Week 7 Problem-Based Learning Progress Report
Name: Sydney Bauman
Date of field experiences reported: 11/14-11/18
Time spent: 8:22-9:57 A.M.
Sequence of Events.
This week I started teaching my unit. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent on Chapter 3, Section 1. Thursday was a work day for the students. They spent this day doing an online assignment over what they had learned during the first half of the week. On Friday, school was canceled at Anderson High School. This was due to the incident that happened Thursday. A student was arrested at school for having a loaded handgun on them.
Elaboration of One or Two Significant Episodes.
11/14/22
On Monday, I began teaching my unit. The approach I took was a traditional approach. This is similar to the approach my mentor teacher uses when she is teaching. One part of my lesson on Monday that included aspects of problem-based learning was the launch. I started my lesson by giving the students a handout. At the top of the handout was the explore and reason section, otherwise known as the launch. The students were given time to read the questions, look at the equations, and observe the graphs. They were to think about what they noticed in regards to the equations and graphs. This includes the quadrants of the graphs and how the graphs differ as the exponents increase.
11/15/22
Tuesday was similar to Monday in that the approach was more traditional. One thing that I wanted to point out from my lesson was the exit ticket that I gave to the students towards the end of the class. The exit ticket was for students to demonstrate their understanding of the content that they had learned on Monday and Tuesday. Allowing students the opportunity to show their level of understanding showed me their overall areas of strength and weakness. After going through and grading them, the majority of the students showed a good deal of understanding on Chapter 3, Section 1.
Analysis of Episode(s).
11/14/22
Problem-based learning is something that I want to implement in my future classroom. When teaching in a classroom that is not my own, I am always weary of how much I can change in terms of my teaching style before it crosses a line or completely confuses the students. When we started talking about the explore and reason, it became clear that there was little to no student participation. The students were reluctant to share what they noticed or any ideas they had. This has been an issue since day one of my being in this classroom. The students seem to show little to no enthusiasm towards the content, meaning they do not want to participate except for a few of them. Another reason for not participating could be because of a fear of failure. I believe that a problem-based approach would not go as planned due to the lack of student participation.
11/15/22
Although my exit ticket was not a problem-based approach, I believe it was a strong aspect of my unit. One similarity between problem-based learning and the traditional approach is that by the end of the lesson, the teacher should have some assessment that represents the understanding the students have of the content. Overall, I was proud of the student performance on the exit ticket considering the classroom atmosphere. Before giving the exit ticket, my mentor teacher informed me that she typically does not hand out exit tickets, which could have meant complete chaos when the students were handed something they were not used to. Once again, this was not the case. There were only a few students who turned the ticket in with little to no effort.
Week Overview
This week was full of surprises. Among the surprises were not knowing how my lessons were going to go and whether or not the students were going to observe the content that I was teaching. For the most part, the students seemed to understand the content. Then on Thursday evening, I received a text from my mentor teacher telling me that I was to call her. She then informed me of the incident that took place on Thursday afternoon. Beginning in fifth period and lasting until the end of the day, students were placed on a soft lockdown. Then the administration decided that it was best to cancel school on Friday. This is something I have not experienced before, which made the whole situation uneasy, as I am sure it was for everyone.
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