I really enjoyed preparing and teaching this lesson, but it reinforced to me a lesson that I have learned many times before. Whenever I plan a lesson, I should expect that I will need almost twice as much time as I planned. I wanted to integrate with social studies by including myths, and allow enough time for each student to create a quality mini-documentary. On my lesson plan, I allowed for 2 hours. I decided that in order to fit my lesson into the 30 minutes allowed in class, I would skip the myth and just focus on the phases of the moon activity and documentary. I think that in order to effectively accomplish these two things, I needed 60 minutes instead of 30. I always feel frustrated when I have to rush students through their work in order to meet a time limit, even though time limits are realistic and ever-present. The solution is to more realistically plan lessons to include only that material which we can cover in the amount of time available.
I do feel that this lesson was effective for achieving the goals and addressing state standards. Students were well focused throughout the lesson and while working in groups, each student had the opportunity to individually observe each phase of the moon. On the peer feedback forms, the lesson participants wrote that the content was well supported in the lesson, and one stated that they learned this content for the first time.
To improve this lesson for next time, I would absolutely need to plan for more time. I would also need to be more prepared by turning off the flashes on the digital cameras so they are ready to take pictures in a dark room. Finally, I liked the idea from my peer that I use a youtube video to demonstrate the moon phases before students work in groups to create their own.
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