Teacher reflection
This unit was meaningful because of its ability to bring out my students' exploratory and creative nature. |
After reflecting on my New Mexico Birds unit this semester I am proud of both the plans I created and of the impact the unit appeared to have on my students. I believe that the activities I planned were well organized and meaningful. I feel that the inquiry-based learning this unit centered on allowed students to develop their own conclusions, rather than having the teacher give them the facts.
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This was especially meaningful for this group of students, coming from a school that does not have daily inquiry learning or science in their plans. I also feel that the small group collaborative research gave the unit further purpose and meaning. The students became excited about the research because of the opportunity to work together as a group, the opportunity to choose a research method and topic they were interested in, and the opportunity to write and design their own group webpage. This unit was meaningful because of its ability to bring out my students' exploratory and creative nature.
Small group instruction and interdisciplinary connections are two things that worked especially well during this unit. Small group instruction is a mandated practice at the school this unit was taught in; therefore, I found myself having to change the whole group lessons I originally wrote into a better format for the small group teaching done at my school.
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Small group instruction and interdisciplinary connections are two things that worked especially well during this unit. |
I found that this worked exceptionally well, and that I would not change this if I were to teach the unit again. I found that small groups helped me better formatively assess my students, made me more available to answer questions, and appeared to increase student engagement and interest. I also found that connecting other parts of our day to birds helped increase the amount of learning happening, since students were reviewing concepts in a variety of disciplines and settings. I used bird books during my read aloud time, bird writing prompts, and incorporated birds into a few of my math lessons. I found that focusing several parts of our day on birds increased student excitement and learning.
While reflecting on my unit, I have also been able to think about what I could have made my unit plan stronger. I have realized that I could have formulated better summative assessment questions for my student's daily scientist journals. I found that the questions were not clear enough and therefore, the students were not giving the answers I was trying to test their knowledge of. After realizing this, I created new scientist journal pages with questions that were better formulated to test the objectives of each lesson they were designed for. These are included below for downloading. I also found that my bird anatomy pre-assessment did not match the parts of the bird I taught during my lesson, since I created the pre-assessment before finalizing my lesson plans. This was another area that could have made the unit assessment stronger and more clear. A new bird anatomy pre-assessment page is also included below as a result. Lastly, I also realized that my presentation rubric should have included a section on how well students listened and payed attention while other peers were presenting. This updated rubric is also linked below. For more reflection on the assessment of my unit please see the "Assessment Analysis" page.
While reflecting on my New Mexico Birds unit I was also able to think about how my own worldview has changed, and how my students' world-views may have changed after the completion of this unit. I feel that my students’ worldview expanded to include the natural world around them.
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I believe this unit helped my students see beyond their own lives and into the lives of the animals, plants, and habitats in the world around them. |
I believe that my students walked away with a better awe and love for the environment. I believe this unit helped my students see beyond their own lives and into the lives of the animals, plants, and habitats in the world around them. I feel that this unit gave many of my students their first strong connection with the outdoors, while giving others further confirmation of the love for the outdoors that they already have.
This unit also affected my worldview as a teacher. I learned more about what my specific calling is as a teacher, and more about how to better fit my personality to a full time teaching position. I learned more about my calling as a teacher when the first bird came to our window feeder. At that moment, the whole class was silent while everyone gathered around the window to watch as the birds discovered their new habitat. The only word I had to describe this moment was "awestruck." As a teacher, I have learned that those awestruck moments are so important. I feel called to create moments of awe and wonder in my students as often as possible.
This unit also taught me how to better fit my personality into a full time teaching position. I learned that instead of being perfect or overly analytical on the small details of my unit, that it was more important to be fully present, passionate, and excited with my students. This is the first unit where I have felt comfortable letting a few minor problems slide, allowing my focus to be on my students instead. I feel that this has helped me be a better, more engaged teacher and has helped me trust that I am, in the end, not in control of what my students glean from what I have created...God is. This unit has fallen within a time when I am trying to find my worth not in the amount of work I do on lessons, or how perfect my lessons are, but in the fact that God is my Savior and his love is enough.