The students were split into 6 groups where they would work their way around a rotation, taking around 5 minutes at each station to work on the task given to them, 3 stations of review, 2 stations of preparing and looking at the semen, and 1 station of clean up. The rotation started off strong, until the students started struggling finding the sperm cells through the lens.
It began to take longer and longer to get the groups through that one station and by the end of class, I still had 1 group who did not get the opportunity to even attempt it. Time was an issue.
This lab showed me something extremely important with teaching, no matter how much time you spend preparing something to make sure it is ready to go, there is always going to be the chance for something to go wrong. In my situation it was my own overestimation of the students abilities with microscopes and the time they would spend trying to get it focused.
The next time I teach this, I plan to change a few different things. First, I plan to take at least one class to have the students practicing with the microscopes and making sure they understand all of the parts of one. Second I would have one slide pre-prepared for the students that I know will have what I want them to see in it. and finally, I would have more microscopes that have the ability to see what I want them to, so that the students are not limited by the time factor.
Although I still believe this lab was good, there is still improvements to be made on it. Just like most other lessons, it is not perfect.
Continue to refine as you learn what works and what doesn't. Understanding students' level of past experience is important in gauging timing of lessons.
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