Here I present a transcript of a lesson that was designed to promote reflection in action and on action by students in a grade 11 Chemistry course. Links to the video are included below.
TRANSCRIPT OF LESSON PRESENTATION
Hello and welcome,In this video I’m going to explain to you how I design a lesson to promote reflection by my students in action and on action. As I outline this lesson I am reflecting on how I would typically begin and often I would find myself asking students about exothermic and endothermic reactions, how to convert litres to kilograms and what specific heat capacity-C to use. Very often when I ask these questions it might be directed at one particular student or students or it might just be me saying remember when we did this and remember when we did that. Often these statements and questions are met with perplexed and confused looks. Without thinking too much about it the teacher goes into the lesson for the day.
What I propose to do in this presentation is to create tools for my students to reflect and to find out whether they’ve understood some of the concepts needed to be successful in this lesson. I’m going to create more tools to allow them to reflect in action. Typically when such a lesson is completed the teacher might give a few questions again, a quiz and students typically may not score a hundred percent. What happens next to those three of four questions out of ten or twenty that the students missed? Obviously they represent certain gaps in knowledge. So what happens next? Should the teacher move to the next topic and begin the cycle all over again? Are the students given opportunities to reflect on what they missed and to find ways to fix those problems.
Here is a look at the actual lesson it’s for grade 11 (age 16 to 17) the subject is chemistry the unit is energetics and the title is calculating energy changes. The lesson itself requires students to apply prior knowledge to a new situation. The lesson is structured to identify and correct student misconceptions so the specific learning target or objective is to allow all students to analyse data and apply mathematics to make predictions about heat or enthalpy changes in chemical reactions. The lesson seeks to promote higher order thinking.
The teacher will introduce the lesson with an image of a truck adding calcium chloride to a road. Calcium chloride is used for de-icing roads as it dissolves and gives off heat and it makes the ice melt faster. The teacher is then going to ask students if this type of reaction is exothermic or endothermic. This is intended to draw upon the students’ prior knowledge. This is a very important point in this lesson design because the teacher is not going to ask this question of the entire class or of a particular student but all students would be required to enter the LMS. The learning management system-moodle and select their response to this question. When they select their response they will receive feedback and they can reflect on this feedback and then move forward. The lesson would also include multiple means of representation and multiple means of engagement to enable reflection in action because as students make choices whether right or wrong. (This) would be met with feedback associated with the choice. Extension activities are included for students who finish ahead of time and finally and most importantly the students will be encouraged to make a reflective entry or a note into a journal about errors made and new insights and then they would be expected to return to this when they do their review for final examinations at the end of the term, the semester or the year. This reflective journal would be a very useful way of them going back and reminding themselves of the pitfalls and the errors that they would of had when they were learning this topic for the first time.
PRESENTATION LINK
REFERENCES:
characteristics for success. Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Leading-
Habits-Mind-Characteristics/dp/1416607412
Kira, E., Komba, S., Kafanabo, E., & Tilya, F. (2013). Teachers’ Questioning Techniques in
Advanced Level Chemistry Lessons: A Tanzanian Perspective. Australian Journal of Teacher
Education, 38(12). doi: 10.14221/ajte.2013v38n12.7
Reflection-in-Action Teaching Strategies Used by Faculty ... (n.d.). Retrieved from https://
newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=networks
Schön, D. A. (2017). Reflective Practitioner. Taylor and Francis
Strategies for Reflection. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.calacademy.org/educators /science-
notebooks-for-reflection
Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/
vandycft/29428436431
Hi Dan, I enjoyed reading your lesson plan script. However, the link to the YouTube is coming up "as Not Found, Error 404". I suggest that you embed the link.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up Ilonka. I have fixed it.
ReplyDeleteDan
Hi Dan
ReplyDeletehere is the comments on your lesson plan.
The original lesson plan would have helped coupled with the lesson plan times for each section of the lesson.
The lesson plan layout may be misleading. For example, introduction, extension activities, summative activities. Therefore, I recommend: Introduction and to include recap of the prior lesson, and smart learning objectives. Next, the summative activities, and extension activities.
I would have like to see links to internet resources, students’ reflection on use of Reflective Digital Tool and rubrics. For more details, see Sandbox.
Kind regards
Thanks for your feedback Ilonka.
ReplyDelete