The third lecture taught about critical reading.

In the part of defining critical reading, I

found myself always read books passively and recklessly. When I have to read
textbooks, this will happen easily. Some contents of those textbooks are quite long and
boring. Just as now I am studying Microeconomics, I should read the whole chapter to
get more information and concepts about this subject. But I dont think it is easy to
read. The sentences are long and hard to understand. And those examples are cases in
America. As I know very little about politics and economics, let alone American
politics and economics, when I read this textbook, I often cannot get concise concept
.and write summary
Miss recommends us to jot notes when we read: after understanding every
paragraphs, write down the words in my own expression. It is more useful for use to
re-read. I quite agree with her point. When I was in F.6, I retook the HKCEE in
Chemistry. In that year, I jotted down all the important points into other points into
another book. Then at the day I had my exam, I just read that book instead of bringing
four textbooks. Although I spent much more time to write my own notes, the result
proved that this method worked. However, as we now studying further, it is not same
as HKCEE. The syllabus is much more detail. If I still use this method in my present
study, I am sure I cannot follow the rate of progress of the syllabus. Thus, I do not use
?this method now. But is there any other method good for me to apply
I also have a question: We spent almost the whole lecture to talk about
argument, how to distinguish it from other statements and identify the sentences to see
if they are premise or conclusion. Yet what is the use of identifying a statement as an
?argument? Is that what we need to know when we can judge or with other uses
I got many difficulties and questions in writing this second reflective journal.
At first, I think I know well to write journal, but later, I dont think so. Do I need to
write every reflective journal referring to the previous lecture or tutor? I cannot apply
.them so quick and see if they work for me
The content of the third lecture is quite hard for me to apply in my daily life.
Apart from the above mentioned problem, I also have a question of what I learnt from
the third session. At that tutor session, we focused on evaluating the authors tone and
works, the choice of evidence, the validity of the evidence. I think these points can be
tried only when I read a commentary or article. If I am reading some storybooks or
.textbooks, can I still apply them

End of semester
The most valuable thing I learned this year is the importance
of providing your students with opportunities to be active
learners. Active learning is a catchphrase that you hear all over
the place in education and in teacher prep programs. I define active
learning as lessons in which my students are doing more cognitive
work than I am. These lessons, while not always 100% successful,
were always more successful than more passive lessons. If I had a
lecture planned, I knew that I would be spending the day constantly
urging my students to focus and listen and pay attention! And
I also knew that at the end of the lecture my students would have a
very limited conceptual understanding of the topic at hand. On the
other hand, if the lesson centered on a broad, open-ended problem
or question to explore, or a discussion that elicited student ideas
about a nuanced topic, my students were generally much more
engaged, less likely to be off-task, and able to gain a deeper
understanding of what we were working on. These lessons took
.much more work on my end before class, but it paid off beautifully
This year, I was most proud of my success with my students
who were identified as special education. Every single one of them
passed biology. When I began teaching, I was intimidated by the
thought of trying to reach these students. As I got to know them, I
was able to develop ways to connect with them. One of them, who
struggled to earn a D with my mentor teacher, ended up with the
highest score on my final exam out of all of my sections. Although I
used a few different strategies for each of my IEP students, the one
that I used constantly with all of them was vocal remindersto them
and to their classmatesthat they were absolutely capable of
understanding science and could participate effectively in scientific
.problem-solving
My mitosis and meiosis units were disasters. Absolute
disasters. Class averages around 50%. There were a couple of
reasons for this, I think. These were the first units I taught as the

lead teacherthe first that I completely planned, executed, and

assessed. The students were not used to me, and I wasnt sure
what I expected of them. I was still searching for my instructional
style and I wasnt planning particularly well (it also came at a
particularly busy time in my own coursework). I think that in the
future I need to spend much more time helping students understand
the concept of chromosomes. That seemed to be the root of the
problem. My students could sort of memorize the chromosome
movements, and could kind of parrot the definition of chromosome,
but they did not really understand the significance of the
processes. And in retrospect that isnt surprising, given that I had
provided them with the definition of chromosome in a lecture and
then expected them to be able to connect it with pictures of the
phases of mitosis. Of course they had no idea what was going on,
even when I backtracked and spent time on modeling with
them. Next year there will be a few days devoted to fleshing out the
.concept of chromosomes before we begin to discuss cell division
One problem that I noticed continually this year was that my
students were perpetually unable to see the forest for the trees, as
it were. In the future, I would like all of my units to be centered on a
particular case study or puzzle. This would be presented at the
beginning of the unit, and students would not have all of the
information they needed to address the problems. As we worked
through the unit, we would return periodically to this over-arching
case study or problem and make progress towards solving it as a
class. This would look a little different for every unit, but I think that
this would be a great organizational method for me to keep my
lessons active and problem-based, and I also think that it would help
.students keep the details of biology in a larger, real-world context
I think that the area in which I improved most as an educator
was recognizing what parts of my own knowledge I could not expect
students to share. It was not until I was in front of high school
freshmen that I realized how much of my biology knowledge simply

