Live Organisms and Life Cycles

Today was the last groups turn to teach their direct instruction lesson! The focus of their lesson was on live organisms and life cycles. They started their lesson off by having a student read off the title of the lesson shown on the board. From this, the teachers discussed the classroom rules and had everyone read them out loud. If the class followed these rules throughout the day, they were to receive a prize! To check for the students' understanding, each 4th grader received a thumbs up/thumbs down popsicle stick. They were to hold these up when they understood or didn't understand in order for the lesson to move along. After reviewing the rules of the day, one of the teachers reviewed what the class has previously learned from the other three groups. What I didn't like about this part of the lesson was that the students were placed in groups, but all of the students decided to clump together in the middle of the classroom rather than form groups at their tables. I felt as though this was a distraction for majority of the students. After reviewing, the teachers told the students to open the folders on their desks which included their key terms note sheet. One thing I would change about this is that the key terms were given, when the definitions should have been given instead, in order to save time. Many of the students complained that they had to right down full definitions. 

The lesson began with different types of material: the life cycle, life of a plant, worms, composting, worm bins, and much more. I really liked how all of the teachers seemed very knowledgeable about the material that they were teaching. They used real life, simple examples in order to explain different definitions and processes. One of the teachers even included a little humor into his part of the lesson, which I thought was very engaging! One thing I didn't like about this lesson was the attention grabbing technique. The teachers resulted to clapping five times and having the students clap back. This only worked a handful of times. I felt as though this technique was over used and became ineffective. For majority of the time, the teachers had to talk over the class which should never be the case. Another thing I would have done differently is making sure that ALL students were included and paid attention to. As an observer, I noticed one particular student who was not paying attention. He was secluded from everyone else and was never placed in a group. He was also never called on to share an answer or opinion. This is unacceptable when you're a teacher because you need to give every student the opportunity to learn and grow.

After the lesson was completed, I really enjoyed the group's guided practice activity, which was matching key terms to definitions on the smart  board. This was simple, yet effective! After this activity, the students were given their independent practice, which was to label the stages of the life cycle and plant cycle. I felt as though this was a little difficult for the students because the terms are very intricate. After completing this task, one of the teachers introduced Dr. Smirnova's husband Michael to the class, in order for him to speak about gardening and the knowledge he had to share. The students seemed very intrigued by the facts he was sharing! He focused a lot on compost and worms, which was a hint to group 4's inquiry lesson! Overall, great lesson with great material, there were just definitely a handful of things I would have done differently or added to the lesson in order to make it run more smoothly.