Modify my previous lesson ESCI7040-A1

This is an assignment of Dr. Oliver’s class ESCI7040(teaching strategies). The goal of this activity is to reflect on my own teaching and modify the plans for future teaching.

I taught learning theories to undergraduates in order to let them make sense of how students learn and apply these principles in their future teaching.

The guiding question is what is knowledge and how people learn? The big ideas include:

1. Different type of knowledge play different roles and people learn them differently.
2. Learning Science is not just learning scientific knowledge but also science practice and the nature of science.
3. Teacher need various types of knowledge to help students learn science.
4. Different learning theories understand people’s learning differently and give different suggestions for teaching and learning.
5. Preconceptions, learning styles, learning strategies play an important role in students’ learning.

This lesson takes 90 minutes and during 60 minutes I was lecturing.

Task1: Reflections of this lesson:

1. Wether the content of this lesson can effectively help them understand how students learn science and apply these principles in their teaching?
   Some ideas are too general and loosely related. They should be deleted or modified.
   You should focus more on students’ learning not teachers’ learning
   Don’t try to cover every learning theories, teach the most important one and the crucial strategies or tools.
   You may also included some brain-based learning studies such as how learning occur and what factors may affect learning.
   Conceptual change should be included in this lesson.

2. Are these goals/objectives appropriate for your students?
   These goals are not challenging enough for undergraduates. More critical thinking and challenging tasks should be used in this lesson.
   You can try to related your teaching methods with learning principles and invite students to think both in the role of learners and teacher(your role).

3. How were the goals/objectives appropriate for the course in which the unit was taught?
   I found that I simply followed the sequence of the textbook. I may first teach this lesson ‘learning theory’ (Chapter 4) and then teach ‘teaching strategies’(Chapter 3). Students should first know how leaning happen and then learn how to teach.

4. How the instructional strategies adequate for the learning you hoped would happen?
   Lecture should be more interactive(share learning experience of yours or students, thinking aloud, student teaching), include more student-centered activities (sorting learning tasks, diagnosing students’ learning difficulties, think-pair-share, one minute writing, interpret teaching clips).

5. How were the assessments–either formal or informal–adequate(and valid and reliable) for the task of assessing student learning?
   There are two assessments: A1 explain Osmosis to high school students; A2 design a 5E lesson plan. A1 is an informal assessment on class. A2 seems not closely related with this lesson. A better assignment would be study students’ preconceptions about one topic and design an activity to elicit students prior ideas.

Task 2 redesign:

The big ideas that student should understand:

1. Learners build their knowledge on their prior knowledge collaboratively in special social context or situations.
2. Learning occur when connections are made in Neural Networks or social networks.
3. Well designed physical and social learning environment help students learn by improving their brains’ function.
4. Prior ideas, emotion, metacogniton play crucial roles in students’ science learning.
5. Different learning strategies suit for different learning tasks; Some tasks are more difficult than others; Student percept learning tasks differently.

The skills that student should develop:

1. Elicit and engage students’ prior ideas of a core concept.
2. Diagnosis students’ difficulties in learning a concept.
3. Design or redesign classroom learning environment to optimize students’ learning.
4. Select proper learning strategies for special learning tasks.
5. Summary learning research results and its implications for teaching.

The interactive lecture and student activities:

Tell the story of two kids arguing about sun:
孔子到东方游历，遇见两个小孩在路上争辩，便问原因。一个小孩说：“太阳刚升起时距离人近。”另一个小孩说：“太阳中午的时候才距离人近呢。” 一个小孩又说：“不对，太阳刚升起的时候大得像个车盖，到了正午就小得像一个盘子，这不是远处的看着小而近处的看着大的道理吗？” 另一个小孩说：“太阳刚升起的时候清凉，到了中午的时候像手伸进热水里一样热，这不是近的时候感觉热而远的时候感觉凉的道理吗？”

Which kid do you agree with?
How about the situation of winter and summer?
If you are going to teaching these two kids the model of sun and earth, what are you going to do with these ideas?
Pretest: What do you know about learning? Yes or No question and why?
Learning occur easily and fast. Yes No
Learning is mainly remembering and recalling. Yes NO
Learning is a process that seldom change. Yes No
Learning ability can be enhanced though learning effort. Yes No
How this lesson Connect, extend or challenge what you know and how you teach?

Can you share a impressive learning experience that happened to you before? Or your most powerful learning strategy?

Different types of learning:

Learning subject: Machine learning, human learning, animal learning
Learning method: Discovery learning, guided discovery, inquiry-based learning, Problem-based learning; learning from instruction, rote learning, learning from examples, learning by analogy, explanation-based learning
Learning object: Conceptural learning(facts, concepts, model, theory), skill learning(process, strategies), emotion, attitude and value learning, metacognitive learning
Learning result: Deep learning, surface learning, meaningful learning,rote learning,effective or ineffective learning
Learning effort or emotion: hard learning, lazy learning, happy learning,painful learning
Learning sensory and style: eye, ear, feel, action, think, taste, smell

What can you learn from the following objective verb table?

0. Think-pair-share
   Read a research paper of misconception, write down all possible ways to elicit students’ prior ideas, share with peers how these prior ideas are going to affect students’ learning.

1. Ask a student to thinking aloud about a Buoyancy problem; Ask another student to think aloud about a phototropism problem; Ask the third student to think aloud about a NO2 chemical equilibrium problem. Interview them a little bit.

2. Share personal learning strategy (Chemical equilibrium).
   

3. One minute writing
   Why students approach the same problem differently? How can you encourage deep learning?

4. Sorting learning tasks and matching with learning strategies.
   List as many different types of learning tasks as you can in your group?
   Group them as many ways as you can?

Sorting learning tasks:
Write down the definition of enzyme.
Judge whether x is Enzyme or not.
Compare Plant and animal cell structures.
Draw the process of Mitosis.
Design the law of using human embryonic cells as research materials.
Count the Probability of a special Phenotype in the next generation.
Explain why egg shells are not too thin or too thick.

Learning strategies:
compare and group, summarize, visualize, hands-on, simplize, break down

4. Student teaching one concept to other students or one screen to the class.
   They need to be the volunteer and download the material and learn it before class, they have 3 minutes to help group members to understand this concept. Students will share their learning experience and give feedback to the volunteer teacher.

5. Diagnosing students’ learning difficulties in a teaching clip.
   Teacher will show a clip of real teaching, the students are asked to make sense what is happening and what to do with the situation.

6. Write one minute about what you learn or change today about learning, what is your most favorite analogy of learning now, share with your partner.

Task 3 reflect on why you change:

My previous purpose is follow and cover the most important content both on the textbook and in my vision. I spent a lot of time on how to represent these content to students but did not pay too much attention to how these content serve the goal of this course. At that time, I did not have many activities to choose from and had to create my own one by one. I also had limited knowledge of how students learn science before, now I know more. So I want to include the more important ideas that I know and get rid of un important or unrelated ideas.

Although I believed that I should use more student-centered activities, but I just didn’t have them. It took time for me to gather, test, accumulate related activities or ideas. My enriched learning experiences and pedagogical thinking also help me to generate new activities that probably work for my students.

Recently, I read some papers and books about evidence-based teaching and brain-based learning, they also encourage me to select the core ideas and activities for my teaching plan.

Conclusion: If you want to improve your teaching practice, you need to know more about the content, more about your students, more about what you can possibly do and use in your class. Of course, you also have to know what student really learn and why they do so.