So the topic for my week lesson was Water Cycles and Groundwater. I had initially thought that because my students had some knowledge about water cycles and groundwater, that the process of starting a lab would be easy. I was wrong. I administered the following warm-up/lab to 5 of my students.

My purpose of this warm-up/lab was to see if I could be able to administer this to my classes and if my students would be successful in understanding the material by first doing and then listening to the lecture. A lot of my students are visual learners, so I wanted to go ahead and change things a bit.

My initial warm up was to define the water cycles and the process of groundwater. Students could not use their book, they could only use each other and what they had previously learned. The lab came in second as a way for students to learn how to clean up dirty water. Students had no problem answering the warm up and I was taken by surprise at how much information they knew. But we came into some issues when it came to the lab experiment. Though students knew the process of the water cycle and how groundwater worked, they were unable to perform the lab correctly without more information. The students were frustrated because the only information that I was giving them was what they had previously heard, and I was omitting new information, as a way of seen if perhaps students could use their previous knowledge to finish the lab. 
Needless to say that the lab was not a success because I saw how much information was needed that though students had some knowledge it wasn't necessarily enough.

There are a few things that I would change:
1. Give students the necessary information in order to complete the lab.
2. Go over the steps of the labs and clear any misunderstandings.
3. Allow students to use their textbook to find new ways of concluding the experiment.
4. Give extra time
5. Make sure directions are clear, as all students don't understand the material the same way.

I was unable to see that some of my students are second language learners and that their ability to understand the material is not the same as my non second language learners. I noticed the struggle of reading the directions and understanding some of the words. I think the best thing I could do would be to take some class time (before the lab) to go over what we will be doing, what is needed, what they need to learn and answer any questions students may have. I haven't taught a full year yet, so I think that been able to find out what I need to do for my students to be successful is great. Not only did I learn what I should change as a teacher, but my students were able to tell me what they thought I could've done different.