Diggin' in the Dirt (actually it's soil)

This weeks lab topic was interest approaches, and as soon as we got the details for this lab my brain was spinning. Instantly I thought of all the ways I could I be interactive and engaging to students and create an interest approach that really grabbed the everyone's attention. I decided on doing something hands on and tangible for the class and figured Soils would be a great topic in achieve this. I instantly thought about how much I love digging around in the dirt and thought, why can't I just bring that same concept to this class?

I started to craft my interest approach around digging in the dirt, and came up with having three different soil samples and students would use sight, touch, and even smell to identify characters of each sample. I also made a worksheet for the students to write down these characteristics, and at the end of it have them make a prediction of which soil is the "best." I left that term ambiguous because in an actual lesson I would come back to the idea of what is the "best" kind of soil and guide students to the conclusion that there isn't a one-size-fits-all and different plants require different soil conditions. 

Set up was relatively easy and quick. Dr. Ewing was able to get me two soil samples (one from a horse pasture and one from a wooded area), and I brought in a sample of regular potting mix, providing an array of soils that were similar, but still had some distinguishing differences. I made a station at the front of the room and a station at the back of the room each with the three soils labeled A, B, and C, and each station had hand sanitizer and paper towels. I decided on doing two stations so that the students could move through the activity quicker and still maintain physical distancing, and the hand sanitizer was there for before handing the soils (so as to reduce germ spreading) and after (so as to stay sanitary after touching all the soils). 

I feel like this lab went a lot better than last weeks, and part of that is attributed to adjusting to teaching to my peers. I also had a lot of fun with this one, and not just because I got to play in the dirt a little. I think I did well with classroom engagement and getting students up and moving but I also came up with a list of areas that I could improve on after looking back at the lesson:

- In the middle of doing this interest approach, I told the students where the soils were taken from. In doing this interest approach again, I would add into the directions that when they're identifying characteristics of the soils, also try to identify where the soils came from.

- When having the class share out, next time I would change the structure of how I ask for people to share out. Instead of having students give one characteristic at a time, I would have one person share out all the characteristics they got for that particular soil, and then pose the question to the class about if there is anything anyone else would like to add. I feel like this would eliminate some of the dead air and awkward silence that I experienced yesterday.

- Make more cognitive connects! I think this is one of the most immediate observations about my teaching that I noticed. In writing and practicing this interest approach I found it hard to find the balance between wanting to show students how this will tie into what they're going to be learning and overwhelming them with information that they currently have little to no background knowledge about.

- I feel like I constantly bite off more than I can chew and I need to remember to keep it simple.

- I also think I should plan out more guided questions for the class in my lesson plan. I think would help me more thoroughly think out where I want to go with the things I am teaching and help me in keeping my language precise.

On another note, I loved experiencing my peers lessons and interest approaches. It gave me a lot of ideas and I thought everyone really brought creativity and personality to what they were doing.