1. What components of your second pbl plan did you target for improvement?
For the second pbl plan I wanted to improve the inquiry process for the students. In this plan students will have the opportunity to participate in different activities throughout the unit. One inquiry based activity was a demonstration on how water evaporates over time. We began by reading books about rain and the water cycle. Then we filled a container with blue water. We drew a line on the container and wrote the date next to the line. We discussed that the water would evaporate and add moisture to the air and that the moisture would become rain if we were outside. We placed the container on top of the refrigerator and would look at the water throughout the unit. We checked the water level in the container after eleven days, twenty-three days and thirty-two days. The students observed the evaporation of the water and had a better understanding of the water cycle and how rain is connected to it. The plan was to incorporate similar demonstrations throughout the unit.
2. What components do you feel your students will be more successful? Least successful? Why?
The students will be successful creating the artistic representation of their chosen weather. My K4 students enjoy art and will successfully navigate this part of the project.
The students will have a harder time with writing about the weather. The students will have the knowledge but the difficult part for them will be writing about the weather. They will need guidance and help from the adults in the classroom.
3. What will your students need to overcome any anticipated obstacles?
Many students will not have experienced some of the weather such as tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. The students will have to gather information through listening to books or watching a video about the listed weather. The students will also need the opportunity to observe a demonstration of the weather. All of these activities will help the students gain knowledge and overcome the anticipated obstacles.
4. How will students be provided opportunities for feedback and revision on their process and product from you, from peers and from outside audiences?
The students can receive feedback through conferencing with the teacher. After the conference the students can revise their work.
I need to improve the area of feedback especially from other adults and their peers.
5. Are there opportunities for you and for students to self-reflect on their learning throughout the pbl?
After looking at the plan I noticed that I needed to add a self-reflection component for the students. The students can reflect on how much information that they learned from the first half of the pbl unit. The students can also reflect on their artistic representation of their chosen weather. They can think about the weather and consider if their representation matches their chosen weather.
Hi Alana,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you thinking through the questions that I provided you with when reviewing your unit work plan for this spring semester. Having the opportunity to observe your weather unit in action I saw the water evaporation experiment on top of the refrigerator students had been observing and tracking water levels and evaporation, saw their weather observations that were ongoing on the calendar at the front of the room, and observed their informational writing in response to their cloud experiments. It was clear by listening to student conversations and seeing their drawing and writing that they were using the vocabulary and weather concepts in their discussions and in their writing.
I am glad that you are adding a self-reflection component for your students and are asking them to think on what they learned from the pbl. I appreciate how you are utilizing an artistic representation of their weather unit as part of their final project. I would love to see some of their examples. Thank you Alana for your receptiveness to the feedback and suggestions provided to you.
Sincerely,
Dawn
Alana, I enjoyed seeing your student's weather renderings. It was obvious that you had allowed them many opportunities to learn about the various weather patterns through books, videos, experiments, etc. They were able to create art that demonstrated their learning. I always look forward to seeing their work in the hallway because each one is unique while still showing that there was universal learning. This not only gives me a brief preview of things to come next year (LOL) but also helps me see the growth in your students over time. Thank you for including me along the way because by helping you think through your PBL, you gave me insight into my own.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more difficult things to teach in the early grades is seasons/weather because our students haven't experienced them all and if they have, not often enough for them to remember the specifics. By looking at their drawings, it was obvious that you had provided many opportunities for students to observe aspects of weather prior to the expectation of completion their final product.
I have really enjoyed being able to take this class with you. I only wish that some of the other of our classmates had been afforded the same opportunity because we don't really see each other enough as a cohort to be able to see each other's growth.