We’ve been talking about of philosophy lately and it’s been nice but it’s time to get to the nitty gritty, rookie. Today, we are going to talk about the dreaded lesson bomb…no, it’s not when a student screws up your lesson, it’s when you screw up your lesson. It just happened to me the other day so I thought I’d share….
So I thought this acids and bases lesson I did the other day was going to be awesome. I started out with a little review on phase changes because that’s what we’d been working on. I thought I would talk some chemical reactions and work my over to acids and bases as a new topic. We went over what the various phase changes are called (condensation, vaporization, etc.) and then I went into the daily science segment of class like I do every day. I broke down the activities, the expectations, the homework, I did it all. I had interactive websites, computer responders, and cool video clips ready to go! I thought for sure it was going to a home run!
This was the part of the lesson where the universe hit me over the head with a frying pan…
I showed a short cartoon about acids and bases…easy enough! The video was a little corny, sure, but it did the job. It introduced the new concept. That’s important, rookie, you need to give an overview of the new topic before you get specific. You need to give the kids a general idea of what they will be learning about so you can refer back to the overview when explaining things. You’ll say something like, “remember that goofy cartoon where the kid was eating the candy and panicked because he thought the acid in them was dangerous? Well, we now know that that was Citric Acid which is a relatively weak acid and will probably not be found at the 0-1 range of the pH scale”. See? Teachable moment. Let’s move on…
I told you to a while back to take risks…remember? (See what I just did). I took one. We took out computer responders and I thought we could take a quick online quiz about that acids and bases video while using the responders so I could get some live data…in other words, I’d be looking at the students choosing answers live and be able to discern how deep I need to get into the new topic. I had assumed the students would remember their log in numbers for said responders..I was wrong. I had assumed the students remembered how to use said responders from the last time we did this…I was also wrong. Ten minutes of chaos later, we put the responders away. No quiz for us.
Ok…no big deal. Let’s move on to the next activity. I put up and interactive alien juice bar activity which was supposed to show the students how to test for acids and bases and would even let them serve drinks to aliens. The drinks would have to be an acid or base based on the alien. I hadn’t tried the site out to see if it was working. It wasn’t…fought with it for a few minutes…bad move…class was getting restless…lesson was bombing out…what to do?
I felt helpless…had a pit in my stomach…I nearly panicked. I knew that if I didn’t get this together, these kids were leaving without learning a damn thing. So I took a deep breath, remembered that I’ve been in this position before and…
Went into audible mode here. Learn how to do this one, rookie, it will save your butt many a day. Audible mode means just that…you are looking for another way to get this lesson rolling or you are going to have a serious problem on your hands…a room full of bored teenagers…watch out! Kids had a basic idea of acids and bases and we discussed some examples so we went to our tried and true…real world science!
Got a Bill Nye video about Acids and Bases rolling…great review. Got a video about lollipops and how they are made playing…asked the kids to identify the acids and bases. Had the group talking to each other about it. Finished up with a video about how cheese is made with Mike Rowe…I called out the acids and bases as the video played.
We even played a game called “lightning round” where we went around the room calling out examples of acids and bases based on the lesson..everyone in the class got to go at least once. The kids got the concept of acids and bases…it wasn’t pretty but the lesson was saved.
When the class left I thought to myself, “Well, that really sucked”.
Here’s where today’s lesson comes in..when this happens to you, and it will…alot…don’t make the mistake of forcing the same lesson on the next class. Your day will only get worse if you do. Take a look at the lesson…what did you want to happen and why didn’t it happen that way? I decided that the kids were sitting too long between the warm up, intro video, responders, and website. In general, the kids were in their seats way too long for a 84 minute class. When they sit too long, they misbehave. I had to come up with a way to get them moving in between those activities.
I made some changes, rookie, I got it working. Got that pesky website working to how I wanted it (should have done that when I got to school but didn’t). I created acid and base cards using common household items, got them printed and copied, and had the kids cut them out. We then had a skills competition where the kids would have to draw out just the acids or just the bases. I even gave out prizes to the kids who could find the strongest acid or the strongest base from the deck. I had a picture pH scale displayed during the lesson so the kids knew what the heck I was talking about. The kids really enjoyed working with the cards.
The next day, we cut and pasted the cards according to acid, base, or neutral to construction paper and the kids classified the ‘slime’ they made in the lab as an acid or a base based on what we learned in class.
So what have we learned here?
1. Get a bag of tricks…through trial and error (mostly error), you will find activities that just work. Bring that bag of tricks with you every day. The first thing to add to your bag of tricks…Wii Surgery. Yes…a surgery game on the nintendo wii. It literally ties in to every concept you teach. Kids can do the surgeries. It is gross. Kids love gross. Especially middle school kids. Fire up the game, have the kids write down which concepts they see. Instant awesome!
2. Learn to adjust on the fly…when heads start dropping and behavior issues start increasing, your lesson just might be bombing. Don’t force it, rookie, it doesn’t work. Instead, try this…
Tell the kids to take a quick stretch break and find two facts about whatever you are teaching in the textbook. Then, ask them to tell three other people in the room what they just learned. Tell them when you blink the lights, the activity is over and they should head to their seats where they will write down what they were told by the other students. This will give you a quick 5 minutes to make adjustments.
3. This happens to every teacher! No exceptions! And you know what? It’s fine.
4. Learn and move on…don’t dwell…Hey…you’re not perfect, I’m certainly not perfect, and we make mistakes. In the words of a famous author, learn from your mistakes and move on.
At the end of the day, the best lessons you will ever teach are the ones that you make up as you go along…at least those are my best lessons. I get a rush like I’m a big game quarterback calling my offense on the fly. I dig deep into my past experience, remembering what works and what doesn’t, I think about my interactives and videos…how can I make this lesson better? How can I get the class more involved? How am I gonna get all this crap I just added to the lesson done by 9:45?
Learning to adjust on the fly and re-arrange a lesson that didn’t work is not just important…it’s essential. Learn to reflect on your teaching practice and you will only get better.l..you might even become accomplished!
One more thing….when things aren’t going your way, learn to laught it off and move on. Tell your class about it….”That’s right class! This is supposed to happen! ”
Trust me, they’ll believe you.
You can do this!