Wyland Oyama

Reflection 4 Subject Matter Knowledge

For my final recorded reflection, my lesson plan was based on the human reproductive
system. We had started the unit with flower reproductive anatomy, which I think was a good way
to transition the students into a scientific state of mind rather than throwing a lot of pictures of
penises and vaginas at them and hope they stop laughing. The activity for the observation
included a recap of my pre-assessment (part of my conceptual change learning project), a short
video of how sperm travels to the fallopian tubes to fertilize an egg, and an inquiry based
scavenger hunt of the structures in the male/female reproductive system.
Overall the lesson went well. The pre-assessment was crucial in my own understanding
of their initial conceptions and how to gear my subsequent lectures. I was surprised to find that
many of the students knew more about the plant reproductive system over their own. I decided to
tackle this problem by allowing them to explore the different structures in a matching style
scavenger hunt, with different textbooks available so the students had to hunt for the information.
I also wanted to the boys to work on the female reproductive system and vice versa for the girls
so that they would be familiar with the system they have less experience with.
An issue with the matching activity is that the information wasnt presented through a
visceral medium. The activity included pictures, names, and functions, but the students were
more concerned with matching over retaining the information. In other classes, I had a suspicion
that some of the students were playing a game of chance with me (making some initial guesses
and then simply doing trial and error as I came around to check their work) rather than really
reading through the text and coming to conclusions. One way that I could have modified this
activity was to include more HOT questions to make sure they are really grasping the structures
and functions of the system.
Another issue I ran into was the complexity of the male reproductive system compared to
the female. Considering we watched the short film towards the beginning of class (which I
partially narrated, identifying the structures as the sperm passed through them), and I had a
drawn diagram on the board where I could further explain where things were happening, the kids
working on the female reproductive system had much more instruction to go off of for the
matching scavenger hunt. I spent most of my time working with students in the lab with the male
reproductive structures. I could potentially have done the same thing with another video and
diagram of the male system, however the inquiry aspect would have been entirely lost.
Even though there were many improvements that could have been made, I still think the
lesson was well structured for the students. I included a number of different types of media to
present the information, I had them work as partners and then groups to collaborate and organize
the information, and I spaced the different aspects of the lesson so that there wasnt any cognitive
overload. I continued to work well with circulation and time management, which can slip during
lessons that I may not be as well prepared with. I also added the grading for accuracy aspect to

the hunt and made sure they had something physical that they could take with them to keep as
notes. It is challenging to add inquiry into a lesson about definitions (seen for the most part in
Anatomy and Physiology), but I believe the interest was there for the students.