Artifact 6 Analysis
Context:
Normally when I have notes that my students need to take, I have them up on a PowerPoint, and they have to alternately copy down the notes and listen to me. However, I’ve found that more and more people nod off earlier and earlier, so I decided to try something else. I was beginning the unit on mitosis, and I thought that instead of making it all teacher-centered, I would make it student-centered, and have the students figure out what goes on in all the stages of mitosis and which order they go in, instead of guiding them through it. Therefore, I wrote out all of the notes and diagrams for the 4 different stages in mitosis on 8 pieces of paper and posted them around the room. I labeled the 4 sets of notes “A, B, C, and D,” and I labeled the four diagrams “1, 2, 3, and 4.” I purposely labeled them out of order so that students would have to figure out which matches with which later. I then had all of the students set up a chart than had a space for A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and I had students go on a gallery walk and copy down all of the notes and diagrams. Therefore, at the end, students had notes that looked like this.
In the second part of this activity, I had the students get into small groups and use the context clues of the written portion of the notes to match them to the correct diagram. For example, they would use the context clue “line up along the equator” to figure out that the diagram with the chromosomes in the center represents metaphase. Therefore, after this phase, they knew which diagram matched each
stage of mitosis.
Finally, I had them discuss in groups which order the stages went in now that they knew which stage
went with which set of notes, and had them support their conclusions with evidence from the diagrams.
The next day, in their Do-Now, I had them list the stages of mitosis in order.
Analysis of Artifact:
The main goal with this activity was that students would figure out the order that the stages of mitosis go in by themselves, using the notes that they were given. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to include more uses of the multiple intelligences in the lesson. this activity included the visual and kinesthetic intelligences, in that students were walking around and taking notes, and then later it incorporated the locical/mathematical and interpersonal intelligences because students had to work with each other to deduce the actual order of the events of mitosis based on the notes that they just took.
The actual note-taking part went really well. It seemed like students enjoyed walking around the classroom at their own pace and copying the notes in the various places. However, the group discussions were a bit more tricky. Most of the groups got which set of notes matched which diagram, just based on the context clues alone, yet many groups struggled to figure out which order the stages went in. This may have been because many of them did not know what spindle fibers did and the anaphase diagram may have confused them, because some of them said that it looked like the chromosomes were coming together—not being pulled apart. Furthermore, it seemed like many groups were off-task when I came around to check up on them. However, in the end, as a class, we came together and went over their thought process, and the actual answer to the order of the stages of mitosis.
I thought that this had gone well, and we went right until the end of the period, but then the next day when I had them list the stages of mitosis in order, many of them got the order wrong. Out of the 13 people that did their Do-Now, only 6 people got the order of mitosis right. The 7 other people had the stages all out of order. 2 of the 7 had them in the order “prophase, telophase, metaphase, anaphase,” and 4 of the 7 had them in the order “prophase, telophase, anaphase, metaphase,” and the last person had them in the order “metaphase telophase, prophase, anaphase.” After this, I went back and checked the notes that they took, because I assumed that they would have put the phases in the order that their notes were in (when they took their notes, they were all out of order), but only that last person did this, and he put them in the order that the diagrams were in on his notes WS, which was from top to bottom, 1, 2, 3, 4,--metaphase, telophase, prophase, anaphase.
This leads me to conclude that this activity may have confused people more than it helped them. Some of the students may have been paying attention at the end, when I went over the order in which the phases actually go, but the rest of the class seemed to have missed out on that part, and then they made up some order that is partially correct, but also partially wrong.
I think the fact that they did this may have been because this was the first time that they had taken notes this was. Normally in class, notes are taken in a sequential order, and students use those notes to study. However, this activity was breaking those classroom norms, so students may have been confused as to where to turn to get their information (Curriculum and Pedagogy Dimension of Learning and Teaching). I imagine that they next day when they were doing their Do-Now, they looked back at their notes, but then remembered that they were out of order, and then tired to remember the order that I came up with at the end, and the one that they put down ended up being a combination of the two.
Therefore, though this activity for learning the order of the stages of mitosis was highly differentiated with four different multiple intelligences involved it may have been too confusing for students, as this many multiple intelligences have not been used before in a note-taking situation. This may have been why more than half of them did not retain the content material that I was hoping that they would the next day.
Implication for Future teaching:
I think the main problem with this activity was that their notes stayed out of order, and they never actual put them in order, besides the fact that they may have drawn lines between them to indicate which picture goes with which set of notes, and they may have numbered them to indicate which one goes first. Instead, in the future, I would have them make a foldable out of their notes: I would have them cut out the notes that they had taken and arrange them properly in a foldable so that they were in order and they could use them to study with.
