Science Observation

I observed a fifth grade science class. I was placed in a fourth grade

class, however they taught science the first half of the year and had
moved on to social studies for now. The lesson I observed was an ongoing lesson that had lasted for a few days. The class was learning
about collecting data, statistics, and analyzing data, and how
important it was for scientist to do this. The teacher I was observing
chose to do this in a creative and student centered way. Students were
asked to pick a topic that related to science; their only guideline was
that they were passionate about what they were choosing. They had to
make a pre assessment for their peers in the class, asking questions
about the topic. Then they had to present something similar to a
science fair project, on their topic. I saw poster boards, power points
and prompts. When the student was done presenting, they had to hand
out the same assessment that they gave their classmates before, to
see what they have learned from their presentation about the topic
they chose. They had to Asses the data they collected and present it
their findings to the teacher. These students were little scientists and it
was so great to watch them emerge themselves in this activity. The
students felt like they were in charge of their own learning and there
was so much room for creativity, however this activity still served a
purpose and fulfilled an objective. I was so lucky to observe on the day

that I did, a student was presenting their project on epilepsy. This

student was passionate about epilepsy because he had epilepsy as
well as autism, he was non-verbal. He had two manikin heads with
lights, one of the lights were blinking and the others were always on,
his was to represent the differences between a epileptic brain and a
brain that was not effected by epeplisy. This student had a PowerPoint
to go along with his presentation, that he made, as well as an I-pad
that he could type and then the I-pad spoke what he typed to answer
questions.
This was an indirect lesson. The teacher had established her
expectations but left the students to produce the result, and she gave
them so much freedom to do so. This lesson was tailored towards all
types of learners, if a student was an auditory learner, they could make
a movie, if they were a visual learner they could make a PowerPoint.
This lesson was also a great way to relate to students lives and make
the lesson culturally responsive. Normally, learning how to collect data
and interpret the results could be hard to make culturally responsive,
but this was a great way to do it, while in cooperating many other
skills.
What I loved must about this lesson was that it was directed by
the students, and the teacher had done a great job setting them up for
success because the students worked hard and were respectful to their
peers. The students had to generate an assessment and analyze all of

the data based on their teaching from their peers. The teacher chose a
very fun, and interactive way to tackle that standard rather then just
having the students listen to her, or giving them a worksheet. They
had hands on experience preforming the task as well as got to learn a
lot about all categories of science along the way from their classmates.
The students were all encouraging each other, and the teacher was
giving so much positive feedback, she would say things like, I like
how you worded that, or I like how you answered that question.
I think the students got a lot out of this experience. They got the
intended purpose, which was to generate, collect, and analyze data.
They also got to research and prepare a presentation about any
science topic they enjoyed, this was a great and fun lesson for me to
observe!