Blog 2

The author who is also a scientist taught her students about botany using traditional methods such as lectures and PowerPoints. She noticed that many of the students seemed bored so she switched up her teaching style. She started teaching botany by allowing her students to measure and observe the actual plants of The Three Sisters. She saw that doing so allowed her students to become more engaged and involved with the materials versus traditional textbook and lectures. I also have a similar experience that I can relate to which happened during one of my science classes

When I was in second grade, my class learned about the anatomy of plants and the basic principles of photosynthesis. We learned the chapter from the textbook which was of course filled with pictures of the specific structures of plants. By the end of the lesson, the teacher tested our understanding through questions and discussions and we all did well. However, the teacher wanted to solidify this information in our understanding so that we will not forget it for years to come. He told us to push in our chairs and line up.

We all went out to behind the school where there was a nice concentration of large trees. The class of about twenty was broken into 5 groups of four and each group was assigned to a tree. We were instructed to just look and touch. Not take any notes or draw any pictures. Just touch the tree and try identify what we remembered from class. The teacher would then go around each group and clarify the information taught in class by showing it on the tree. If the teacher did not choose to teach the lesson in this hands-on and interactive way, then I probably would have forget about this class and all its lessons. I still clearly remember pointing to the roots of the large trees, touching the rough bark, and observing the leaves of the tree.

I believe that the author and my teacher both used a powerful way to teach the information. There are many teaching methods, and I believe that this is one of the best ones, especially for science. I am not surprised that the author found the students to be more engaged with the material. Instead of falling to sleep, the students began to tell jokes and became more engaged with the information. I too became much more interested with my science class during elementary school after the special lesson which I still remember clearly today.