What Is The Importance Of Observation In Biology Class

On Thursday, December 1st, I observed Mrs. Durish who teaches high school Biology at Clarion Area High School. Clarion Area High School is a public school located in Clarion, Pennsylvania. After being taken to Mrs. Durishs’ classroom, I immediately took notice of the classroom which was a standard biology lab. The black, nonporous lab tables were in five horizontal rows, the three back rows stretching almost the width of the room and the front two rows being split down the middle to act as a walkway through the middle of the classroom. Mrs. Durish had two desks, one in the back of the room and one in the front of the room next to the SmartBoard. The desk in the back of the room was against the left side wall and looked to be the desk where …show more content…
Durish motivated the students during her second period lesson by being engaging with them. They did a food label worksheet and frequently asked them questions to keep them interested in the material. She used an upbeat tone of voice which helped to transfer her motivated aura onto the students. In her third and fourth periods, Mrs. Durish had to try a lot harder to keep her students motivated as they were in no way interested in learning. She frequently had to talk louder and in a more enthusiastic voice to keep their attention and brought students who were not paying attention, up to the board to answer questions on the SmartBoard. Because the objective of the first lesson was to understand how to read a food label and how it applies to science and everyday life, Mrs. Durish handed out a food label worksheet. The worksheet contained a sample food label for beans and after teaching them how to read it, she allowed the students to do simple long division and the process of turning decimals into percent’s to figure out the answers to the worksheet. The questions were simple and not only asked about serving sizes, but also about calories, carbs and calories from fat which correlated with the previous lesson on carbohydrates and would help with the next lesson on lipids. In the third and fourth period, the objective was to understand what lipids were, the different types, and how they apply to life in different ways. She achieved this by going over the previous homework …show more content…
Durish would strictly lecture. I was very surprised at this because they were more on their own to do the worksheet (or not) and the teacher was not focused on just them so they had more freedom. In third and fourth period, there were some students that were very engaged during the entire two periods and some who were not engaged at really any point during either period. I very much feel as though this had to do with the fact that the students were allowed to sit next to their friends because the young man who I sat next to, was very engaged when his friends were busy talking amongst themselves, but paid no attention when they included him in the conversation. This group of students were the opposite from the second period group as they were very much engaged during when Mrs. Durish would lecture. They asked/answered a lot of questions and were not as engaged when do worksheets or going over homework because they had a better opportunity to talk to each other. What surprised me the most about the student was how much they talked to and amongst each other while Mrs. Durish was lecturing. It was very disrespectful and I was surprised that Mrs. Durish did not raise her voice or discipline them more than just asking them to quiet down. The student who was the most like me sat in the back and was very engaged during the