Health Education Lesson Plan Final Reflection
Nutrition: Food Groups/Essential Nutrients
Cari McKee
Schools have pushed technology with our students and our
teachers. However, I have always been intimidated to bring it into
my classroom. As I stated in my first reflection, most of my worries stemmed
from my lack of knowledge with technology. Developing a unit plan was
going to be a challenge for me but also is one that needed to be done.
After the discussion we had during our face to face class, I started to
ask myself. Did these students learn more using technology or was it just
another device I was using in my classroom. And so my journey
began. The implementation of technology in my five lessons went very
quickly.
As I stated in my previous reflection, day one started off
a little slower than normal. Socrative was a little difficult to complete
with our schools server. But once the quiz started, the students
seemed to be engaged and tried to challenge their classmates. Another
thing I noticed with Socrative I had the ability and time to produce and
implement a pre and posttest. In my previous experience, it was
difficult to give my students time for a hand writing assignment. I believe,
socrative is a useful pre and post assessment tool. With instant results,
both my students and I can see how they are doing and the lesson can be modified
instantly rather than waiting until the next day. That night I
also gave the students a video to watch. Unfortunately,
there were students that did not watch the video. Frustrated, I set
the students up with their devices and they watched the video. Looking
back on my experience now I was happy I tried the flipped classroom.
Although some students did not watch the video, by having it I was able to
continue with my lesson rather than retract to the previous lesson.
Normally, with a paper assignment we would go over it in class and answer
any questions the students had. With this tool I did not have to stop and
"catch the students up". The video helped do that for me.
Although it was not ideal, it was a place to start.
Popplet is an activity I will be using in my
classroom for lessons to come. It is a fun, easy and creative way to
organize thoughts and visually display relationships. As stated in my
previous reflection, my students stated, “It was easy to use but organized my thoughts.
I could also include pictures!” On day 3 and day 4 the
students were instructed to use www.myfitnesspal.com to
evaluate their food intake and compare to their output. My fitness
pal was a little easier to use. In future lessons, I will still give both
programs as an option but I will convey to pick the website easier for
them. Both programs did not have all the food choices in
the system; however, it was easy to build the recipe and develop our meals.
Day 5 and 6 was a bit of a challenge. I knew our
class would be faced with some hiccups, but did not realize how resilient my
students would be to trying new things. I addressed this concern
before it was taught during our face to face discussion. During
our discussion group, one of the areas my colleagues told me was to exclude the
option for a paper. I have found many of my students seem to take the
common essay format and use it more than take a risk. By eliminating the
option for a paper, my students would have to exercise their creative
juices. Unfortunately, some of my students still felt more comfortable
with writing a paper and therefore was given that option. Although it
is irrelevant, I wanted to stress taking risks and use
technology to my students without putting them in a situation they
were uncomfortable with. Therefore, I awarded WOW points.
This idea actually came from by one of my former students. I
expressed to her my discouragement of the lack of creativity in my
classroom. She suggested to give the students WOW points. The WOW
point system works if a group thinks outside of the box in regards to
technology to convey their message. WOW points are similar to extra
credit points in hopes of encouraging the students to challenge themselves.
With her idea in mind, I decided to try it on my next unit’s project. It
was amazing to see the amount of students tried different things.
Similar to how I feel, I believe many of my students are
concerned if they cannot convey their points if it is not in a hand written
format. In my opinion, school has always taught us this is true. Now we
are trying to push to be more creative and utilize the equipment at hand.
I am guilty of writing papers for classes rather than convey my message in a
creative alternative format. Much of my reserve comes from a fear my
message would not be interpreted like I would like it to. I believe my students
are stuck in the same frame of mind.
In conclusion, I feel my students enjoyed trying something
new in the classroom. Although there were some hiccups I do believe the
technology used throughout this unit helped prepare my students for their
test. In previous years, I have had many students struggle in the
nutrition unit especially with distinguishing essential nutrients and the food
groups. My test scores for this unit was the best I have seen since I
have been teaching it. I believe this to be true because the students
seemed to enjoy their learning. Not only could they relate the
information back to themselves but they were also able to visually display the
information in a way they could understand. I think another addition I
would use when I teach this unit again is provide students with a WOW factor
grade. Both my students and I enjoyed using the technological
programs. I have continued to use them in my future lessons. On
Tuesday, I am trying my first assessment using flubaroo. I hope my
knowledge for the programs continue to grow and I can continue to use them in
the future to enhance my students learning.
