POE Reflection Peter Worthington #315204 Submitted February 11, 2013 EDUC 509

In planning for the lesson that we were asked to deliver, I worked with my partner to prepare a piece for the fourth grade unit on light and shadow. Being the type of person who tends to be over-ambitious to the point of folly, I got it into my head that I would like to teach the group something that they would not learn regularly. The thinking behind this was that they already had capable teachers who would cover the basic necessities of the unit with them, and that as our lesson was a one-off that we would not be able to follow up on in class it should be a fun one-off for the students. Thats not to say that it doesnt explicitly tie into the curriculum. Rather, I hoped to come up with something that would diverge just enough to stand out as a unique experience while still hitting targets from the Program of Studies. This ended up settling as a piece on bio- and chemiluminescence, cold light created through chemical reactions. While this still addresses the specific outcomes of identifying different ways of creating light and differentiating things which generate their own light from things which require outside lighting, it is not commonly something covered with this age level. The lesson was then designed around explaining to students exactly what bioluminescence is and how it is generated in creatures. This meant, for myself and my partner, actually finding these things out for ourselves. Aside from grappling with the chemistry involved in this, we then had to find ways to parse this for third grade students. This proved to be rather

difficult. The science behind chemiluminescence is not particularly easy for many adults (myself included) to wrap their heads around. In the end, we settled on our takeaway for the students being the concepts of a mixture occurring and that the mixture most often needed some kind of agitation to occur. Though the concept of oxidation may be too advanced, having the word in their vocabulary didnt seem like it could hurt. Therefore, our learning outcomes became recognizing that chemical reactions can generate light by way of combining a potentially luminous chemical and an oxidating agent. Designing a lesson around this was also somewhat difficult, particularly one that follows the Predict, Observe, Explain (hereafter referred to as POE) format. The biggest issue is that, particularly for bioluminescence, getting a glowing animal into the classroom is not a very practical proposition. This is what first caused us to break somewhat away from structuring our lesson purely on bioluminescence and introducing other kinds of cold light. Things that we could get our hands on were a Crayola glowing sand product, which illustrated our point quite well, and a bunch of glow sticks. We also tracked down a fair number of online videos that served our purpose, but without the ability to interact directly with these during the experiment they were not exactly well suited to POE. Still, we attempted to integrate them as best we could, as glowing plants and animals were the original idea for the lesson. As we ran this lesson three times, we did alter our methodology somewhat on the fly in response to suggestions from groups. For the first group, we introduced our experiment by asking them about their past experiences with glow sticks and if they thought they could explain how they worked. The first group suggested as they were leaving that we start with the videos, as the animals were cooler. We did this for the second; asking the students if they could list animals and plants that they knew glowed and what they thought made them do that. This actually resulted in more confusion than anything else, and

for the third group we returned to the original setup. This confusion with the second group I believe came from the students taking the fact that these glowing things are alive and extrapolating the question why do they glow? to have the obvious answer because they decide to. This meant that going further into the actual chemical basis for creating the glow was much less of a pressing question when framed this way. When we started by asking what makes a glow stick work, students were immediately interested in the chemistry of it rather than the animal. When we then showed them some animals that can do the same thing and asked what they may be doing that is similar, it was much easier for the students to follow along with the concepts we were presenting. Students came into this lesson seemingly not having considered how these things work, only knowing that they do. When initially asked what they think makes glow sticks glow, a typical response was something along the lines of the colours inside them? What is actually inside one of those sticks, aside from a colour, never really seems to have been considered. That said, the students did catch on very quickly to things. The concepts seemed to be something that they could easily get a handle on, just not something they had considered before. The students conceptions of glowing objects, whether toys or life, seemed to largely have been that they were more or less magic. Even the idea that they could explain these things seemed novel to them, and was an intriguing idea that they latched onto quickly. I certainly think that it was something that caught the students interest. Hopefully this sort of inquiry would help them to realize that they would be able to find explanations for the workings of many different parts of life that they may not have considered examining in the past. It was apparent as students left the table that a slight shift had occurred in the way that they looked at the world, which made me feel that we had made a good decision in how to approach this lesson.

Going forward, I would certainly use this lesson as a jumping off point for a light and shadows unit, though I dont know if Id be able to follow the topic as far as students may like while still hitting curricular goals. In fact, it may be better suited for an extension type of activity at the end of a unit after other properties of light had been discussed in class. When I attempt to use this lesson again in the future, I would likely look for other materials that may better illustrate what I want students to come away from the lesson with. The glow sand worked very well because the shaking to get it to begin glowing clearly demonstrated the mixing of materials that I wanted students to notice. The glow stick, on the other hand, had to be explained in order for students to realize what was occurring within it. If I were able to find more ways to clearly demonstrate rather than demonstrate with extra verbal explanation, it would probably serve the students better. Further, I would like to find some way of more seamlessly integrating the living creatures into the lesson. As it is, it felt like there was a very clear delineation between looking at cool glowing toys and video time, and Id like to get away from that. While every lesson and experiment has steps and procedures to follow, having them be that obvious felt somewhat jarring for the students. In fact, it may have been better off just focusing on one or the other, rather than trying to include both in one lesson. Perhaps we were clinging a bit too much to the original idea. Id be tempted at this point to develop a separate lesson based solely on things like the sand and glow sticks and see how that fares as well. Now that my lesson has been taught, I find myself still not entirely sure that I followed the Predict, Observe, Explain method. The incorporation of video into our project meant that the level of interaction was not what it could have been. This was also my first experience with the POE method, and so I found myself often wondering if I was doing it right. In the end, the students seemed to take something valuable from this so it may be unnecessary concern, but

leading up to giving the lesson I found myself very concerned that we would not be following the model to the extent that was required. It would have been nice to have had more than 20-ish minutes in which to run the entire thing as well, as the journaling time with students did not work out nearly as well as Id have hoped. What was produced in journals was rushed and felt largely incomplete, but was all that could reasonably be expected from the students in the given amount of time. This felt like something of a restriction on my ability to implement the POE format. I believe we would have been able to explore it more fully with more time, as much of our time giving the lesson this time around felt like we were constantly hopping along to the next thing a bit too early. I am quite happy with how this lesson turned out; though there are certainly things Id like to change about it having finished giving it. I would be happy to give it another try, though will likely not have a chance for quite a while. I think that the fact that it was designed to be given independently of the rest of the unit will actually make it quite valuable as a resource for if and when I may substitute in a fourth grade classroom. It still hits curricular goals, but need not be given at any specific point in the unit. Having designed it to stand on its own apart from a unit may actually be one of the greatest strengths of this lesson. I am satisfied with this lesson and am pleased that the students who took part in it seemed to have learned what was intended from it. In the end, despite my reservations about how accurately we may have followed the POE method that makes me feel satisfied that we created a successful lesson, and one worth keeping for future use.