return to the bottom of the glass.

What things would you

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

*Could have the students drop the raisins in themselves so that they could have hands on
and closer look at the carbon dioxide attaching to the raisins.

Engaging your students (getting them thinking)

Is there anything that
you did to make sure
that your students were
thinking and not just

*Being that these are mature students they were all pretty attentive.
*The experiment was pretty quick and short lived so there wasnt a whole lot of waiting or
periods of time in which students would be able to be disengaged.

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?

* Yes they did, they were making some jokes and talking about the experiment. One
student mentioned how the POE looked like cheap lava lamps, which was kind of a neat
observation.
* Could talk about how this is similar to when children use sets of water wings or
floaties at the pool. The volume of the floaties increases the childs volume but because
the mass of the floaties is very small, the child floats because the density of the child is
less than that of the pool water.