Mentor Feedback

Lesson No.

Lesson Topic

Mitosis

Period

Date
17/04/2015

PSTs Professional Learning Goals for this lesson

1. Further consolidating students names.
2. Being able to confidently deal with students questions.
3. Time management

Things That Worked

Things To Improve

Amazing Lesson Plan!!!

We ran out of time in the end; which happens to us all sometimes but if you were
to do the game again I would suggest limiting the time you allow students to give
you extra information for extra points- this worked really well for some teams but
not others.

Review through a game show idea was fantastic; the organisation and thought
you put into the activity was great (loved the buzzers and reward system).
Your planning clearly paid off in a fun, engaging and exciting lesson that
enabled students to demonstrate knowledge and identify some gaps.
By picking the groups you ensured the game was fair and students were given
the opportunity to participate without being overrun by the dominant students in
the class.
You are getting to know the students really well and I think you just about have
all of their names and faces matched up- well done.

OVERALL Key Feedback for this Lesson:

1. Time can limit amazing learning opportunities.
2. Planning and thinking outside the box for lesson ideas = Success (You conducted a brilliant lesson).

Hannah Cole Monash University

2015 Lesson Plan Yr 11 Biology

PST Lesson Reflection

PLGs for this Lesson

Reflections on Development

1. Further consolidating
students names.

I felt pretty confident with some names but not with others. I think I need to actually allocate time to do this purposefully. Its funny
how it doesnt happen naturally.

2. Being able to
confidently deal with
students questions.

For the most part I felt pretty good about how I was able to respond to questions. However, there was one question about the
difference between growth and development (there was a quiz question about how cell division enables growth, development &
repair) which I was unable to answer. I dont think its a bad thing that I was unable to answer the question (no teacher can possibly
have an answer for every question), except that I had wondered myself prior to class what the difference between them was but
hadnt taken the time to investigate it. And, as it just so happened, it would have been beneficial to have spent a few minutes looking
into this so that I had been able to guide the students understanding.

3. Time management

Overall I think my time management was pretty good. As Sally mentioned in her feedback, I didnt quite get to the end of the quiz.
However, there were only 4-5 questions left so I dont think this is too bad. Id rather have more questions up my sleeve than not
have enough. What I could have done to improve this, however, would have been to set the leftover questions as homework. I could
have easily put them up on their Biology internet site. That way the students still get to finish the planned content.

Key Mentor Feedback

Plans for Development

1. Time can limit amazing

learning opportunities.

It was unfortunate to run out of time to complete the quiz. However, there was not much that we didnt finish. What I could have
done though, as I mentioned above, to ensure that the students still had access to the learning opportunities afforded through this
activity is to have posted the last few quiz questions onto their Biology internet site as a revision homework task. As Sally
mentioned, its hard to time lessons perfectly in fact even highly experienced teachers can still run out of time (or run out of
planned work and have to think on their feet). The fact is that there are so many variables in a lesson how the students are feeling,
what time of day it is, varying competency levels, etc. However, with practice and intentionality I think time management
improvement is possible. And being conscious of it is always important I think.

2. Planning and thinking

outside the box for
lesson ideas = Success
(You conducted a

I really wanted the students to enjoy themselves this lesson. I personally think that when people experience positive emotions they
learn more effectively (as emotions positive or negative attached to an experience ingrains it in our memory). Certainly there are
lots of types of positive emotions that can be experienced, but I think laughter can be a particularly great sign of engagement. There
was a fair bit of laughter in this lesson which was great! But there was also lots of happy banter about various mitosis concepts so
the laughter was linked to learning which is vital. In lots of ways this lesson was actually quite simple to construct putting together
Hannah Cole Monash University
2015 Lesson Plan Yr 11 Biology

brilliant lesson).

quiz questions certainly wasnt hard, and that was the main task. All I did for extra effect was (1) add a tangible and appealing
(extrinsic) rewards system lollies and (2) created a buzzer system using various kitchen appliances that could make fun sounds.
All of a sudden, a standard quiz was a bit more dynamic with sounds (things to shake, bang, hit, etc) and prizes! But I think this
has an affect on the students I think it got them quite engaged!

v Other Reflections, Questions, Feelings

The only other thing that stood out to me is that obviously some students had a stronger knowledge of mitosis concepts than others. In general, these are the
students who tend to know more about every other topic in Biology also simply because they apply themselves to their study. There are a few students in this
class who dont apply themselves very much at all. Of course, there are also students who work hard and still struggle to achieve highly, and on the flip side, other
students who do little work and appear to breeze by with pretty good results. So effort does not always equate with acquired knowledge. However, often it does.
Today one of the lesson objectives for the students was that they would demonstrate a good understanding of mitosis concepts. Some, but not all students,
demonstrated this. Really, those students who are struggling with the topic (or Biology content in general) need to seek out assistance (lunchtime help) and need to
commit extra study time to these areas. Both Sally and myself have encouraged the students to come to lunchtime help they just have to commit to it and actually
do it!

Hannah Cole Monash University

2015 Lesson Plan Yr 11 Biology