As I'm sure many teachers of any age group can confirm, if you don't have something to hook the students with at the beginning of a lesson, it can be difficult to keep their attention. This week's teaching lab was all about interest approaches. We had to create a five to ten minute interest approach based around a lesson of our choosing.
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| sample slide of the close-ups |
One of the units that I'll be teaching this spring is plant science, so I decided to create an interest approach for my introduction to that unit. Since it's going to be the first lesson of the unit, I wanted it to be interactive and fun for the students! The essential question for the first lesson is "what is a plant?"; I decided that for my interest approach, I would show students a variety of images that were zoomed in and make them guess whether or not the image was of a plant (bonus points if they
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| the big reveal |
My peers seemed engaged throughout the entire activity, which I was happy to see! I did go over my time allotment by about a minute and a half, so time is something that I am continuing to struggle with. To shorten the activity for the next time that I do it, I'll probably change it from looking at 17 images to 15 or possibly even less. I also noticed that I'm still moving my hands around a lot while I'm speaking. I need to find a way to not be as distracting with my hand motions, but not completely lose my animation. Overall, I was super happy about how this activity worked out and I may even use it for other lessons in different classes.
Hi Alyssa! Your interest approach was awesome, not only was it so much fun to participate but I also enjoyed how you added a carrot at the end of this activity to reward your students later in the unit. I know you shared a concern with going over your time during your lab but I feel with more experience and as you get more comfortable in the classroom it will allow you to keep your activities to a stricter timeline! No stress you did an awesome job and I had so much fun!
ReplyDeleteYour activity was unexpected and really got the whole class engaged in your lesson! I thought the plant id was a unique game to play! As for going over your allotted time, I did not notice at all! To accommodate for that, you could just include fewer images. Another thing you could change is include a worksheet with numbers and spaces to write their guesses and then at the bottom an area to tally the scores. I think you did a great job with your interest approach and it was really exciting to see how it connected to a plant science course!
ReplyDeleteAlyssa,
ReplyDeleteThis was a fun interest approach. The "hook" or the interest approach really can set the tone for the entire lesson. You kept it fun and the visual aspect of this interest approach will really appeal to learners that have a preferred learning style of visual/spatial. You also gave learners the opportunity to have fun through a game (whether the points matter or not)! Keep up the great effort. It shows and it will pay off come "game time". (Pun intended, all rights reserved) :-)
-Dr. Ewing
Alyssa, I think you did a fantastic job with your interest approach this week. I loved the incorporation of a fun game to get students excited and engaged. If I had to change anything from you lab I would try to make the pictures a little easier to guess, so that more students would try to correctly pick the exact plant name. I think that would get them thinking about the content area a little more.
ReplyDelete