Report On Virtual Experiment

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Report on Teaching Science Using Virtual Experiment LESSON PLAN Topic: Plant and Animals Sub topic: Habitat and Food chain Objectives 1. Recognise there are different types of plants and animals in a local environment. 2. Name some plants and animals and understand they require different habitats to live. 3. Relate simple life processes to plants and animals found in a local environment.

National Curriculum Key Stage 2, Science, Sc2, 2e.

Resources •

Online activity: Plants and animals

•

Secondary sources of information (reference books, CD-ROMs)

•

Copies of Plants and animals worksheet

Teaching activities Introduction Ask the children to name some plants and animals found locally. Make two headings on the whiteboard, Plants and Animals, and ask children to add their

1

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 contribution to the correct place. What is different about plants and animals? What is the same? Activity Select Plants and animals in the local environment from the KS2 Bitesize website. Explain they are going to spot some wildlife. Ask the children to predict where an animal might be found. Why there? Select a child to spot and click on the wildlife. Click on each magnifying glass and read through the information. Explain any unfamiliar words. Click on Sorter 1 and show the children how the plants and animals can be sorted by where they were found. Complete this activity. Click on Sorter 2 and explain the living thing has to be matched with where it came from. Do all living things begin life in the same way? What did a bird look like at the beginning of its life? Complete the activity. Form groups, each group will need a computer. Select and explain the activity as above. Ask the children to find the oak tree and click on it. Where was it? Tell the pupils they should remember where each thing is found. When the children know what to do, let them complete the rest of the experiment. Encourage them to read or listen to the information. Plenary What different types of wildlife were found in the park? Make a list on the whiteboard. Choose one and ask the children to give some facts that they have found out or knew already about the subject.

Extension Have a selection of reference books or CD-ROMs available for the children to find out more about local wildlife. Ask children to create a simple What Am I? quiz. The quiz has to give as many clues about the plant or animal that the children are able

2

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 to find out e.g. where they live, what their offspring are called, drawing part of their body or complete the Worksheet. Homework Hand out copies of the Plants and animals worksheet. Remind the pupils of what they did in the activity. Explain that the children must draw or write plants or animals into the three different habitats.

3

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

REPORT On Saturday October 24th, I and my colleague Shahriah had conducted a science lesson using virtual presentation. We had chosen Plants and Animals as our topic; habitat and food chain for our subtopics. Actually we had planned to conduct the lesson a week ago due to unavoidable circumstances where the school had problem with internet connections so we had to reschedule the lesson. The virtual presentation was conducted on Year 4 of fourteen students from class 4C at Rimba II Primary school. We had only picked 14 students with high and average abilities because the class teacher wanted to prepare the rest of the students for their upcoming Final Examination on the 9th of November, 2009. We started the lesson with reciting the `doa’ with the students. Students’ seating were arranged carefully so that they could view the whiteboard and the IWB (interactive whiteboard) clearly. Our lesson includes the set induction, content, activities and assessment. Firstly, I began the lesson with set induction by asking students to give some examples of Brunei’s local fruits followed by the name of local animals. All contributions by students were noted down on the board. Next, students were also asked to give the similarities and differences between plants and animals. After the discussion, the students were shown some pictures of local fruits and animals using power point presentation. In my observation, all pupils were very active during the discussion. They could answer when they were asked questions I think it was because they had studied the lesson earlier this year. Also, the students were very

4

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 interested when they were shown pictures using the power point presentation.

Students reciting the `doa’

Seating arrangement

5

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Teacher brainstorming ideas with the students

Ideas that were noted down on the whiteboard

6

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Showing pictures using power point presentation

Picture of a crocodile

7

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 Picture of a goat My colleague Shahriah continued the next part of the lesson which was the content. As for the content and the assessment we had used

activities

and

assessment

provided

by

the

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/living_things/plant s_animals_environment/play.shtml. In this session, teacher showed students examples of habitats and they were asked questions during the lesson. Oral assessments were also given to check students’ misconception by using the virtual activities. Students sat and listen while teacher conducted the lesson using the visual experiment.

Shahriah showing example of habitat

8

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Student active in activity on habitat

Student active in activity on habitat Next, Shahriah continued with ‘food chain’ and implemented similar strategies to deliver the lesson. In my observation, I found out that all students were very active during the lessons and activities at the same time some students looked restless in the activities.

9

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Introduction to food chain

Food Chain Lesson

10

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Food Chain Lesson

Food Chain lesson

11

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Food Chain Lesson

Virtual activity on food chain

12

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 Virtual activity used to check students’ understanding

In the last part of the lesson, students were divided into 7 groups of two students to do the assessment. Worksheets were given and discussion in pairs were allowed. During the activity, we played our role by facilitating the students; showing them pictures of some animals

using http://www.google.com such as heron, wood louse,

desert and meadow.

Students doing the activity

Students doing the activity 13

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

A picture of a heron

A picture of a woodlouse

Assessment given at the end of the lesson

Plants and animals Read the questions below and underline the correct answers. Top of Form eJxNUMlOw 0AM7

1. Which of these things are you NOT likely to find in a park or garden?

14

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

An earthworm An oak tree A crab 2. Which of these animals is most likely to live in a pond?

