CT Observation #1

Teaching this Science lesson about magnetism really helped me learn more about my students and myself as a teacher. One learning claim that I want to mention is that I learned that it is very beneficial for students to hear the misconceptions when learning about topics (especially in Science). Looking back at my observation video at 3 minutes and 20 seconds into the lesson I started to bring up some misconceptions students might have about objects that are magnetic. In the video at 3:20 I asked the students, “Will a magnet attract to aluminum foil?” and I had the students think and then talk with their group members. The class was about 50/50 with their answers. Some students thought that a magnet would attract aluminum foil and some students said that it would not attract. When I showed and explained to the class why aluminum foil does not attract to the magnet I noticed that a lot of the students were learning something new. Then in my observation video at 17:15 I asked, “Have you guys tried to touch the magnets to the pennies and the nickels?” to have the students think about why those objects weren’t attracted to the magnets when they did their investigation. I mentioned to them that a penny and a nickel looks and feels like it would be magnetic but they are made of non-magnetic materials. Making sure that the students hear and see those misconceptions first-hand is so important for their learning because it helps them understand why they are misconceptions and know the correct information about a certain topic.

Another, learning claim that I want to mention is that classroom discussions are very important to have for the students and the teacher. In my observation video at 30 minutes and 35 seconds I start to have a classroom discussion about what other objects in the classroom could be attracted to a magnet. Hearing what objects that the students were listing that would be magnetic and their reasoning behind their thinking helped me as the teacher get an understanding of which students were understanding the lesson and which students needed more practice. Also, having this classroom discussion helped the students understand the lesson even more and gave them the opportunity to really focus and listen one last time if they still are struggling with magnetic and non-magnetic objects. The great part about having classroom discussions is hearing the different ways that students are seeing/learning things. For example, one student or group might have noticed something in their investigation that other students or groups did not noticed and during a classroom discussion it is the perfect time to share those findings with one another. So, any type of classroom discussion is beneficial to the students and the teacher. Overall, those learning claims are important because I have seen first-hand how it benefits me as the teacher and all the students.

Student Work:

#FEAP5e #FEAP5a #CTObservation