Observing a Group's Lesson

Today at Bishop Dunn Memorial School we observed a group of our peers implementing their  lesson plan with Mrs. Benfer’s fifth grade science class. I loved how they first engaged the students,  giving them a problem to solve (what had more vitamin C, and orange or a vitamin supplement of  vitamin C?). This got the students really thinking about the problem. The group then asked the students  to give their answer and explain why they picked what they did. This introduction led into the main body  of their inquiry lesson, which was to discover whether the item was made with chemical technology or not. The students were broken into groups of four to five and each given a set of different materials to explore and ponder over. When the exploration phase was done the teacher candidates pulled up an activity that they had created on the smartboard. A representative from each group had to come up and drag the items that they were given into the ‘chemically engineered’ vortex or the ‘other’ vortex. If they were right the image was sucked into the vortex. This was a great use of technology in the lesson, and I really thought it made the lesson that more engaging and enjoyable for the students. The lesson was very well made and executed; I hope that when it is my turn to teach our groups’ lesson that I will be able to do as well a job as the group did today.