The classroom is a typical one, twenty or so students sitting at their individual desks facing the front of the class. At the front the teacher is describing their goals for the week. This week’s lesson is periodic trends. The goal of today is a short lecture to introduce the topic followed by a few videos, and finally end with a discussion on the concepts covered in the videos. The students all pull out their notebooks and pens in order to take notes during the lecture and videos; they were instructed to write down any questions or comments they have during the video presentation. After the brief intro describing the ideas being discussed in the videos, the teacher begins the show. As soon as the lights go off some of the students are looking attentively at the screen while others look as though they are preparing to take a nap. The teacher circulates around the room and tells these students to pay attention or their notes from the films will be collected for points. The links for the videos shown in class can be seen here:
After the video a discussion followed where some students who were still having trouble visualizing the concept of ionization energy asked questions. Some of the other students were able to answer their questions. The teacher ended the day by assigning homework.
The second day of the TELE there is much more freedom for the students. The class is given a handout with questions on the periodic trends which they need to answer by visiting specific websites the teacher has given them. The IT department brought over a labtop cart so that each student would have their own computer to work at. The students move their desks so that they work in small groups. As they work, the teacher circulates around the room to make sure the students are visiting the allowed sites as well as to answer any questions that arise. The website links can be seen here:
One of the websites that the teacher gave to the students to visit isn’t working. It is being blocked by the school’s internet filter so the teacher called IT and asked for someone to add the website to the allowed school sites. After a few minutes the students were permitted to peruse the simulation.
On the third day of the lesson, the topics are reviewed by the teacher and she posed questions to the students to measure their level of understanding. The teacher also asked them which form of technology they felt best help them understand the content, her initial power point introduction lecture, the videos, or the websites/simulations.
This lesson is specific to chemistry so it is single disciple; however, this teacher expressed her openness to having interdisciplinary lessons.
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