Reflection

I felt so blessed to have this precious opportunities to teach at Dutton Christian. I gained a strong
sense of achievement and self-realization, and I felt the happiness of being a teacher surrounded by
students who loved the lessons I designed and taught. I really enjoyed the process of searching for
activities, pictures, and videos online that related to students lives, and coming up with my original ideas
to enable students to actively learn and to critically think. Before I took EDUC 302-303, I had lots of
thoughts about tapping into students creativity, student-based learning, and activity-based learning, and I
have actualized all of them during these two weeks by teaching the unit plan I designed. During the
process of writing lesson plans and teaching, I figured out my educational philosophy: enable students to
learn while having fun and relating the knowledge to their own life.
I learned a lot from my teaching experience. First, I learned that a good teacher should not just
focus on the quality and process of teaching, but also set expectations beforehand, address students
misbehavior, and check their process of learning. I need to check if students understand and follow the
instructions, if their attention is focused on me, and if some of students are challenged by the assignments
and activities. Second, I learned that a good teacher should be organized and aware of time constraints,
including time before the lesson (having all materials prepared at least two days beforehand), during the
lesson (follow the time plan and make sure the lesson can be done on time), and after lesson (do the
materials collecting, checking, organizing, and cleaning efficiently). I learned that I should plan with
more time since it always take longer time than the imagined time that is needed. Third, I learned that I
need to work on improving my lesson plan outlines, handwriting, instruction sheets, verbal instructions,
students transitions, and the awareness of protecting school supplies. In addition, I learned that a good
educator should be able to get students to answer questions, and transform ones own mistake or a
students mistake into a learning opportunity.

4th graders in Miss. Ks class all speak very good English. They have no special needs and are all
very well behaved. Miss K also provided me with sufficient help when I needed it. The barriers for my
unit plan are: teaching lessons in my second language, lacking experience addressing students
misbehaviors in class, and needing a large variety of materials.
Regarding the issue of teaching in my second language, it took me a longer time to write and edit
the lesson plans and to think about how I should properly phrase my instructions, so students can clearly
understand what I mean, know my expectations, and know that they should follow my instructions. To get
over of my language barrier, I observed carefully how Miss K gave instructions to students, how she
managed the whole class, and how she made the teaching and assessing process well. I also asked my
American friends to help me check the grammar (especially the instruction part) of each of my lesson
plan. During the teaching, I listened very carefully to students questions and responses and then
responded accordingly to them. When I was not sure if students response was correct or not, Miss K
helped me to confirm or tell the right answer. Luckily, 99% of the time, students could understand me and
I could understand them.
In light of lacking experience of addressing students misbehavior of class, Miss K pointed it out
to me after I taught my third lesson and told me that I should have stopped and told students that they
needed to listen to my instructions or they wouldnt know how to do the activity. I should have also told
them it was not respectful when they were talking while I was teaching or other students were sharing
ideas. I worked on that during my lass two lessons and it turned out that I managed the class better.
Regarding the preparing materials, because I designed lots of hands-on scientific activities for
students to do, I needed a variety of materials in each of my lesson. I collected what the school science
storage room had, talked to Professor J to get the permission of borrowing some materials from Calvin
science department, and went to Meijer and Joann to get some materials.

After I taught my lesson plans, my students learned the properties of solids, liquids, and gases,
and they learned the process of melting, freezing, evaporation, and condensation. For the summative
assessment sheet, 22/23 students gave all the right answer of what to call the change from solids to
liquids, liquids to gases, gases to liquids, and liquids to solids (regardless spelling). Only 1 student got
three correct and wrote condensation twice. As for the properties of solids, liquids, and gases, there are 3
properties for solids, 5 properties for liquids, and 5 properties for gases, so there are 13 blanks in total for
students to fill in. 19 out of 23 students got 0-2 answers wrong, 3 students got 3 answers wrong, and 2
student got more than 3 answers wrong.
Students also learned how to use properties to differ solids, liquids, and gases; how to measure
the mass and volume of solids and liquids by using balance scale and granulated cylinders; and how to
safely use some heat source, such as avoiding splatters when using hair drier to create melted crayon art,
and avoiding touching the iron tip of glue gun. They also learned that science is everywhere in our life
people use salt to melt the snow on the road, to heat; people melt and freeze caramel candy in order to
make caramel apples; people and plants mutually rely on each others breathing out gases, etc.
I really appreciated my stay at Dutton Christian Elementary. I had supportive teacher who always
helped me, gave me encouragement, and offered helpful suggestions. I had a group of lovely and wellbehaved students who followed the instructions. And I was at a school with sufficient science materials
for me to use. I had two blessed moments on the last day of teaching my unit plan. In the morning, two of
my students came to tell me that they were not very interested in the science classes before. But the
science classes I taught made them start loving science. They loved the activities they did in my class.
Another blessed moment was that they clapped for me on my last day of the unit plan. I felt the happiness
and the blessings of being a teacher, and these two weeks confirmed my faith to be a teacher who keeps
designing practical and creative lessons for students so they can be motivated to learn.