Well that was quite the experience if I do say so myself. I went in, guns a blazing, and walked out with plenty of things to reflect on.
A little background... My problem solving lab was about the new swine virus called Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus or PEDV. Sounds appetizing right? I started this lab by putting up a letter that had been "sent" to me from Mr. Rupert (fake person), who had a pig farm (fake farm) with a problem. His problem is that two of his hogs have died and 4 more are showing symptoms of watery stool and vomiting. These are symptoms of PEDV. Since ideally, students will have just finished a disease and biosecurity unit they might have some ideas as to what the disease is.
My focus was going to be on students creating a plan of action for Mr. Rupert to take with the remainder of his hogs and what to do in the future to prevent any further spread of diseases. So, if students were unable to discover what the topic might have been I would say "there has been a break through at the lab! They discovered the disease is PEDV." From there, students would be in groups to make large post-its on what the disease is. After that is completed, students are to write up a plan to Mr. Rupert. The students will include what the virus is, what he should do with the rest of the herd, and how to prevent this in the future.
Even though my lab didn't go well I still love the idea of this lesson. Before I give this lesson again I will definitely work on my clarity. I had specific questions I wanted to answer but didn't write them up for students to see and I need to include more higher order thinking questions. Also, I didn't have the students write down the problem which I was informed will help them in their thinking process. I didn't write my objectives on the board because it would have given the students the answer to some of the questions I asked. I need to ensure students understand what is expected of them though. I need to work on timing for activities and last but not least classroom management. So all in all it seems there isn't anything that doesn't need some kind of improvement.
On the bright side, I really like the content of this lesson. PEDV is such a hot topic right now because it's new to America and knowing that my students will be gaining knowledge on current events is exciting. I love the idea of giving student the problem and scaffolding from there into new information. So, thank you for reading!
Hannah, I love that you aren't giving up hope on a lesson because it didn't go so well in lab. This lab was the struggle for all of us, I appreciate how excited you are about bio security and keeping your students informed of current agricultural issues. I think once you fix your hiccups your lesson will be amazing! I know now how to write up the objective with out giving away key information and that was something I was concerned with for this lab. I was also concerned about what to cut out of my lesson for lab, and how to teach a class with out any back ground knowledge. I think you students would do great with your lesson after learning about bio security. Good Luck and keep up the hard work girl!
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Hannah it sounds like you have identified areas that will really make this a stellar lesson with some improvements. The problem solving approach is still a very new and unfamiliar concept for us to be utilizing, I am sure we will be great at it with 5-10 years of experience under our belts. In addition, I love that you are working with the hot button topics, these are the things that students need to be made aware of and learn how to be consumers of media. Keep up the great work!
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