A water spider A caterpillar An ant 3. Which of these is most likely to grow in woodland?

Algae An oak tree A cactus

4. A habitat is

an animal behaviour a shop where animals go to buy things for their homes a place where animals and plants live 5. Which collection of animals might you find in a seashore habitat?

15

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

Zebras, lions and elephants Owls, caterpillars, oak trees Barnacles, seagulls, crabs 6. A frog is adapted to its pond habitat by

being brightly coloured having webbed feet growing into an adult frog 7. Why does a heron have a long sharp beak?

To catch fish To look cool To fly faster 8. Why do African elephants have big ears?

To keep cool To hear better To fly 9. Where would you expect to find a woodlouse?

In a hot, sunny place In a dark, damp place 16

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

In a dark, dry place 10. Which habitat does a rabbit live in?

Desert Meadow River Bottom of Form

As

for

my

conclusion,

teaching

students

using

virtual

presentation can be effective for delivering a lesson. The ideas or concepts are presented in a very interesting and colorful ways which helps to motivate students to learn. Also, Power point presentation can help teachers to plan ahead of what they want to teach in sequence and with the aid of animation it can attract pupils’ interest during lesson. In the lesson, students were very excited to see pictures and they looked very eager to see the next picture on the next slide during the presentation (power point presentation).

On

the

other 17

hand,

surfing

using

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 http://www.google.com can be very useful to help teacher and pupils search for pictures of habitat and animals that they do not know; for example during the lesson the teacher used google to find pictures of Barnacles, Heron, Woodlouse and Meadow. There are also weaknesses in using the virtual experiments. For example the `Habitat’ that is shown in the activity is not from our local habitat which is only suitable for students in the United Kingdom. In the future, if we were to conduct the same activity we would have to find some local habitats to be shown to students so that our students would be more aware of their local environment. Besides that, the written assessment that we have given to students provided by the website have very difficult terminologies that our students were not used to for examples; Barnacles, Heron and

Woodlouse.

As

a

suggestion

teacher

should

modify

the

assessment paper if they are interested to use the assessment worksheet for example; use animals that students are familiar with which can be found in our local environment. After marking the assessment papers of the students we found out that many of the groups of students got wrong answers for some questions. We feel very disappointed that we could not do corrections with the students as they are going to sit for their final examination in the next 2 weeks. In brief, our objectives were achieved in the session based on our observation. However, we feel that the lesson could be more effective if the students could make used of the computers in the lab to carry out the activities. The pupils could learned more if the students were able to manipulate the computers; which could help in developing their skills in handling the computers. Results of Assessment 18

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 We had given the ten MCQ questions for assessing pupils understanding of the lesson using virtual experiments on “Habitat”. The results of the assessments the pupils according to the question in sequence are as follows: From the table:

• • • •

Question 2 has no wrong answers. Questions 4 and 10 have 1 wrong answer each. Questions 1,3,5,6 and 7 have 2 wrong answers. Questions 8 and 9 have 6 wrong answers.

Group Que

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

       Tota l

stion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Total correct answers 4 8 6 7 7 6 8 46

The questions show variations in its difficulty level for each of the pair of pupils. It is obvious that question 2 is the easiest question and all the pupils got that question correct. However, for question 8 and 9 almost all the pupils find that question hard to answer, with only group 3 were able to answer question 8 and only group 7 were able to answer question 9. The mean of difficulty for each question: Question 1: 2/7 = 0.29 Question 2: 7/7 = 1.00 Question 3: 2/7 = 0.29 Question 4: 1/7 = 0.14 19

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4 Question Question Question Question Question Question

5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10:

2/7 2/7 2/7 6/7 6/7 1/7

= = = = = =

0.29 0.29 0.29 0.86 0.86 0.14

The highest mean of 1.00 shows it is the easiest question among all the questions with the lowest mean of 0.14 which is the hardest question for the pupils to answer. Strengths of the assessment • •

•

•

The question provides options of answers, where they can narrow down their answer down beyond the choices given. The question is simple and straightforward and pupils can choose the answer without writing essay type answers that are long and time consuming. Marking of the papers were easy and teachers just have to look at the wrong and correct answer and grade it immediately, without involving any thinking and reasoning to why and how the pupils answer the questions. Since the assessments are done in pairs, pupils can discuss among themselves and can be an advantage.

Weaknesses of the assessments •

•

• •

Some of the questions ask about a general knowledge which is not in the lesson content at all. Such as “Why does elephants have big ears? The options of answers are confusing as well where all answers can be considered the correct ones. The questions are subjective and objective questions might help the pupils in explaining their answers and clarify teachers on where they had done wrong. There are insufficient answers provided for each questions. There is a likelihood of pupils passing through chance.

Conclusion 20

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

In summary, by comparing the mean of difficulty for each of the questions shows that question 2 was the easiest question and question 9 was the most difficult for the pupils to answer. This is proven by the number of wrong answers done by the pupils. Furthermore the assessments prepared for the virtual experiment lesson has its benefits and weaknesses. It is up to the teacher’s wisdom to select the most suitable assessment according to the pupils cognitive level and the lesson being taught to the pupils.

21

Report on Virtual Experiment Science Year 4

22