[Evaluation] [Suggested Materials for a Thematic Unit on Bats]
All in all, I think that my first thematic unit went relatively well. Before walking into my second placement, I was unaware that my main talk would be planning and executing a two-week unit about bats. After my initial shock, I dove into the thirty-some books that I had checked out from the library in order to learn all that I could. I had then begun to plan a unit for a class of twenty-six students that I had seen only once.
Upon reassessing their knowledge, I found that they know quite a bit about bats (and mammals in general). I also learned that they had many misconceptions about these creatures of the night. I then began the second phase of planning in which I incorporated the things they wanted to learn and the misconceptions that I would need to disprove.
Perhaps the most difficult lessons for me to plan were the six science centers. We did not use centers in my fifth-grade classroom, and I had never seen them used before, muchless planned. I planned for the centers with little help from my teacher, but we did discuss how they would be run. Another aspect that was unfamiliar to me was that the students had the freedom to choose which center they wished to complete on a given day. Daily scheduling seemed to take quite a while, but it was child-led, which worked out much more smoothly than I had anticipated.
In addition to the science centers, we did one or two more bat activities in the course of the day. These varied from demonstrations on wave patterns to games in physical education on echolocation. The main basis for group learning was the sharing of books. Each day, I read one or two books that somehow incorporated bats into the theme. It absolutely amazed me how much they picked up from their time "on the carpet." I would find that throughout the day they would incorporate some of the terminology from the book into our class discussion. By the end of the two weeks, they were using words such as "echolocation," "microbat," "megabat" and "habitat" on a daily basis.
When interviewing the class about what they had learned, I found some interesting results. As a whole group, they seemed to have learned a lot about bats. We talked for about thirty minutes about what we had learned. When I asked individual students, I found that some had learned far less than others. Some students had merely copied the work from their classmates while at the science centers. These students (which were about three in number) could recall little about bats. I am unsure if this was a result of the flexibility and openness of the centers, or merely a lack of retention. My co-op did tell me that the same kids have had this problem in the past, but she did not tell me this until the unit was in its final stages. If I had been given this information at the beginning of the unit, I possibly could have prevented this from happening.
Having completed the unit, I have found a few things that I would like to change. First, if I were to teach this unit in my classroom, I would incorporate the subject matter into all subjects. The spelling list would include bat terminology, math problems would be based upon bats (or numbering the body parts of them), and writing activities would be centered upon the subject matter. Second, I would insure that large group activities included student participation and move quickly and efficiently in order to cater to all ability and attention levels. I would also ask for help from parent volunteers for certain lessons. I taught a lesson on locating babies in a bat nursery that could have used more student participation as well as parent volunteers. Two weeks was a good time span for this unit. It virtually took all ten days to complete the centers and the activities. If I did not have two weeks to devote, however, I would limit the number of science centers, and incorporate the bat theme into all daily activities.
My co-op was very pleased with the unit. She especially liked the fact that I had decorated the room to match the theme. The first week of the unit, I took each students picture with their head on a bat body. Our class then "flew" around the cave that decorated our doorway. The surprise for the last week of the unit was a bat cave made from refrigerator boxes that stood in the corner of the room. Each day, the students took a population count to show how many bats inhabited the cave. We all enjoyed the "educational" decorations. After brainstorming ideas about improving the unit, we both agreed that we would, if teaching the unit in the future, provide a bit more differentiation in regards to ability. A couple of the centers seemed to be slightly above the comfort levels of one or two students. However, I noticed that these students paired up with other group members in order to complete the task.
I believe that the unit (although not without flaws) was successful. Planning was difficult for me, since I really did not know much about the class (and second grade in general) before beginning to prepare. After examining some of their work and with the help of my co-op, I was able to compile my lessons into a cohesive unit. I am satisfied with the results of this "trial run" and I am looking forward to teaching it in my own classroom!