Different Levels of Reflection

Reflection is an important act to be lived by individuals. Different articles define reflections as either thinking about something experienced by an individual or a practice by which it defines particular experiences in specific meaning and actions. (Loughran, 2002). Reflection helps individuals guide themselves in the different practices we live. It allows them to have better understanding of the situation they passed by and develop knowledge of acting differently.

An incident which happened in the Park was reflected in different ways:

The first account simply started narrating the story of what actually happened in the Park. At the beginning of the reflection, the writer described the different settings of the day instead of focusing on the action itself. After narrating the incidents of the day, the writer mentioned his feelings of guilt very briefly. That reflection didn't reach to any solution of what could have happened or why did that person took the action of leaving the kid. 

The second reflection included listing of the incidents with what the author actually felt at the moment. However, as the author was describing his feelings, he did not think about the reason he thought that way when looking at the sick kid. He kept saying: "I don't know". That type of reflection did not allow him to actually learn from that experience to be fixed in the future.

The third reflection had more thinking. In one paragraph, the author summarized the whole incident. It was clear and straight to the point. Any reader would be able to imagine the incident. The author then mentioned deep feelings of what was more important that day: Help the kid or prepare for the party? The level by which the author reflected was asking himself questions to evaluate himself. The writer then mentioned what he could have done. He mentioned what solutions could have been made at that moment but did not really find solutions for future experiences. He also did not think of the reason why he did not help the sick kid. At the end, the writer tried to relate the incident of the sick boy with that of previous experience: sick uncle. Although at the end, that experience was not relevant but the incident brought the writer back in time.

The last reflection is the type of reflection by which it leads to particular conclusions. After the author listed the main incidents in one paragraph, he started analyzing the situation of why he acted the way he did. Later, he did not really blame himself for what he did (Helping the kid) but he started looking through his previous experience. Then he labeled himself as "good" or "bad" following the standards of the community regarding these two adjectives. In that reflection, the author thought meta-cognitively: he thought about his own thinking and feelings. The author analyzed his current experience with a previous one to reach to an explanation of the action that happened unconsciously. Moreover, the author thought about how his feelings were affected to previous experience which led his mind and body to ignore that kid.

Reflection is an act by which an individual analyses an incident that took place in his life. It is one of the most important learning tool an individual may practice. With more practice, it helps you see the surrounding from different perspectives and with more control.

Science Lesson Plan: Digestion

Digestion is one of the topics students usually hate. It is simply hard for them to visualize what is going on inside our body through a system which is longer than our height. I designed this lesson plan to highlight the importance of chemical and mechanical digestion in our body.

The first activity I planned was to show the digestive system outside the body and simply manipulate what is going on inside through hands-on activity. In that aspect, students will be able to link what they learned to their experience through and memory of a fun experience. Their memorization of the topic will be made automatically instead of opening their book and actually memorize.

Then in order to target visual types of learners, I included a video I found on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5TaS0-VaDo. I will be choosing to show my students from minute 1:46 till 4:48 as this is the part by which it will target my objectives. Throughout the video, I will be stopping to ask my students questions so that they will be the ones who will explain the lesson.

My lesson plan is an inquiry based type of lesson plan. It includes the 5-E steps. This type of lesson plans targets Bloom's Taxonomy high order questions. The different questions are included through my lesson plan. To target the students who are still at the bottom part of the taxonomy, I will be summarizing the lesson to the class in 5-10 minutes by which I ask my students questions to target their "knowledge" part.

My objectives were divided into two parts: content and process

• Through the contents, 4 objectives are targeted in this lesson plan by which each contain an action statement, condition statement, and criterion statement.

• As for the process skills objectives, I tried to target the higher order of Bloom's Taxonomy by which I want my student to analyze an experiment and design a solution to solve a problem. This part of my objectives is done through an evaluation worksheet. Part of this worksheet is solved individually (the analysis part) and the other part is solved through group work (the design part
  

To check the Lesson plan, please go to the following link: Lesson Plan
To check the handout,

Evaluation Worksheet

Digestion

Question 1 – Individual Work

In the framework of studying the importance of mechanical digestion, we realize an experiment on in vitro digestion of lipids: sheep fat.

2 test tubes A and B were put in a water bath of 37 degrees. We added Water and lipase to both tubes. We added 5 g of sheep fat in 1 cube to test tube A while added 5 g of chopped sheep fat to cube B.

The mass of sheep fat is measured at the beginning of the experiment and at the end of the experiment. The results are shows in table 1.

	Mass of sheep fat (in g)
Tube	Beginning of the experiment (at 0 hr)	End of the experiment (after 3 hrs)
A	5	2
B	5	0

Table 1

1)      Analyze the results in document 2.

2)      Based on the analysis, derive a conclusion.

Question 2 – Group work

An individual went to the doctor with a problem of constipation. His doctor mentioned that he suffers from “mal-absorption” in the small intestine.

