All About Learning Through Dissections

 It has been a short but busy week. Monday we have scheduled off because of MLK day and then Tuesday was a school day. So we only had a 3 day week which consisted of a club period schedule, two hour delay, and a regular schedule if you want even to call it that...each day is most definitely its own adventure. 

With a snow day on Tuesday, I picked up my first class of student teaching on Wednesday, Animal Science. You'll never guess the unit...animal reproduction...one girl even prepared me the week before that she would laugh at all of the terms. However, I will say I am blessed and I truly do have pretty good students who were patient with me as I started to get my footing this week. 





As I said, we started animal reproduction so that means we got to do two dissections. One Thursday and one Friday. The one dissection was ram testicles and it was challenging, it took me a while to figure out which part was which so on Thursday, my CT and I broke them into two groups and we led them through the dissection. 


Then Friday, we dissected 3 different uteruses, so I split the class up into 3 groups and somewhat sent them out on their own...talk about a lot to manage. So I had 3 groups each dissecting their own uterus, one girl who was like half watching half not trying not to pass out and me trying to help her, like I was overwhelmed but it was good. Thankfully the worse thing that happened was one girl cut open the uterus and had fluid squirt out over the floor...very minor. 


It was extremely cool to have my students think through what they had learned earlier in the week and then put it into a real experience. It made me realize how much planning and thought that has to go into to providing these experiences that you don't see when you're just a student...it's a lot. Thinking about going forward I want to do a better job setting up the lab for the students and talking through it before we dive in rather that jumping in too soon, which is one the main things that I think could've made these activities go a little better.

Looking forward I am gonna to think about a few things: 

1. How can I provide hands-on learning activities for my students?

2. How can my preparation help in making labs experiences go smoother?

3. How can I improve my management of dissections and labs in the future?

Comments

  1. John EwingJanuary 23, 2022 at 4:14 PM

    Lacey,

    These are great learning opportunities. You provide these opportunities through great planning. If you plan units in a clear way, then you have time to prepare for the hands-
    on opportunities. Group work is a great way to encourage communication and learning amongst the group members. Don’t overlook that component of what you are providing the students. It does increase the work for you from a classroom management perspective, but it is worth it for student learning!

    Dr. Ewing

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 24, 2022 at 1:19 PM

    Hey Lacey,

    Wow, what a way to start out teaching the animal science course! I hope that when I get to this point, I can do awesome hands-on activities like these! It looks like did a great job with this lab and each time you do it you will only get better!

    ReplyDelete

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