Artifact 7 Analysis
Context:
The previous day, my students had been given a lecture and notes on meiosis, so now I wanted them to apply what they knew and physically demonstrate the process of meiosis. Therefore, I designed a lab in which students would be building their own chromosomes out of beads and pipe-cleaners. Basically, they had to create the chromosomes, and then mimic them going through meiosis using a lab handout to guide them through it. As they went along, they also had to sketch out what they were seeing and answer some questions about it.
Analysis of Artifact:
The purpose of this activity was to differentiate instruction so that the students would be able to work with the material, and see how it works, instead of just taking my word for it on the powerpoint. The end goal was that students would understand the different stages of meiosis, what happens in each, and how many chromosomes were present in each stage. I tried to incorporate some kinesthetic aspects into the material, because I find that when I can move around with the material, and touch it, sometimes the material sinks in better, so I assumed that my students would feel the same (Students as Teachers and Learners Dimension of Teaching and Learning). Along with this, the logical-mathematical intelligence was being pulled on, because the students had to figure out how the chromosomes separated, the visual intelligence was being used as well because students had to draw what they saw a lot of the time, and the inter-personal intelligence was the final one used because all students were working in pairs.
It was really interesting to see them work—students were engaged for the entire period with this activity, and they seemed to enjoy working with the beads. I did notice though that many of them wanted to ask me for the answers to the questions instead of figuring them out themselves. This also matched the fact that the entire time, I felt that students were following the directions, and going through the motions of the activity, but they weren’t understanding what was going on. Coincidentally, a student overheard me saying that to my CM, and he said that he felt that way too—like he was following the instructions, and doing the work, but what was actually going on wasn’t making sense.
This also made sense with some of the answers I got on the lab worksheets that they handed in, because while some of them were perfect, others of them were missing key elements. Student 1, for example, got that the chromosomes crossed over, but then in the next phase, after cytokinesis, he still drew 2 chromosomes in each cell, when there was only supposed to be one. Student 2 hand only ½ chromosomes in his final cells, while he should have drawn whole chromosomes, and Student 3 could not connect what she was doing with the chromosomes to which stage they were supposed to be in.
These pieces of data lead me to conclude that students were going through the motions of the activity, yet the content matter was not being absorbed. Was this because the directions were too specific? Should I have given them more room for exploration? Were the analysis questions not direct enough?
The fact that I got this response to the activity surprised me because I was expecting students to nail meiosis after being able to work with the material this is based on my own experience—I always thought lectures were so boring, and I couldn’t wait to try the material on my own, and I always learned it best that way. Therefore, I thought that my students would feel the same way—that they might need to “work with it” in order to get it, so I was surprised by the fact that many of them seemed not to get it (Students as Teachers and Learners Dimension of Teaching and Learning).
All in all, this would support that this form of differentiated instruction did not help the students to learn the content material—it seemed like more of a busy work activity.
In conclusion, I cannot make any statements one way or another about whether or not this activity helped my students to really learn the concept of meiosis, because they told me one thing in the survey, but some of their work tells me otherwise.
Implications for Future Teaching:
This leads me to wonder about the nature of surveys. Are students being honest in the answers that they give? Should I even use surveys as a basis for instruction, or should I just use the work that they give me? In the future, I will try to use more of a combination of both, because this activity demonstrated that the surveys may say one thing, but the actual work may say another.
Furthermore, even though this activity did not go as planned, I still really like the idea of it and want to work with it. But I wonder what it is that will make the process of meiosis “sink in” for them. Was it the structure of the worksheet that was bad? Were students just too lazy to try to figure out the answers? Was the concept too abstract? Next time I try this, I’m going to keep the general format of, it, but I think I’m going to use it as a supplement for teaching meiosis the first time around: as I am guiding them through the stages of meiosis on the board, I’ll have them model the stage as they are moving along, so that they can visualize it as I am talking about it. Also, I think I would include a template in the future: have a bunch of cells already drawn out, and have the students move the chromosomes from cell to cell as they move through meiosis. I think this would make it less confusing for them, and it would allow them to see what is happening.
