Science Observation

Yesterday I observed a science teacher, Mrs. Hunt, who teaches ninth grade physical science to level one and level two students. She was teaching an acid and base lab that dealt with seeing the reactions between these. Some of these lab stations dealt with ph, red cabbage, electricity, and much more.

At Manheim Central their objectives are in the form of essential questions so for this day there objectives were: 1. What properties define an acid and a base?, 2. Why is water a polar molecule?, 3. How does the polarity of water lead to its unique properties?, and 4. How is a solution formed and what factors affect the rate of formation.

In my opinion the students were interested and yet not at the same time. It depended on the student. The students who went through and did the hands on lab were very interested and you could tell because you could hear the "ooooo" factor and see the expression on their faces. However, with every lab there is an alternative assignment called a wed book quest which is where they have to research everything they should have figured out doing the lab.

The teaching method that Mrs. Hunt started with was demonstrations to make sure the students knew the proper way to go through the stations. The next teaching method was group work because they worked in groups at each station and went through the steps that were laid out on paper in front of them. They had to record all their findings in their lab packets.

The teacher was facilitating the learning. When students had questions she would answer with questions to help them answer it themselves. The only time she gave away the learning was when she went over the red cabbage station because the class before contaminated one of the chemicals so the results would not come out how they should.

The teacher was very enthusiastic. You could tell she loves her job and loves working with students. You could see this through the way she presented materials and especially important concepts cause she would get excited and her voice would change. She was very clear and direct about safety and procedures and you saw this because she kept repeating it the whole way through class.

Mrs. Hunt did a great job working with her students and to the point that I wished I had her for a teacher in high school because I was interested and that is hard to do. She had the respect from her students and they were comfortable with answering and asking questions.