I've been spending a great deal of my tutor hours observing the students to see what activities really keep them engaged. They seem to respond most to technology and things that have to do with their lives outside of school. For my individual lesson, I plan to begin an with an activity that will grab the students and keep them interested throughout the lesson.
I am doing a genetics lesson on heredity, the passing of traits. I will have students look at images of physical traits that are passed from parent to child. I will have students inspect their own traits and the traits of other students in the classroom. They will compare and contrast traits to see who has traits in common and who has a unique set of traits.
I believe this introductory activity will engage the students because it physically involves them. They all have certain sets of traits that may or may not be the same as other students. I believe students will maintain their interest in this heredity lesson because they are learning about a topic that defines why they possess certain physical features.
Following this trait comparison activity, the students will be given a brief overview of pedigrees and punnett squares. Students will then work in groups to figure out what traits in the pedigree are dominant or recessive and how punnett squares can be used to explain why traits are passed in a particular manner. Students will write their explanations on the whiteboard towards the end of the period. Finally, students will have to create their own pedigree and corresponding punnett square.
I believe students will enjoy this activity, because I made it authentic for them. But I do wonder how I will maintain engagement in the future for activities that do not deal with biology. For example, activities that involve chemistry or physics.
Is it truly possible to make every science activity authentic or relevant?
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This sounds like a truly engaging and authentic lesson. Anytime you can draw kids in by relating to "their world" they will certainly become fully engaged and learn. As you mentioned, sometimes drawing them in is more difficult, depending on the subject. But most disciplines and today's textbooks have excellent suggestions on how to fully engage students and how to make the lesson relevant to them. Teachers don't need to reinvent the wheel. The ideas are already there.
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I really like your lesson. As a student, I always loved when I could connect a lesson to something in my own life outside of school. I think it is extremely important to make lessons relevant to the students lives, however some topics are too complex or too vague to make a clear connection at that age so you would end up spending too much time trying to attach a piece of a lesson to their lives. I think it would be more effective to do as many as you can and just accept that some lessons may just be lessons that they may not connect to their lives now, but may remember in the future when they have more knowledge about the subject.
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