Behavior: What were your concerns; what worked; what did not; challenges?

In my fourth unit lesson, I introduced a new tool to my students: magnifying glasses.

Students were to use them to look at the inside of a seed. Most of my students had never used

these tools before. Because I am in a dual immersion program, I have the benefit of teaching

the same lesson two times in one day; one to the morning class and one to the afternoon class.

In the first class, I did a quick explanation and demonstration of how to use a magnifying glass,

but did not give my expectations for the handling of the tool. When students received the

magnifying glass, they were, of course, interested in looking at everything. Because of this,

most students were up out of their seats using their magnifying glasses to look at the carpet,

their neighbor’s eye, their shirt, etc. It was difficult for me to get the students to use their

magnifying glass the right way which was sitting in their seats, looking at their seeds.

This happened to be a lesson that was observed by my college supervisor. While

conferencing with her, she suggested letting students explore with the magnifying glass for 1-2

minutes before expecting them to use the tool only for its intended purposes. After the

exploration time, I should tell students that if they use the tool for anything else, they have lost

their privilege to use the tool. I was able to put this advice to use with the afternoon class. The

behavior of this class was much more manageable, because they had that time to explore this

new and interesting tool for a few minutes, but they knew that I expected them to use them

only for looking at the seed after that. I didn’t have to take any magnifying glasses away

because they all followed these expectations.