The previous day, my students had been given a lecture and notes on meiosis, so now I wanted them to apply what they knew and physically demonstrate the process of meiosis. Therefore, I designed a lab in which students would be building their own chromosomes out of beads and pipe-cleaners. Basically, they had to create the chromosomes, and then mimic them going through meiosis using a lab handout to guide them through it. As they went along, they also had to sketch out what they were seeing and answer some questions about it.
Analysis of Artifact:
The purpose of this activity was to differentiate instruction so that the students would be able to work with the material, and see how it works, instead of just taking my word for it on the powerpoint. The end goal was that students would understand the different stages of meiosis, what happens in each, and how many chromosomes were present in each stage. I tried to incorporate some kinesthetic aspects into the material, because I find that when I can move around with the material, and touch it, sometimes the material sinks in better, so I assumed that my students would feel the same (Students as Teachers and Learners Dimension of Teaching and Learning). Along with this, the logical-mathematical intelligence was being pulled on, because the students had to figure out how the chromosomes separated, the visual intelligence was being used as well because students had to draw what they saw a lot of the time, and the inter-personal intelligence was the final one used because all students were working in pairs.
It was really interesting to see them work—students were engaged for the entire period with this activity, and they seemed to enjoy working with the beads. I did notice though that many of them wanted to ask me for the answers to the questions instead of figuring them out themselves. This also matched the fact that the entire time, I felt that students were following the directions, and going through the motions of the activity, but they weren’t understanding what was going on. Coincidentally, a student overheard me saying that to my CM, and he said that he felt that way too—like he was following the instructions, and doing the work, but what was actually going on wasn’t making sense.
This also made sense with some of the answers I got on the lab worksheets that they handed in, because while some of them were perfect, others of them were missing key elements. Student 1, for example, got that the chromosomes crossed over, but then in the next phase, after cytokinesis, he still drew 2 chromosomes in each cell, when there was only supposed to be one. Student 2 hand only ½ chromosomes in his final cells, while he should have drawn whole chromosomes, and Student 3 could not connect what she was doing with the chromosomes to which stage they were supposed to be in.
These pieces of data lead me to conclude that students were going through the motions of the activity, yet the content matter was not being absorbed. Was this because the directions were too specific? Should I have given them more room for exploration? Were the analysis questions not direct enough?
The fact that I got this response to the activity surprised me because I was expecting students to nail meiosis after being able to work with the material this is based on my own experience—I always thought lectures were so boring, and I couldn’t wait to try the material on my own, and I always learned it best that way. Therefore, I thought that my students would feel the same way—that they might need to “work with it” in order to get it, so I was surprised by the fact that many of them seemed not to get it (Students as Teachers and Learners Dimension of Teaching and Learning).
All in all, this would support that this form of differentiated instruction did not help the students to learn the content material—it seemed like more of a busy work activity.
In conclusion, I cannot make any statements one way or another about whether or not this activity helped my students to really learn the concept of meiosis, because they told me one thing in the survey, but some of their work tells me otherwise.
Implications for Future Teaching:
This leads me to wonder about the nature of surveys. Are students being honest in the answers that they give? Should I even use surveys as a basis for instruction, or should I just use the work that they give me? In the future, I will try to use more of a combination of both, because this activity demonstrated that the surveys may say one thing, but the actual work may say another.
Furthermore, even though this activity did not go as planned, I still really like the idea of it and want to work with it. But I wonder what it is that will make the process of meiosis “sink in” for them. Was it the structure of the worksheet that was bad? Were students just too lazy to try to figure out the answers? Was the concept too abstract? Next time I try this, I’m going to keep the general format of, it, but I think I’m going to use it as a supplement for teaching meiosis the first time around: as I am guiding them through the stages of meiosis on the board, I’ll have them model the stage as they are moving along, so that they can visualize it as I am talking about it. Also, I think I would include a template in the future: have a bunch of cells already drawn out, and have the students move the chromosomes from cell to cell as they move through meiosis. I think this would make it less confusing for them, and it would allow them to see what is happening.