Problem-solving approach or take-you-cat-to-class day?

This weeks task for lab was to tackle the "problem-solving approach." Having just worked on my animal behavior unit plan, I was already in the mindset for that subject and thought I could easily incorporate the problem solving approach to a lesson in this unit.

I thought about how I could best reach my audience, and soon got to thinking about my ag class in high school when we did our animal behavior unit. The crazy idea of bringing in my cat to class was then in my brain and there was no way of shaking it.

Gusteau (Gus for short) is an 8 month old, currently in-tact, black, domestic short-hair, male. He got dumped into the lap of a friend of mine, and when she couldn't keep him anymore, he became the newest member of my family. I got him in mid-August and he remains a constant joy throughout the craziness that is this semester.

As far as problems go, because Gus is still in-tact, he's become a bit of a handful. Through different behaviors that he's been exhibiting over the past month especially, it's clear that he needs to be neutered ASAP. I figured this would be a fantastic real life problem that falls under the "two-forked problem" category for my problem-solving approach lab. I also figured that while Gus is in class, I can have the group do some observations on animal behavior (plus, what's more fun than having a cute animal in class?)

I broke the lab up into a warm up and the actual meat of the lesson where I used the problem solving approach.

The Warm Up

For this I wanted students to practice their observation skills. Thanks to my roommate's Tik Tok obsession, I found two audio clips of different cat noises that are suppose to evoke certain reactions when you play them in front of your cat. Her and I have played for Gus before to see what he would do and his reactions were really cool to watch not only from a pet owners perspective, but also from an animal behavior standpoint. This inspired my warm up, and I had students first observe Gus getting out of his carrier and then observe him during each of the audio clips.

Gus was a perfect critter to observe, and when he first came out of his carrier, he showed some very obvious and important cat behaviors. He walked around with his tail high up in the air, sniffed everything and then some, and he even laid down in the front of the room and rolled around. It was such a great teachable moment! I was able to engage the group in some great discussion because of it, and then talk about behaviors that he exhibited and how they might be similar to behaviors other species do.

As far as the audio clips went, Gus unfortunately didn't behave how he usually does with them. I chalked that up to him being in a new environment with already so much stimuli around him. I talked about this with the group, however, I feel like I could have done a better job prefacing the group. I should have talked about the variability of having a live animal in a foreign environment and how we won't be seeing the same behavior we might see if they were in an environment where they are comfortable. 

The Problem-Solving Approach

After doing the warm up I jumped into Gus' behaviors lately, steering the students towards the problem being that Gus' behavior is an issue and if nothing is done, it will likely escalate. I then gave them all a handout where they had directions to work through the problem. I specifically exaggerated some of Gus' behaviors and made up others to really demonstrate that the solution to his behavior problems is neutering.

I had them break up into 3 groups of 2-3 and answer 3 prompts: what is the problem and the factors influencing it, what are possible solutions and pros and cons to each, and what is the best solution and why. Because part of the problem solving method is being able to test what solution they picked and they can't in this specific instance, I had them also write a prediction for what they thought the outcome of their chosen solution would be

For a group who already knew what Gus' issue is just from our conversations about our lives, I feel like there was still some good and genuine learning going on. They asked great questions, really went in-depth with some of their responses, and I was able to facilitate very productive conversation.

One of my favorite moments was towards the end when we were discussing what each group came up with, and Katie asked the question how do we know that neutering him will change his behavior? 

I was able to take this question and not just answer it, but bring in the concept of males whoa are cut late. This helped to contextualize what we learned in the lesson and apply it to other species -- another great teaching moment! 

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Overall, here are some takeaways from this lesson --

• I felt more confident on this one because I prepared more (shocking, huh?)
• I did better purposefully engaging with the Zoom audience, but that's also something I need to keep working at
• A live animal makes for a very fun and interesting time
• I need to time-mange better (this is just a constant thing I need to work on)
• It's so important to make those real world connects 
• Its also so important to explicitly talk about how the knowledge in a specific lesson can be transferred to other things (such as a different animal species in the instance of this lesson)
• Gus is a lovely animal behavior specimen (and I'm blessed to have such a sweet cat)

*It is very important to note that Gus also arrived to class in professional attire [see pictures below]*