Ron Capurso / Sara Yerger
SCIED411 clinic 2 critique
Our lesson, which focused on the effects of specific heat at the beach, went extremely well. Given the uncertainty of the setting, various tools, and students, we believe the lesson was a great success.
The classroom setting was unlike what we had anticipated. There were many small tables that were equipped with sinks, power outlets, and gas nozzles. Each group was assigned a table to set up their lesson. This was actually an ideal set-up for our needs. The hot plates were set on the far end of the table, far away from the students. Furthermore, there was plenty of room for the laptop on the other side of the hot plates. This allowed for a setting that made it easy for the students to see all aspects of the experiment. It was a relief when the students assured us they could clearly view the laptop monitor as well as the beakers of sand and water.
The students were sent to us in groups of three. Over the hour and a half we were at the school, we taught 4 groups. The students were in eighth grade and had varying previous knowledge of the subject.
We had planned the lesson to be consistent with the twenty minute time frame. For the most part, this fit together very well. As far as pacing goes, the one difficulty we encountered was the amount of time it took to heat up the sand and water. During the first group’s lesson, it took a few minutes for the hot plate to affect the temperatures. It was a challenge to fill the empty time with dialogue. However, it was effective when we asked the students questions like, “Why is Ms. Yerger stirring the temperature sensor around in the water?” This elicited correct responses almost every time, that is, she was stirring it to make sure there was even heating throughout the water so that the temperature probe wasn’t recording a pocket of cold or warm water. As predicted we almost always had just the right amount of time to finish the lesson. The only exception was the last group, in which we were instructed to finish a few minutes early. Still, this did not have a negative effect on the lesson.
Upon planning the lesson we realized that students would likely have no previous knowledge of specific heat. However, we knew that they would likely be able to relate to the topic due to the beach applications. For these reasons we did not expect the students to give complete answers right away. Instead, our strategy was to get them to think about what they knew about breezes and temperatures at the beach. In this way, the students felt as if they had a good grasp on the material with little prior knowledge.
After the first teaching clinic we realized that more questions should be asked to assess student knowledge. Instead of just lecturing, this time around we made sure to have students reach the majority of the conclusions. To do this, we asked the students which line on the graph they thought was sand and which was water. Also, we had them draw the sea and land breezes on the diagram of the beach. It was rewarding to know that the students could apply the topics we taught them. It also seemed to make the students proud of their answers. In comparison with the first clinic, this method was much more fun for both the students and the instructors as well.
It was obvious that the best scientific conversations went on when the students were asked to determine which line on the graph belonged to which beaker. In other words, students were asked to determine which heats up faster: sand or water. We found that the students were very opinionated on this issue. They would actually argue and try to convince one another of their opinions. It was extremely satisfying to hear them do this. Some explanations that students came up with to support their claims that sand heated up faster than water were that: 1) sand was a solid and water was a liquid, 2) sand was denser, and 3) sand was able to hold air in it. These misconceptions were reasoned through and corrected in order to help the students understand the real reasoning behind why sand heated up faster than water, that is, because it has a lower specific heat.
The only problem we encountered was with one disruptive student. He would tease his friends for coming up with answers and tell us that he did not want to learn. It was extremely difficult to deal with this because he provided such a large distraction. We addressed this by asking him to get involved more and forcing him to come up with answers and opinions. It was obvious he knew what was going on but was reluctant to seem enthusiastic. This student made the final lesson difficult, but not impossible. We were able to deal with him in a way that did not completely detract from the lesson.
Although
the lesson went extremely well, there were things that could be improved. For
one, it would have been nice for the students to have something to take home.
In the future, we would consider having the students do a worksheet if we could
find a way that the worksheet would enhance learning and not just be something
to do (which is why we decided not to have one in the first place). Furthermore,
if we had more time it would have been helpful for the students to play around
with the computer program and the
Overall, this lesson was a great success. We feel the students were able to learn the completely new concept of specific heat. Furthermore, they were able to apply the concept to a real-life scenario. We feel this is a great accomplishment for the limited time we were given.