Normally when I have notes that my students need to take, I have them up on a PowerPoint, and they have to alternately copy down the notes and listen to me. However, I’ve found that more and more people nod off earlier and earlier, so I decided to try something else. I was beginning the unit on mitosis, and I thought that instead of making it all teacher-centered, I would make it student-centered, and have the students figure out what goes on in all the stages of mitosis and which order they go in, instead of guiding them through it. Therefore, I wrote out all of the notes and diagrams for the 4 different stages in mitosis on 8 pieces of paper and posted them around the room. I labeled the 4 sets of notes “A, B, C, and D,” and I labeled the four diagrams “1, 2, 3, and 4.” I purposely labeled them out of order so that students would have to figure out which matches with which later. I then had all of the students set up a chart than had a space for A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and I had students go on a gallery walk and copy down all of the notes and diagrams. Therefore, at the end, students had notes that looked like this.
In the second part of this activity, I had the students get into small groups and use the context clues of the written portion of the notes to match them to the correct diagram. For example, they would use the context clue “line up along the equator” to figure out that the diagram with the chromosomes in the center represents metaphase. Therefore, after this phase, they knew which diagram matched each
stage of mitosis.
Finally, I had them discuss in groups which order the stages went in now that they knew which stage
went with which set of notes, and had them support their conclusions with evidence from the diagrams.
The next day, in their Do-Now, I had them list the stages of mitosis in order.
Analysis of Artifact:
The main goal with this activity was that students would figure out the order that the stages of mitosis go in by themselves, using the notes that they were given. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to include more uses of the multiple intelligences in the lesson. this activity included the visual and kinesthetic intelligences, in that students were walking around and taking notes, and then later it incorporated the locical/mathematical and interpersonal intelligences because students had to work with each other to deduce the actual order of the events of mitosis based on the notes that they just took.
The actual note-taking part went really well. It seemed like students enjoyed walking around the classroom at their own pace and copying the notes in the various places. However, the group discussions were a bit more tricky. Most of the groups got which set of notes matched which diagram, just based on the context clues alone, yet many groups struggled to figure out which order the stages went in. This may have been because many of them did not know what spindle fibers did and the anaphase diagram may have confused them, because some of them said that it looked like the chromosomes were coming together—not being pulled apart. Furthermore, it seemed like many groups were off-task when I came around to check up on them. However, in the end, as a class, we came together and went over their thought process, and the actual answer to the order of the stages of mitosis.
I thought that this had gone well, and we went right until the end of the period, but then the next day when I had them list the stages of mitosis in order, many of them got the order wrong. Out of the 13 people that did their Do-Now, only 6 people got the order of mitosis right. The 7 other people had the stages all out of order. 2 of the 7 had them in the order “prophase, telophase, metaphase, anaphase,” and 4 of the 7 had them in the order “prophase, telophase, anaphase, metaphase,” and the last person had them in the order “metaphase telophase, prophase, anaphase.” After this, I went back and checked the notes that they took, because I assumed that they would have put the phases in the order that their notes were in (when they took their notes, they were all out of order), but only that last person did this, and he put them in the order that the diagrams were in on his notes WS, which was from top to bottom, 1, 2, 3, 4,--metaphase, telophase, prophase, anaphase.
This leads me to conclude that this activity may have confused people more than it helped them. Some of the students may have been paying attention at the end, when I went over the order in which the phases actually go, but the rest of the class seemed to have missed out on that part, and then they made up some order that is partially correct, but also partially wrong.
I think the fact that they did this may have been because this was the first time that they had taken notes this was. Normally in class, notes are taken in a sequential order, and students use those notes to study. However, this activity was breaking those classroom norms, so students may have been confused as to where to turn to get their information (Curriculum and Pedagogy Dimension of Learning and Teaching). I imagine that they next day when they were doing their Do-Now, they looked back at their notes, but then remembered that they were out of order, and then tired to remember the order that I came up with at the end, and the one that they put down ended up being a combination of the two.
Therefore, though this activity for learning the order of the stages of mitosis was highly differentiated with four different multiple intelligences involved it may have been too confusing for students, as this many multiple intelligences have not been used before in a note-taking situation. This may have been why more than half of them did not retain the content material that I was hoping that they would the next day.
Implication for Future teaching:
I think the main problem with this activity was that their notes stayed out of order, and they never actual put them in order, besides the fact that they may have drawn lines between them to indicate which picture goes with which set of notes, and they may have numbered them to indicate which one goes first. Instead, in the future, I would have them make a foldable out of their notes: I would have them cut out the notes that they had taken and arrange them properly in a foldable so that they were in order and they could use them to study with.