Kristi Winslow Co-Teaching Reflection
Before
planning this PBL on the creation of a mitral heart valve replacement, I had to
demonstrate an example to my students, as to what they were going to be
experiencing with this project. In
addition, I had to plan as to how I was going to ensure my students were still
going to grasp the concepts of the flow of blood through the heart and apply
their knowledge to their project.
I
believe what my students participated in was a “real-world” activity, but I do
not know if they quite understood why it was so relevant. Due to the constant moving and activity, it
was difficult for me to reinforce the ‘real-world’ value and provide them with
questions that would help to realize the importance.
This
experience was aligned with the SC seventh grade science standards. With this particular PBL, students were
focused on the circulatory system and the flow of blood through the left side
of the heart after it had become oxygenated and was ready to be circulated to
the rest of the body.
Students
collaborated with their partners for their heart valve replacements on the
engineering and design process of how it was going to work when placed in the
heart diagram. Students collaborated on
identifying a problem of “why do we need heart valve replacements.” Students,
brainstormed the best designs and materials, to recreate a heart valve, they
then designed before building. They tested and evaluated, and redesigned to
improve their design, to accomplish their end goal of allowing blood to move
from the left atrium to left ventricle without allowing it to move from the
left ventricle to the left atrium.
Throughout
this PBL experience, I conducted myself as a facilitator and allowed my
students to gather information independently to come up with the best design
and build for their heart valve replacements.
They explored various diseases and reasons why someone might need a
heart valve replacement. They also researched the different varieties of valve
replacements that are used today and ones that have not yet been tested. They discovered that the valve replacement
does not actually have to look like a valve that would naturally be found in
the heart, and that they could be in all different types of shapes to operate
the way they are intended to.
This is such a cool project! I'm sure a few of them, if they haven't already encountered someone with a heart valve replacement, will some day know someone who needs a heart valve replacement. This project allowed them to visualize what's inside of them and how doctors must sometimes think outside of the box in order to save a patient. You quite likely inspired a young mind to become a doctor during this project.
ReplyDeleteHi Kristi,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking time to reflect on your pbl implementation of the mitrial heart valve replacement model creation I observed. I found students to be engaged during the majority of the observation and were motivated to make changes to their existing design in order to make it more effective within the three trials you provided them with. Having the template that provided them with a place to record their data as well as their changes made in each trial helped hold their thinking and provided you with a formative assessment tool to review and conference briefly with students before and after each trail.
Thanks,
Dawn
I enjoyed how you saw what you could of improved on and how you would improve it. I feel as a teacher, they only way we get better is if we constantly reflect and improve.
ReplyDeleteI really like this project. It seems really hard. I think this would be a real challenge to students. Very real world. I'm impressed. I like the hands on building of a model in this PBL.
ReplyDelete