Throughout my student teaching experience, I tried my hardest to incorporate a variety of instructional strategies to encourage student thinking, problem solving and performance. My unit plan included an extraction lab, student drawings, model building, class discussions, student brochures, coding activities, computer labs, posters, research and reflections. By providing as many different teaching strategies as I could, I hoped to address as many different learning styles as possible.

Instead of simply giving the students notes to memorize, I enjoyed introducing a topic and then having them explore it more on their own. I tried to give them a problem to solve while they were exploring, or at least some direction to guide them, and the students really seemed to enjoy having some freedom in class. They had their textbooks, the classroom computers, and multiple other resources from my teacher’s own mini-library of science books to choose from. Of course, many students fought over use of the computers, but there were quite a few students who preferred book work, and hated having to use the internet for research. Some students enjoyed working with a partner on the activities, others preferred to do everything individually. Some activities, like the DNA extraction lab, I made them work with partners for. It was amazing to see their reactions when they saw what real DNA actually looked like. Most thought it would be something entirely different. Most of the other activities, I allowed the students to work with partners, or individually, depending on their preference. It was interesting to see how some students were very social on some occasions, and other days they would want nothing more than to work independently.

The students really enjoyed the study of the relationships of science to technology and society. The STS lessons I was able to incorporate into my unit plan sparked more interest and discussion than the rest of the lessons combined. Every student was actively involved, especially when it came to the topic of ethics in science.

The thematic unit plan I created with other students in the education department also incorporates science and technology, mainly between the disciplines of agriculture and science. The unit covers the Industrial Revolution, which introduced countless new inventions and ideas to a rapidly-changing society.