Brianna Derrick Spring 2020 4th Grade

Practicum STEM Lesson Reflection

Libby Bouma
Walnut Street School

When I introduced my lesson, all of the students were very excited. I

tried to tie my lesson to what they were learning about in social studies
because I thought that was a more unique challenge for me and it would relate
it to the students. If I were to make adjustments to the lesson, I think I would
focus a bit more on scarcity and make some items not available earlier.
Students had enough of every product that they wanted until about ten minutes
before testing. If I had been keeping better track of who was buying everything,
I would have taken away some of the item earlier into the lesson.
I believe that the students were able to meet the learning targets. They
demonstrated their creativity and problem-solving skills while they built the boat
while they showed their listening skills when they were working with their
partner or partners.
After I explained what the students would be doing, they got very excited
and started talking quite a bit. I should have tried to use one of the attention-
getting strategies that I have seen the teacher use but I did not. If they were
off topic I would have felt better about making them stop talking but there were
just excited about the project and it made me happy that they were so
interested.
With some advice from my cooperating teacher, I put the students in
their groups. Most of these groups ended up working really well but there were
a couple that I had to push to work together and include their teammates.
There was one group that I knew may have some issues because one of the
students in it often does not do their work. As I suspected, I had to go over
and ask them what they were doing for the project. After I had a talk with both
Brianna Derrick Spring 2020 4th Grade

of them, the inactive student got more involved and my cooperating teacher
really liked that I was able to do that.