Observation Of Mr. Conner's 9th Grade Biology Class

The first of three observations took place in Mr. Conner’s 9th grade biology class. The classroom set-up consisted of three horizontal rows. The front and center portion of the classroom possessed the promethean board where the lecture portion of the lesson took place. The classroom is full of visuals and posters as well as student work. The classroom has a laboratory atmosphere to it because of the lab desks on the other side of the classroom, as well as the multiple aquariums that could be located around the room. The class was rather larger than what I was used to. Twenty-five students were present in the class at the time of the observation. Neither male nor female was a dominant gender within the classroom. The ability levels of the students

Mr. Conners began the lesson with some review questions from the lesson prior. One of the things that I found to be particularly interesting about his presentation method, was the fact that his PowerPoint did not contain any text. Instead, he would speak the notes slowly so that it forced the students to actively listen to his lecture in order to receive all of the necessary notes. Another aspect of the lesson that I truly enjoyed was Mr. Conner’s use of questioning. The questions asked ranged in order of complexity from simple recall to higher order questioning such as analyzing or synthesizing responses. Mr. Conners clearly knows his strengths and weaknesses which s why he uses this form of questioning. It is a definite strength that Mr. Conners possesses that is able to eliminate possible weaknesses by not allotting time for those weaknesses to surface because of the constant questioning. The student participation was amazing. Not a single student answered a question consecutively. There were multiple students constantly engaged in classroom discussion at one time. I found the activity that Mr. Conners prepared to be rather redundant, but at the same time effective. He put the students in groups of 5-6. After the students were grouped, he then orally gave the instructions. The students were required to use their manipulative of a DNA model that they had previously created in order to break it down and recreate