formed part of my worldview. That is, biological processes seem

inherently logical to me, and in the beginning of the year I often
assumed that my students already had this biology logic. It took
me a while to even realize that I was making this assumption. For
example, when I told students that a mutation was a change in the
DNA, I assumed that they would automatically understand that this
would sometimes but not always result in an altered protein
product. After all, they already knew (or should have learned) that
DNA provided the instructions for protein. The relationship between
DNA and protein is one that I instinctually recognize and
consider. This is true for most of the larger-order concepts in
biology. Obviously my students have not internalized these things,
and by the end of the year I was much better at recognizing when I
needed to make things explicit for my novice students. In the
future, I hope to develop better strategies for addressing and
correcting student misconceptions. I have gotten pretty adept at
identifying when students are thinking about things incorrectly, but
.convincing them of how things actually work is always a challenge
Communities of all kinds made my year of student teaching
manageable. My MAT cohort was indispensible. They were a great
support network. My non-teaching friends were equally essential. I
leaned on them heavily, whether they were aware of it or not, as an
outlet and as an occasionally-necessary escape. The science
department at my student teaching site and my freshmen team
provided me with reams of advice (some good, some less good) and
great insight into my students. And, of course, the teachers on
Tumblr were immensely helpful. It was encouraging to be a part of
wider community of young(ish?) educators. One cant teach in
.a vacuum

Reflection After Teaching After teaching the lesson of body parts, I

realized I did more than what I was included in my lesson for this particular
fifteen-minute period. For instance, during the El sper monstruo
activity, I did not plan for the students to tell me what body parts to add
for the monster. I was just planning to tell them what to draw to check
their comprehension. However, having them tell me what parts to add
aloud, made the lesson more interacting and productive. Before, the
lesson I felt very nervous because I was not sure if the students were
going to comprehend everything in Spanish. On the other hand, I did not
want to translate because translation is something that I dont like to do
when I teach. Also, I did not want to give the impression that I will be using
translation in my future classes. However, after the lesson, I was very
satisfied with the results because I did not have to translate and I ended
up overusing gestures and hand movements to convey meaning. In my
opinion, I enjoyed the lesson and felt that the students were enjoying what
they were learning. The students were actively participating and
responding to my questions and commands. I felt very comfortable
because even though the students were not young learners, they were
motivated to learn by singing songs and playing games. I do not have a lot
of experience teaching but I feel that people have multiple ways of
learning. Therefore, when I teach, I feel compromise and responsible to
meet my students needs and that is why I like to include games, songs,
and other scaffolding strategies. Furthermore, I have to mention that I feel
very motivated after I heard my professor and classmates evaluation
comments. Most of them gave me positive comments and it seems that
they liked the lesson. For example, most of them said that if they were
students in my class they would feel engaged, encouraged, entertained,
and motivated. They also taught that the use of hand movements and
facial expressions was fantastic and appropriate for my teaching context.
As a result, I feel that these comments will inspire me to make my
teaching lessons valuable and meaningful to my students. I was very
happy to hear constructive criticism such as great use of scaffolding
techniques and error correction. The feedback provided is an opportunity
for professional development and improvement for future lessons. Overall,
the activities in the lesson and class dynamics reflect my teaching
principles because it is my belief that instruction should be student

centered, responsive to students cognitive and personal needs. Also, I

believe that a teacher needs to provide meaningful experiential and
motivational activities that will encourage the students to learn. Thus, in
this lesson, I tried to do activities that were at level of young learners by
drawing a monster, playing games and singing songs. In addition, I enjoy
teaching young learners because I take part of their energy and I become
energetic as well. For this reason, every time there is an opportunity for
teaching a class or a short lesson, I try to learn from it and modify my
teaching styles according to the needs and personality of my students.
Therefore, every teaching moment is a unique learning experience to
.remember and to put in practice

:Design Process and Introduction to My Lesson .1

When I planned my lesson I used a backwards design
approach. I knew that my final lesson assessment would be a test.
Therefore, I knew that there were certain concepts that I knew I
needed to get across to my students. I chose to do a lecture on
PowerPoint to illustrate the main points that I needed to get across. I
also chose to give my students a graphic organizer so that I could
be sure that they had received the information that I wanted them
to learn. I find that this is good because students are required to
follow along with the lecture but they do not have to copy down
every word and get distracted by writing too much information. I
also wanted to include an informal assessment that would require
my students to apply the knowledge that they learned. I decided to
make an activity where my students got to apply the different types
of government to their own made up government situations. By
using these techniques when they create their own governments,
the students are really able to apply the concepts rather than just
.memorize the definitions
Initial Reactions to My Lesson .2
When I taught my lesson I really thought that overall things
went very well. I felt like I was able to meet my lesson objectives,
:which were
Identify and describe three types of government; Autocracy, .1
Oligarchy, and Democracy
Compare and contrast the three different types of .2
.government and be able to list examples of each
I believe that my use of informal assessments and exit slips
showed me as the teacher that my students really did master the
concepts of Autocracy, Oligarchy and Democracy. In my lesson my
students were able to absorb and use the information in lots of
different ways. They were able to listen to me talk about the
information. They were also able to write down the information
through slot notes, which helped them remember the information.

