Lesson 2 Reflection Whole Class The second lesson I taught was on the life cycle of all animals, butterflies,

and of frogs. While I touched on the life cycle of all animals and butterflies the main focus was on frogs. I engaged the students at the beginning of the lesson by singing The Butterfly Song with them. This was a rap style song that talked about the life cycle of butterflies. The students seemed to enjoy the music, but did have a hard time keeping up with the lyrics. There was probably very little cognitive gain from this experience but I do think it got the children excited and engaged for the lesson. The next part of my lesson was the reading of Frogs by Gail Gibbons. This was done immediately following the song. In my lesson plan I planned to construct a poster of the life cycles of all the different types of animals to compare them at this point. I decided to leave this out of my lesson for the sake of time, and instead compare and contrast the life cycles of various animals using a PowerPoint. The reading was done in a whole group setting with the students still sitting on the rug following the song. To my surprise, the students were very engaged during the reading and were very interested in the content of the book. They did seem to get off topic by asking questions unrelated to the life cycle and more specific to how the frogs interacted with their environment. This was OK because being that a majority of the students already knew the life cycle of the frog I had planned to focus more on the frogs interactions with its environment. I found that I had not adequately prepared to do this as well as I had wished however. I planned to address topics pertaining to how the life cycle of the frog was affected by its environment, such as the jelly spawn was an effective technique as

the eggs stuck together, but I did not know very much past the specific things I had planned to address. In future lessons I plan to spend more time preparing for questions that may not seem related to the topic, but could be related back to the content. I think this is important as it capitalizes on the students interests and still keeps the focus on what is being taught. After finishing reading the book I went back through the text and stopped on various pages to get student feedback on if they knew which stage of the life cycle the frog was in at this point. After this short story walk I moved to the PowerPoint. It started with a slide on the life cycle of all animals, and I explained to the students that this was what I was asking them during their morning work a couple of days earlier. They seemed confused while completing the worksheet and put things down like birth, kid, teenager, and adult. They understood the general concept of a life cycle, but I explained that all living things are not considered teenagers, but that everything is born, grows, becomes an adult, reproduces and eventually dies. They seemed to quickly remember this content from their previous years in school once I explained what it was. While going through the PowerPoint the students were very engaged and I think this was in part due to me being excited about the content and speaking in a tone that was inviting and encouraging. I asked them probing questions to encourage them to compare the life cycles of the various animals and they did a good job of understanding the differences between them. I was curious before the lesson if the students would understand the concept of metamorphosis as being a big change in appearance from young to adult. To check for this I asked them if a baby bird staying in the nest for a while is the same as metamorphosis and they all understood it wasnt.

The next part of the lesson was the post-assessment on the life cycle of the frog. For this, students constructed a life cycle flip book. The biggest problem I faced during this time was having students finish cutting out and ordering their book at different rates, and then they would be waiting for me to staple their pages together while I was stapling other students books. In future lessons like this I would give them instructions on what they could do while they wait on me. For instance, they could have started writing their descriptions for the pages or coloring the pictures until I could get to their desk. The time accounted for the lesson allowed about half of the students to finish their book completely. If given another chance to teach this lesson I would have left out the song portion of the lesson and allowed for more time during the postassessment. I think a good time adjustment would have been to allow half an hour for instruction and half an hour for the students to work on the books. One of the main things I would done differently if given the chance to reteach this lesson is to plan more effectively for the post-assessment. I tried to incorporate three different life cycles into the learning objectives but only really planned to assess one of them. I thought the butterfly and life cycle of all animals would be tested on the students unit test and that I could look at the data from that test. The problem with this was that the students were not asked to list the life cycle of the butterfly, but were given the option to describe the life cycle of any animal. They were asked to fill in the blanks of the life cycle of all animals, but in my opinion this was not effective in measuring true understanding as the students only had to remember two of the parts. In future lessons I will either make sure the post-assessments match the learning objectives and that the students will be clearly tested on all learning objectives so I can see evidence of learning. Individuals

1. The student that was most successful in this lesson was not in the classroom for the first part of the lesson as she is in the gifted and talented program. She was able to take part in the reading of Frogs however. Her life cycle of the frog book was very detailed and she remembered that the group of eggs is called a jelly spawn. She was probably successful in this part of the post-assessment because she seemed to really enjoy the freedom of naming the book whatever she liked, and that she was really the author of it. This gave her a feeling of ownership and she made sure to include all the details she could. I also think her previous knowledge on the topic prepared her well for the lesson. She already knew the life cycle of the frog and butterfly and was prepared to take in new information pertaining to specifics of the life cycle of the frog. 2. The medium performing student was engaged throughout the lesson and seemed to really enjoy the content. He was attentive during the reading of Frogs and I think was due to the illustrations and language Gail Gibbons uses. She is very child friendly and has a way of being able to portray difficult content in an easy way for students to understand. This student was one of the first ones finished with cutting out his pages for the life cycle book. While he was waiting for me to come staple his pages he went ahead and started writing the words in his book. Another reason for his success is probably his ability to take initiative and start on meaningful tasks without having to be told to by the teacher. 3. The low performing student in this lesson seemed to only really be engaged during the reading. He was distracted and uninterested in the song, PowerPoint, and while making the life cycle flip book. One reason for this is most likely that the content of the book interested him as he loves anything pertaining to outdoors and nature. While making the life cycle book at one point he was standing up behind the door, cutting the pages

exteriors into the recycling bin. This was probably due to his desire to be up and moving around. If I was to teach this lesson again I could try giving the student the book as an aid to help him while making his book and to remind him to stay on task. I think this would be effective because he seemed to enjoy the text, but has a hard time staying focused and remembering what he is supposed to be doing.