This week I am reflecting a lesson I did on plate tectonics and natural disasters. I do not teach Earth Science so I had to implement this lesson after school with a small group of my students. I thought this lesson went well! In previous lessons I did not use student choice and I noticed this time my students were responding more to the assignment because they could “choose” what they wanted to do. I appealed to their interest and I felt that this helped the lesson. I also for the first time used visuals, videos, and models all in one lesson and I found that this helped my students grasp the material more. This I could see in their formative assessments and Frayer Model assessments. I also allowed my students to present to another class to get student feedback on if their information was clear and provided enough information. This I will try again in the future.
 
  I felt this lesson went very well! I would have never thought to do a student led project lesson for a topic like this! I have not taught Earth Science in a long time and since it was not in my curriculum this year the students were very receptive to including it into our curriculum after school. They really got into the lesson and were able to take more ownership over their projects. I could see with my own eyes that discovery, hands-on, and minds-on works for any topic in science even topics outside of my curriculum.
There is one thing I would change and that is to allow more time for research or provide a structured way of collecting the research needed for the projects because some of the groups were just writing down everything they read instead of chunking the information. I felt I did not explain it well to everyone and some students were confused on how to do proper research. We try to be hands off toward the end of the lesson as per the GRR (Gradual Release of Responsibility) model but with this activity I needed a longer mini-lesson so directions were clear.