Analysis
Artifact 1: Problem of Practice led me to conclude that students learn differently, so I then tried to differentiate instruction to incorporate those differences. However, several times I found that some students were not retaining the content material as well when it was being delivered in a manner with which they were not familiar. This observation began in Artifact 1.1 when I noticed that the students who were initially the leaders during lecture in class fell to the wayside when they were asked to act out the content material. Even though no official retention data was taken, the fact that they were not participating as actively as they had before led me to believe that they were not retaining the content material (see Artifact 1 Analysis for details).
The apparent failure to retain content material happened again in Artifact 3: Active and Passive Transport: The Play. One student looked me in the eye in the middle of the activity and said “I don’t get it,” and evidence of other students not retaining the content material was found in the reflection questions afterwards; Student 1 sort of got it making some connections between the content material and the play, and Student 3 did not get it at all, making few connections between the content material and the play (Artifact 3.2). (See Artifact 3 Analysis for further details).
In both Artifact 1: Problem of Practice and Artifact 3: Active and Passive Transport: The Play, I was trying out new activities that led some students to not retain the content material. This may be due to the conclusion mentioned earlier—that students learn differently and thus different learning styles should be used to teach them (Gardner, 1983, Rule & Lord, 2003, Subban, 2006). In other words, because the material was being delivered in a manner that focused on only some of the multiple intelligences, some students may have not understood the content material because it was not being delivered in a manner that makes sense to them in the way that they learn. This leads me to conclude that multiple methods of differentiation should be used to teach a concept so students who do not retain material well be one method of delivery might be able to retain it if it were delivered another way.
Therefore, in my future teaching, I’m going to try to present the content material in as many ways as possible so as to increase the level of retention and decrease the number of blank stares. Specifically, for Artifact 3: Active and Passive Transport the Play, I would supplement the play with a lecture or a video, as a study by Cherney (2008) found that students were more likely to remember concepts introduced through active learning exercises and then followed up by videos and lecture material.
The apparent failure to retain content material happened again in Artifact 3: Active and Passive Transport: The Play. One student looked me in the eye in the middle of the activity and said “I don’t get it,” and evidence of other students not retaining the content material was found in the reflection questions afterwards; Student 1 sort of got it making some connections between the content material and the play, and Student 3 did not get it at all, making few connections between the content material and the play (Artifact 3.2). (See Artifact 3 Analysis for further details).
In both Artifact 1: Problem of Practice and Artifact 3: Active and Passive Transport: The Play, I was trying out new activities that led some students to not retain the content material. This may be due to the conclusion mentioned earlier—that students learn differently and thus different learning styles should be used to teach them (Gardner, 1983, Rule & Lord, 2003, Subban, 2006). In other words, because the material was being delivered in a manner that focused on only some of the multiple intelligences, some students may have not understood the content material because it was not being delivered in a manner that makes sense to them in the way that they learn. This leads me to conclude that multiple methods of differentiation should be used to teach a concept so students who do not retain material well be one method of delivery might be able to retain it if it were delivered another way.
Therefore, in my future teaching, I’m going to try to present the content material in as many ways as possible so as to increase the level of retention and decrease the number of blank stares. Specifically, for Artifact 3: Active and Passive Transport the Play, I would supplement the play with a lecture or a video, as a study by Cherney (2008) found that students were more likely to remember concepts introduced through active learning exercises and then followed up by videos and lecture material.