Melissa Yeap Lesson Plan 5 5A

Waverley Christian College Integrated

Date: 30/5/2017, Tuesday, 1:42pm-2:24pm Duration of lesson: 42 minutes

Student Group: 5A Class size: 28 students
Mentor Teacher: Adam Honeybun Title of lesson/activity: Seeing the Light -
School: Waverley Christian College Empedocles and Alhazen

Learning intention:
To understand the beliefs and views that people used to have about light, and how scientists
proved some of the facts that we know about light. That light travels in straight lines from a
source, and colour is reflected to our eyes.

Links to Victorian Curriculum:

Science Understanding:

Physical Sciences
Light from a source forms shadows and can be absorbed, reflected and refracted (VCSSU080)
Resources, Materials & Organisation:
Students writing materials
Students writing books
Students iPads
Whiteboard
Projector
Seeing the Light Empedocles and Alhazen document

Alhazens Experiment:
Torches
A3/A4 pieces of paper, for students to fold to make a box open on two sides
Scissors
Sharp pencils
Glue, tape or stapler

Lesson Structure:

Intro: (15 minutes)

1. Revise students knowledge from the previous lessons
e.g. What do we know about light?

2. Direct attention to the word wall/word window, ask if anyone have any new words for the word
wall.

3. Read Seeing The Light - Empedocles and Alhazen (students can access it through SEQTA Learn)

4. Read the quote by Alhazen "If learning the truth is the scientist's goal; then he must make himself
the enemy of all he reads". Discuss what it means to think critically and to seek evidence and proof.

5. Read through Alhazen's experiment. Tell the students that they are going to conduct the
experiment.

Body: (20 minutes)

6. Give each student an experiment template and encourage them to write down a question, a
hypothesis, and record a labelled diagram of the experiment.

7. Put the students into teams and use the badges from the last lesson to assign roles. Have the
students conduct the experiment and record their results.

Conclusion: (5 minutes)

8. Reflect upon and share the results.

Self-Reflection:
Things that worked well:
It was important for me to set the ground rules for the students as their behaviour was getting
disrespectful when I was running my previous lessons. Students were being disruptive during talk
time, I gave a warning to misbehaved students but it was unclear to them.

At the beginning of the lesson, I laid out my expectations of the class before I began teaching my
lesson. These expectations included: students do not call out but are expected to raise their hands
when wanting to contribute ideas; students do not talk over the teacher or anyone else when he/she
is talking but are expected to listen attentively as a sign of respect. I explained the two-warning rule
followed by the teachers action to write the students name on the board and to move them to a
different seat on the floor during discussion time. Once these expectations were clear for the
students, I found that they responded better to my classroom behaviour management method as I
waited for them to stop talking before I moved on, or at students who were not facing the front.

I did not direct the whole experiment, as I allowed students to test out the methods first. Then, I
noticed that most groups of students were not following the methods, thus, I stepped in and showed
them using another groups model that the second hole is 5cm to the left or right of the original hole.

Things to improve on:

If I could run this lesson again, I would have altered the steps I did such as: knowing my content; give
clearer instructions for setting up and running the experiment; explain how the groups are going to
work; allocating more time at the end for packing up and discussion time.

In terms of knowing my content, I could have trialled the experiment at home first before teaching it
to the class. This way, when students are unclear of what steps to do, I am confident enough to guide
them along the process. I was unsure with what to expect for the experiment, thus, modelling setting
up the equipment was unclear.

I briefly explained the scientific method to the students but I forgot to relate it to Alhazens quote.
This would have added more meaning to the reason behind the usage of the scientific method for
this experiment.

The process of allocating groups could have been improved by the teachers input and explanation
that students will experience similar situations like these in the future where they must work with
people they do not know or are not close to. However, I learnt and observed the students who were
disengaged from the group work, and tried to get their team members to work with them.

Setting up the experiment was very slow as everyone was confused, including the teacher. I also
forgot to mention at the start that students can find the steps for the experiment in their OneNote
app on their iPads. Clearer instructions would have speed up the pace for the groups.

In addition, I would have handed out the science experiment sheets first so students can focus on
filling the sheet without being distracted by the equipment they needed for the experiment. Once
the sheets have been filled up, I would check their answers and get the managers to come collect the
equipment needed for the experiment. Only a handful of groups had filled in their first three
responses before I proceeded the groups to begin running the experiment.

Finally, allocating more time for packing up and discussion time would have been ideal so students
were able to discuss their findings and share it with their peers. This would have enhanced the
purpose and findings of the experiment. Teacher could have scaffold the learners in this discussion
time with questions like What did I learn?, Did our initial questions get answered?. The students
were taking a long time to pack up their materials and the noise levels were too loud that they
couldnt even hear the final school bell.

Mentor Teachers Reflection:

Melissa, it was great to see you reinforce your expectations with the students, and reinforce them
when students were talking among themselves. The activity was quite a complicated one to set up,
and involved grouping students, allocating roles, collecting equipment, completing a prediction and
then following up with an experiment. How could you have supported the students through the
process quickly, and efficiently? Could you have sorted out the groups, and then got one of the
managers to model what to do?