STEM 5# Lesson States of Matter Lesson Reflection Summary

Teacher Candidate for Science Endorsement:

School:

Timber Ridge Elementary

Alison Dunford

Grade:

5th

Lesson Topic: S5P2. Students will explain the difference between a physical change
and a chemical change.
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Write a brief summary or blog of your experiences teaching this lesson,
addressing the following questions:
What went well? What did not go well? (Cite specific examples)
I love performance tasks when the students work hard and enjoy it too!
This lesson was taken from the Cobb County STEM resources. My
school, unlike many others, is not exactly on the STEM bandwagon.
We have few resources and it is up to each teacher to find and do
STEM or STEM lessons. I liked this lesson and it is based in the precise
standards for 5th grade, but I will do it differently next time. The kids
loved creating the designs, but what they really wanted to do was
make up their own STEM mini-Fair and include all the activities also.
This was not part of the plan!

How well were the lessons student performance objectives

attained?
As soon as we overcame the objections to not having all the
experiments too, they loved creating the ideas and the presentations.
This gave them many opportunities to use the vocabulary, evaluate
the acceptability of the proposed experiments, and discuss and work
collaboratively.

Did classroom activity center on science understanding, inquiry,

and sense-making by all students?
Yes. The students had to make a budget, which can take a while, and
also had to be clear about the science and vocabulary in order to
create a poster advertisement. This was actually developmentally
appropriate for this time in the year. Earlier in the year, they would not
have focused on the science as much in a clear manner, and focused
more on a product that was appealing. The inquiry element was very
evident. I only allowed them to use one of the four stations required
from something they had seen in class. They could use many other
resources for research.

Did your scientific content knowledge enable you to support

students construction of knowledge and understanding of
important scientific concepts and processes?
I love that physical science seems to lend itself so well to STEM, but we
have not started any of this in MSP. My content knowledge for 5th
grade physical science is strong, and I look forward to seeing how I am
challenged in the physical science portion of MSP this summer.

When you have the opportunity to re-teach this lesson, what will
you do differently (strategies, teaching tools, assessments, etc.)
to improve student learning for all students?

I would definitely allow more student choice/student voice. Technology

should be a choice for output. I think that having students present
their presentations and record them with the iPads would also be a
good addition. It would allow them to learn to be more concise. There
is always the possibility of actually turning this into a STEM Mini-Fair
and actually allowing the students to create and present the four
stations. This would be a much longer project, but there would be
much more learning involved also. I am not sure if this is possible, but
will consider it next year!