And finally they were able to apply the knowledge that they learned
when they worked with their classmates to apply the different types
.of governments to their own made up government scenarios
I believe that in my lesson my objectives were very clear. They
were displayed on the board throughout the lesson for the students
to see and understand what we were trying to accomplish as a
class. I also told the students the objectives at the beginning of the
.class so they would be informed
One thing I believe I need to work on is my time management.
The last time that I taught a mini lesson I was very worried about
having too many things to do. Therefore, I went very fast and rushed
through my lesson so that I would not run out of time. In order to fix
this problem this time, I planned too many things. While my
students were working for the entire class time, I did not have
enough time to do an appropriate closure I can clearly see growth in
myself because I was able to engage the students for the whole
time rather than just half the time like I did last time. Even though I
still need to work on my exact time management, I believe it is good
that I am showing growth. I think that planning will get easier as I
get to know my students and figure our how long things usually take
.them
:Reaction After Watching Myself Teach .3
After watching myself teach, I saw some positive and negative
things. First, I still think that the students really did learn the
objectives of my lesson. This can be seen through their
presentations of their mock governments. The students not only
learned the material but they were able to present it in a creative
way. I let the students draw their government and use real life
examples to make it more real to them. Through their presentations
I could tell that the students were not only learning the material, but
.they were having fun with it as well
On the other hand, I think that because I planned so much for
one lesson period some of the time the students felt a little pressed

for time. The purpose of the mock government assignment was to

allow the students time for creative expression of the material and I
think some of this was cut short by the limited time. In the future I
.would allow more time for the students to fully develop their ideas
I did like how I assigned the different groups the different
forms of government. I think that if I had not assigned the students
to specific types of government they probably would have all taken
the easy road and chosen democracy. But by assigning them
governments I was able to cover all the different types. I also liked
how I had the groups pre-assigned. I think this made the transition
.smoother and saved a lot of time
:Reactions to Comments by My Peers .4
My peers made some very good comments about my mini
lesson. First they gave my warm feedback. One of my peers
mentioned that she liked how my lesson was broken up in to
different sections. One section for note taking and one for creative
expression of the material. She praised my use of this type of
structure saying that it was good especially for block scheduling. I
agree with what she had to say. In my placement I do have block
scheduling and at first I was nervous because I have never
experienced or taught block scheduling before, so it is good to know
that I have some idea of how to plan for it. She also commented on
how she liked the format that I used for note taking. I have seniors
this semester; therefore, I know they do not like taking notes. My
colleague commented about how she like that the notes were quick
and then the students were able to concentrate on a more fun
.activity that reinforced the material
Another one of my colleagues also commented on how she
like the way that I kept the students on task during the activity.
During the activity I walked around the classroom to see if students
needed help. My intent of walking around was also to make sure
.that students stayed on task

Another one of my colleagues also liked the way that I

assigned the students into groups. I felt like this would help my
lesson in many ways. First, it helps the students transition better. It
also makes them stay more on task because if they are always
working with their best friends, they tend to get off topic. I also think
that working with other people helps students prepare for college
.and the real world
One of my colleagues commented about my graphic organizer
that went along with my notes. She said that if I were to use it
again, I should make it clearer. My intent was to give the students a
note-taking device while still making them thinking about what they
were going to have to write down. However, I believe that I left out
too much and it was confusing for the students. Before I use this in
my student teaching I am going to revise the graphic organizer to
.make it more useful to the students
Finally, my professor suggested that I should have more
guiding questions in my activity. On the board I had a set of
questions that my students had to answer when they did their
deserted island activity. However, I thought that the questions that I
provided them with would keep them busy enough. But I was very
wrong. Some of the groups breezed right through the questions and
needed more. I was able to think quickly on my feet and orally give
them more questions to come up with. However, in the future I plan
to have a lot more questions to give to my students. I think that a
good way to approach this problem would be to have set of
questions that are mandatory to answer and a back up set of
questions for students to answer if they need more. I think this
would be a great way to differentiate my lesson for different types of
.learners
Conclusion: what ideas, concerns, and goals are you (5
?going to work on within your teaching

There are many things that I think I can work on during my

teaching. When I teach this lesson again I am going to make many
.changes
First, I am going to revise my graphic organizer so that it is
much more clear to my students. Next, I am going to make more
questions for my students to answer during the deserted island
activity. I am also going to try to plan my time better. I realize that
this will come with more practice teaching; however, I think I can do
.a better job
When I teach, I also want to incorporate more thoughtprovoking questions into my lessons. Right now, I tend to ask
questions, but they are usually one-word answers. I believe that
right now I am still very nervous, but I think if I write questions down
before class I can use them and build of off them to make my
.students think more