Download lvelez11.04.02

Burlington High School / UVM
Student Teacher Observation
Student:
Class:
Teacher:
Date:
Lisanne Velez
Biology 1
Dick Falkenbush
11/4/2002
12:15 Lisanne is dressed in a white lab coat with a name tag.
“Hello everyone – I need you to be my medical consultants. Take a name
tag, put your name, the name of your medical school. So the first thing I
need you to do is put these in order – from biggest to smallest.” Lisanne has
overhead with molecules, proteins, organisms, lipids, etc. “ Pick the on that
is the biggest and work down. Work together.” Students ask questions about
the different words. “Ok, what do you think if the biggest?” Organism.
Next a student says “organ system”. “What’s an organ system?” “ What’s
an organ” What’s after organ? Tissue. Molecules – who can name one?
Great questioning
strategies and
reinforcment!
Good walking to back of
the room
Sugar. What’s the official name? Starts with c – carbohydrates. Good!
Lisanne write list on the board. So,what’s even smaller than a molecule?
Ok… so I need you advice on some other things, medical things. Lisanne
puts an overhead up of molecules. What do they have in common? Lets go
up to cholesterol… is it bad, is it all bad? Lets go to adrenaline – what’s
that? What happens right before? Heart starts pumping… what else?
Chemical messengers make that possible. Ok.. I need your help now.
Lisanne draws visual to explain actylcholine. It’s a chemical that travels
between your nerves and your muscles. Makes sense? Now here’s the
problem – there are drugs. Lisanne demonstrates how nicotine reduces the
amount of acetylcholine. What do you think will happen if you take the
nicotine away? Lisanne asks for their theories. What’s the first think you’re
going to start wanting? Nicotine. Why would you want nicotine? So what
you have is the start of drug addiction. Students list off drugs: marijuana,
Great talking and
illustrating
cocaine, caffeine, steroids, heroin, angel dirt, acid…Now here’s a sobering
thought – all of these things are addicting. Who’s heard of the Salem witch
trials? Students tell what they know about the Salem witch trials. What was
the evidence they would use? Sometimes they said they were hallucinating,
Doing well with classroom
management – it is a
difficult room to teach in
with the fixed arrangement
of the tables
or feeling ants under the skin. So here’s what happened… there’s a fungus,
ergot. It is used to make LSD. It might have been growing on their bread.
Now, question, what if you knew that? If you went and said that at the witch
trials, would they believe you? Lisanne talks about the changes in science.
How many of you have heard of poison arrow frogs? Student responds.
Lisanne tells the students how the poison works. It sits in the receptors to the
actylcholine can’t get in- what do you think happens? You’re muscle
freezes, paralyzes. Which muscle do you not want to paralyze? “Who know
what botulism is?” Who’s heard of the black widow spider? Lets see - you
eat from a can with botulism – should you get yourself bit by a black widow
spider? Lets take a vote.
I want some feedback – what you learned. Thank you!
Summary:
 Nice planning, activity
 Great questioning techniques
 Illustrations on the board, nice
 Pace is good
 Great feedback piece
Lisanne – you developed a very nice activity for the students – helping them with the “so-what” of the
biology/chemistry they have been learning. You kept a good pace, based on your objectives. This
activity could easily be modified for different objectives. You might consider building in an assessment
piece – perhaps the last question you posed, about botulism and the black widow spider could have been a
written piece or an illustration backing up their position.
Mary Lou Razza
UVM Supervisor