1.       What do you think the problem of this mal-absorption could be?

2.       Design a solution to help the individual’s digestive system’s absorption.

Lesson Plan: Digestion

Teacher:  Abeer Obeid

Date:

Subject  / grade level: DIGESTIVE SYSTEM/ Grade 9

Materials: 1.    Sponge to represent the stomach 2.    Rope to represent the SI 3.    Plastic bag to represent the stomach 4.    Crackers 5.    Soda to represent the gastric juice 6.    Stress ball the bolus 7.    Socks to represent the esophagus 8.    2 Handouts: One to be filled during watching the video; One as evaluation 9.    Screen for the video to be watched.

Lesson objective(s): Content: Students will Label the three processes of mechanical digestion with the aid of an experiment Identify the enzymes responsible for chemically digesting the three types of food: Proteins, fat and carbohydrates Conclude the how mechanical digestion fasten up the chemical digestion by analyzing an experiment Design a solution for digestion malfunction through a group activity Process skills: Students will Translate an experiment into explanatory words Analyze an experiment and draw a conclusion with a logical explanation

Differentiation strategies to meet diverse learner needs: The activity is differentiated by: Using hands-on experiments of what happened inside the stomach to target kinesthetic learners Includes a video to target visual learners while taking notes of what they are observing Having the teacher summarizing the material discussed targeting auditory learners.

ENGAGEMENT (Can be in the form of a Do Now, after like Demo, clip, question, etc.) ·         Describe how the teacher will capture students’ interest. ·         What kind of questions should the students ask themselves after the engagement? Put the following Questions on the first slide (or in the board) What is the one thing you do everyday? What happens when you eat? Where does this food go? How does a big bite go through your body? Students need to reach to the points of: We eat to get energy. Food passes by our system. The system breaks down food into small pieces. BUT HOW WILL THE FOOD BE BROKEN DOWN TO PIECES?

EXPLORATION Show the student using a rope, a sponge and a sock how does the digestive system look from the outside. What happens when you eat your food? ·         When you put these crackers in your mouth what is the first thing you do? – use our teeth to cut them into pieces. ·         Where do they pass then? – through the esophagus (using a stress ball and a sock show how the food pass) ·         Where will the food reach then? – the stomach ·         What is the juice we find inside the stomach? – gastric juice which is acidic. ·         Explore what will happen inside the stomach. o    Provide each group of students with a plastic bag with zipper and give the students crackers. o    How will the crackers reach the stomach? Which shape? – students will need to cut the crackers into pieces. o    We said that inside the stomach, we will have a juice which is made up of the same as soda. So what will it include? – Acid o    The stomach needs to send to the intestine very small soluble molecules, so what do you think it does to give the intestine what it needs? o    How does the stomach work?

EXPLANATION (Next Period) Students will watch a video: Students will be asked to fill in a sheet of paper as they are watching the video. Questions will be asked from within their answers after the end of the video: ·                  What is the importance of digestion? ·                  Where will the food pass? ·                  What is the name of the mechanical digestion taking place in the mouth? ·                  What are the names of the enzymes responsible for: Proteins, Fat, Carbohydrates? ·                  Where does the chemical digestion for each of the following food types start?

ELABORATION With the aid of a poster, I will be mentioning the following information summing up all the activities which was taken place to make sure I target the students who can only learn by the teacher’s words. In our body, 2 types of digestion take place: Chemical and mechanical. The mechanical digestion is an aid for the food where it breaks down food into smaller parts: The teeth cut down the food with the aid of the saliva by which it wets the food: this is mastication The esophagus brings down the food into the stomach through peristaltic movement. The stomach will churn the food within its acidic gastric juice through churning. The chemical digestion break down the big molecules of proteins, fat and carbohydrates into smaller molecules as nutrients to be absorbed into the blood stream. Protein digestion starts in the stomach by protease Fat digesting starts in the small intestine by lipase Carbohydrate digestion starts in the mouth by amylase.

EVALUATION The class will be divided into four groups of students each will need to prepare a cardboard. Each group will be responsible for a topic and the cardboard will be hanged on the wall: ·         Group 1: The chemical digestion of food ·         Group 2: the mechanical digestion of food ·         Group 3: the different enzymes responsible for different types of protein. ·         Group 4: the track of food into the digestive system. A worksheet is to be given to the students to solve. This worksheet targets 2 different aspects of Bloom’s taxonomy: the analytic part and the creative part. Attached to the Lesson plan.

Diversity in the Classrooms

Students are simply different! Each one of them brings to class a reflection of his/her house in different ways by which himself is not aware of. Having 30 students in the classroom sometimes might be challenging for the educator to notice. But each kid shares his/her “Funds of Knowledge” in the classroom. “Funds of knowledge” is the knowledge present in every household by means of creative survival techniques.

Classroom diversity is different from one area to another and from one country to another. United States’ classes are made up of Europeans,  Africans, Asians, Middle Easterns, etc. The classes contain two types of students: Native speakers and bilingual speakers. Unfortunately, bilingual students are not always noticed by the teacher. Such situations are also available in the Lebanese classrooms. Some classrooms may include students from different religions (Muslims-Christians) or from different nationalities (Lebanese-Syrian-Palestinian). This diversity might be considered minimal to certain countries, but in Lebanon it is certainly an issue.

