Unit Teaching Reflective Summary

Teacher Candidate for Science Endorsement: Alana Davis

Instructor: Dawn Hudson & Wes McCoy
School: Mableton ES

Grade: 5th Grade

Unit Topic: Animal and Plant Cells

Write a 1-2 page summary of your experiences teaching this unit,
addressing the following questions:

How well were the units student performance objectives

attained? Were there opportunities for the students to develop
conceptual understanding through engaging in the learning cycle
(5Es)?

How did you use formative assessments to inform instructional

decisions during the unit?

Were the lessons/tasks scientifically worthwhile for all students?

Were there students that had difficulty achieving the goals of the
unit?

Was there evidence of a classroom culture that honors inquiry,

wrong answers, personal challenge, collaboration, and
disequilibrium as opportunities for new learning by all students?

When you have the opportunity to re-teach this unit, what will
you do differently (strategies, teaching tools, assessments, etc.)
to improve student learning for all students?

Use this page as a cover sheet for your summary.

This unit was another collaboration with the Gifted teacher at my

school. My students are average to above ability level that were put
together so that I could extend their learning with problem-based
learning and STEM topics when applicable. This unit provided that
opportunity and my students exceeded our expectations. The students
were able to develop conceptual understanding because of the 5 E
learning cycle that was used to teach the standards in this unit.
A pre-assessment probe was used at the beginning of the unit to
determine any misconceptions that my students had. This, in turn,
helped me to inform my instruction as to where I could let me students
be self-directed and where the needed more instruction directly. My
instructional strategies provided my students the chance to use their
creativity and develop foundational knowledge of plant and animal
cells.
I cannot say enough about the summative assessment that the
students created themselves. The tasks proved to be the most
imaginative on the students part, and they really were able to apply
their learning to an abstract concept. The students took the
summative assessment in a direction in which they completely selfdirected the task from choosing the analogy to writing and creating the
iMovie themselves. The students that had difficulty with this activity
were given differentiated scripts and access to a technology cheat
sheet to help with video creation.
There was definite evidence that the students LOVED this unit
and all of the hands-on tasks associated with it.
When I teach this unit again I will use the same strategies,
teaching tools, and assessments because I was able to see the growth
and gains that my students obtained. The instructional strategies and
tasks within the unit were exactly what my students needed to gain
the knowledge and meet the standards addressed in this unit.