Science Classroom Visit

On March 17th I was able to observe Mr. Hertzler's Anatomy and Physiology class during my prep time. He was just starting his introductory lesson on the skeletal system, so it was a great way for me to see a good intro to a unit.

The objectives of the lesson were:  Describe the functions of bones, classify two main divisions of bones, and  identify 5 bones in the axial skeleton.  Most of the students seemed to be interested. There were a few of them who did not seem to focus on the lesson. Most of their attention was focused because of the depth of material they were covering, and looking at the skeleton model as well as slides with descriptions. The teacher tried to focus the students’ attention on the presentation by asking them probing questions before advancing the slides and then revealing the answer on the following slides.

I thought that in this particular lesson, the teaching was fairly teacher centered. It was a lot of new information for students and he did a great job asking questions and letting them think on their own before giving the answer, but there were a lot of answers that were not even close to the response that he was looking for.  The teacher tried to use a structure or framework to help students visualize the new material by reviewing the information on a slide and then showing them on a piece of bone on the skeleton models.  

Overall I thought the lesson was well structured and the students were engaged for maximum learning. Although this introductory lesson to the skeletal system was more teacher-centered I believe that in future lessons they will be more student focused based on the conversations we had after the class time.