Thursday, November 3, 2011

Practicum- Sharing a Lesson

I started teaching in my practicum this week and absolutely love it! I was placed in an 8th grade Health classroom and am currently teaching their Nutrition unit.

The lesson objective: Students will be able to identify at least 2 components of energy drinks, and how they affect health, and determine at least 1 alternative choice.

For the main bulk of the unit, I had a hands on activity for the students to participate in. There was a table located at the front of the room from which had a variety of different caffeinated beverages on it. I performed an activity from which the students got to play a "game show" and have a few students come to the front of the room to try to organize the beverages from the least caffeinated to the most caffeinated. The other students would "call out" to try to help their classmates.  We then discussed why we organized the drinks the way that we did then took a peak at the answers and continued the discussion Afterwards we did the same thing but organized the drinks in order of sugar content. We also placed a bag full of sugar cubes representing the amount that was in that drink in front of the corresponding drink.  After this occurred, we discussed the caffeine and the sugar within the drinks and what other alternative choices we could have that wouldn't have the negative side affects. They completed an exit slip at the end of class that stated:

Energy drinks have high levels/amounts of both ___________&_____________. A healthy alternative to these could be ________________.

During the activity I was able to assess my student by asking critical thinking questions and seeing how they responded. I did some thumbs up/down questions as well as some think/pair/share activities.  The exit slip at the end of class way a great way for me to measure how the students performed as well.  From this I was able to see that the majority of my students did learn something from the lesson. I have been able to revisit and build upon this knowledge over the course of the week and look forward to assessing them tomorrow on our weekly mini quiz to see how much they still remember.

After reflecting on this lesson, however, I think that I would have had a set of cards (with a picture of the drinks) at each table so that the table groups that weren't at the front of the class could organize the drinks as well. I think that by having cards with the pictures, or even by having a small set of drinks for each table group, that I would be able to hold all of the table groups accountable.  Another idea that I had was to make it a competition between the table groups or even one half of the class against another. I think that this would help by keeping all of the students engaged.

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