Teachers are human beings and might sometimes be subjective to a certain group of students. That would lead to ignoring students coming from particular backgrounds. In an English classroom, a teacher might give more attention to the students who were used to the Lebanese programs and ignore new kids coming from different environments. Science or Math teachers might also give more attention to the same group of students, ignoring those who are coming from the other diversity. This particular act might be out of fear. Being responsible for leading 30 kids from different backgrounds could be a challenge. Therefore, at this point teachers tend to go the easy way and simply ignore.

A low achiever in English, is not particularly a low achiever in Math. And a low achiever in general is not a de-motivated student. Knowledge does not depend on language or state of land, concepts may be acquired within different backgrounds. Children from diverse communities are not only educated by their families but by their communities as well. Therefore, teachers need to understand the culture difference. After that, they need to respect the difference in the classroom and lead the learning process within this difference. Teachers could use the difference in culture to lead discussion in class and show each individual how important their previous experience is important in their learning. When culture difference is accepted by the teacher, students will learn in a safe environment where each one is able to help the other to achieve better. Moreover, teachers could plan “show and tell” days where students from different backgrounds could show others some of their passion from their background.

Culturally diverse family do care about kids’ education. To integrate different curriculum in the classrooms, parents could be asked to be take part in teaching certain lessons during school time or after-school without being judged.  Having parents in the classrooms show other students how important it is to have different cultures in the world. It is a perfect way to emphasize that the world belongs to EVERYONE. To ensure a positive influence on the kids’ life, parents could be learners in addition to educators. Teachers and administrators could work on welcoming parents from different backgrounds into the school system. Also, they could help them adjust to the new environment in a smooth way by gathering different parents-clubs that help everyone getting to know each other. Having positive parents feeling like they belong to the society, help their kids fit into the new change which then positively affects their school life. They would provide assistance when children are active learners.

Being different should never be a problem in this world. This difference should be a blessing. Sharing different experiences would benefit the whole society by learning to accept everyone peacefully. Having a diverse classroom may be a mini reflection of the real diversity seen in the world. Teachers’ job is important in showing how important is to respect others coming from a different background than what you are used to. Dear teachers, if you get out of your comfort zone, your students will!

Who is a Teacher?

Teachers are human beings who decided to dedicate their energy, time, and life to enlighten the pathway of kids in need of education.
A teacher’s characteristics should be divided into three main parts: Personal, academic, and intellectual.
On the personal part, the best characteristic an educator would be called by is “caring”. I realized that the best classroom management skill that can always be used in classes is showing that you care. Caring show the kids that it is important to you to see them succeeding or failing in class and thus in life. Caring would lead to being supportive and encouraging to the students’ work. It would work for students aging 5-18 years. When a teacher cares, s/he respects, listens, trusts, and is always fair to the whole class. A caring teacher though is not the students’ friend. S/he needs to come up with rules to be followed by the students and by the teacher him/herself. It is okay to say that rules make our life easier and not the other way around.
On the academic level, teachers should always be available whenever their students need them. They are the Godparents available within the school time. A teacher is not allowed to ignore a student because s/he is busy speaking on the phone with a family member.
Children usually look to teachers as role models who simply know EVERYTHING. Do we? Of course we don't! We are human beings after all. But it is okay to show the students that we do know everything. A good teacher is the one who is always prepared and always ready to answer any question asked by the students. A teacher would come up with the questions students might ask concerning a particular subject. In that way, the teacher would be always prepared and ready to answer any question asked by the students. If you don’t know the answer, it is fine. After all, we don't know everything! In that way, a respectful teacher would encourage asking these questions and promise the students that they will come up with the answer the next day.  That grown adult who the students look up to as a role model, should never suppress the students’ own thinking because they asked a question by which they don’t know the answer. 
We all remember that one teacher who would link everything we learn to our everyday life. Every time that happens, we would run back home to our parents sharing with them what we learned and how it would help us have an easier life. In that case, education made sense to us. Sometimes, we forget that we were students as well and that what interested us will now interest our students. A smart teacher is the one who leaves an impact on his/her students’ life. Leaving an academic impression starts when the teacher learns how to link everything being learned to their students’ own life.
On the intellectual level, the smart teacher is the one who shows creativity. Not everyone is artistic, I understand, but everyone has Internet to use. Human beings get bored with consistent habits. Sitting in a class still to learn something new could be either fun or dull. Sometimes, teachers forget that their students are human beings and might sometimes feel bored in the class. To eliminate that from your life, as a teacher, you need to make sure you think on your students’ level. Reading could be about something that interests them for example (Your objective is for them to learn how to read). Math could be by using manipulative. Science could be through answering questions about a particular problem through different experiments. Be creative! If you are not, let Google be your best friend.
Science and Education is growing fast. There is something new happening every single day. The teacher should always be up to date and share with his/her students what is new happening in the field they are studying at home.
I think that being a teacher is like being Superman undercover. You can’t have a break even if you want to. Your students come first. And your heart will be welcoming one kid after the other. The beautiful part of being a teacher is the reward of love we receive. Try to follow some of these traits and you will do fine.