With teaching Anatomy & Physiology, I normally start out with notes of the basics of the body systems, homeostasis and then we talk about the orientation to the body (body cavities, landmarks and directional terms).
This year I made a goal to get away from regular PowerPoint notes with lots of information and make the move to a lot more pictures and leading discussion with the class instead. In my first years of teaching, I relied on the notes on the PowerPoint to make sure I taught everything I needed to to and to help me remember it all since I was practically learning it all with the kids. Since this is my 3rd year with A&P, I think by now I pretty much have the material down...so I decided to switch it up.
Today was the second day of school and we did some housekeeping tasks first, then I put up my PowerPoint. Found Here. We only focused on the first 3 slides and spent the rest of the hour focusing on the terms, anatomical position, cranial cavity, vertebral canal, dorsal cavity, ventral cavity, thoracic cavity, diaphragm, abdominal cavity, pelvic cavity, abdominopelvic cavity, ventral/anterior, dorsal/posterior, superior and inferior. We would talk about where the terms were, what they contained, what the directional terms meant and then in sections we would repeat it all. I would say them and do hand motions, they would say them back with the motions, then they would take turns sharing with their partners, then back with me, with partners and finally some brave kids did them all by themselves in front of the class. They received an applause from the rest of the class.
It was an awesome class!! All of the kids were participating and they did great. It was a lot of repetition but I think they really got something out of it! To finish up the class, I used my new bulletin board! Each kid took a sticky note, wrote their initials on it, and "what stuck?" With them from today that they will remember on Monday for sure. I had many kids say to each other "what if I will remember a lot more than one thing?!?" " I don't think I could see a better response!
On their way out the door, they posted their sticky notes on the bulletin board and got their traditional high five. It was a great way to end my week. Their enthusiasm for learning just makes me thrilled for this year!
Sounds Exciting!! Interesting idea for the bulletin board, great assessment/reflection idea with the sticky notes. It gives you good feedback, too.
ReplyDelete