Artifact 1: Is it a Food? Discussion
I used an activity called “Is It a Food?” to engage students and introduce them to the new section in biology that we would be studying: organic macromolecules. Students received a short worksheet that directed them first to read over a list of items, and then check off what they would label as “food,” and finally write a scientific definition for food. Students worked quietly by themselves at first. My classroom mentor and I walked around the classroom to check on student work and challenge students with questions such as: Why did you mark that? What qualities are you considering when you choose? Could you arrive at a scientific definition of a food yet?
Soon, the conversation in the classroom reached a fairly loud level. At that point, I brought all of the students back together for a group discussion. I began by asking students as a whole what they decided did not constitute a food on the list. I received reasonable, though varied, responses from students. Soon, the group conversation dissolved into a discussion of preferences FOR food rather than a scientific explanation of what IS food. I noticed that, as I initially wondered around the room as students worked, I saw most students writing down their own definitions and thus I engaged in conversation with these students. However, when we came back together as a group, I noted that only a certain few students dominated the group discussion.
Soon, the conversation in the classroom reached a fairly loud level. At that point, I brought all of the students back together for a group discussion. I began by asking students as a whole what they decided did not constitute a food on the list. I received reasonable, though varied, responses from students. Soon, the group conversation dissolved into a discussion of preferences FOR food rather than a scientific explanation of what IS food. I noticed that, as I initially wondered around the room as students worked, I saw most students writing down their own definitions and thus I engaged in conversation with these students. However, when we came back together as a group, I noted that only a certain few students dominated the group discussion.