Lesson Reflective Summary

Teacher Candidate for Science Endorsement: ____Chaviano__________

Instructor: _____________________________________________________________

School: __Mount Bethel Elementary__ Grade: ____2____________________

Lesson Topic: ____Matter – Pre-assess- States of Matter___________

Write a brief summary of your experiences teaching this lesson, addressing the following
questions:

 What went well? What did not go well? (Cite specific examples)

This lesson was my weakest within the unit. Because my students have high level
of background knowledge (almost all of them were able to correctly identify
which objects belonged to which state of matter, including some describing
plasma) this was not a great use of a lesson period. Additionally, because so
many students WERE knowledgeable, it was intimidating for the students who
did not have the knowledge to be heard. Next time I would use a different way
for students to provide responses.

Because my class did have a lot of background knowledge, this gave me the
opportunity to challenge their thinking and dig deeper and question the
“properties” of each state when presenting each matter state, and introduce
terms such as viscosity, and discuss why the sand or the cake sprinkles took the
shape of the container, even though they are solids in small pieces or particles.
By the end of our discussion, students were already beginning to adopt the
terminology or vocabulary words intended, such as mass, volume, properties etc.

 How well were the lesson’s student performance objectives attained?

The lesson did tell me that I needed to provide extension opportunities for a
large part of the class. Ninety percent of the students had the objectives
mastered prior to the lesson. However, I did realize that the students were
lacking in the vocabulary used for describing the properties of matter.

 Did classroom activity center on science understanding, inquiry, and sense-

making by all students?
 Yes, it was based on categorizing objects based on their properties. Students
were able to sort the items, even ones that were more ambiguous.

 Did your scientific content knowledge enable you to support students’

construction of knowledge and understanding of important scientific concepts
and processes?

Yes, described above/below.

 When you have the opportunity to re-teach this lesson, what will you do
differently (strategies, teaching tools, assessments, etc.) to improve student
learning for all students?

In this lesson, I would incorporate words, and require students to use the
vocabulary words to describe their choices. This increases the rigor of the
lesson, as well as provides the students with the opportunity practicing the
standard requirement of “describing,” as well as truly assessing the standard.