This Week - What's the Chance Activity

This week my students in both my 7th and 8th grade science classes completed an independent activity that focused on probability and heredity. It was one of their first truly independent activities in science from the lab outline to what information to include in their background information to completing the lab and answering the follow-up questions in full detail. I continue to find it interesting observing the two different groups of students and how differently they approach the activity. The 7th graders continue to need help and support and have numerous questions for me. The smallest thing that they are confused about causes them to come to an almost halt until they receive some help and assistance from me. My 8th graders are the complete opposite. They are very independent students and are able to just take directions and make their own plan. They very rarely ask questions. All of my 8th graders seemed very engaged in this activity. I found that it was a good balance between the amount of work that they had to do and the amount of active activity they were able to do. It kept all of them on task. My 7th graders for the most part stayed on task but they definitely needed more guidance from me and more assistance to keep the process going. I could tell that all of my students enjoyed this activity which took us a few days from start to finish because each day they came in to class and got started right away. They didn't need motivation from me. This is exactly what I want to see when my students are completing activities in class. They were engaged and focused on the tasks at hand.