An "Eye-Opening" Experience- My Visit w/ a Science Classroom

     When I thought about what science classroom to visit at Central Columbia High School, I had many different classes I could choose from. Everything from basic Biology I to Advanced Sports Medicine. However, I settled on Physiology I which is a class that was not offered in my home high school, so I was interested in seeing what this class looked like. The instructor, Chris Mitchell, is someone that I had out to State College for some wrestling matches, so I was familiar with him and was excited to see him teach. Little did I know that when I walked in on his period 2 class on Monday morning, we would be talking about the anatomy of the human eye. 

    It turns out that the eye is much more complicated than I could have even imagined, between muscles and secretion glands, I learned more than I ever thought I would have in a matter of 45 minutes. Mr. Mitchell started with some workbook review questions, and then we got into some of the "nitty gritty" and started labeling the 14 parts of the eye. Using the projector, Mr. Mitchell had the students give him the parts that they knew for sure, and he talked a bit about each of them. Following this, he went over each of the parts that they missed and spoke to the importance of each and the students could fill this in on their own diagrams. He explained that they were doing this for a reason, and this is because the 4 students in the course will be taking part in an eye dissection. These eyes will come from a Lamb and Mr. Mitchell was constantly relating the activity they were doing with how it would apply to the dissection. I noticed how when he mentioned these parts of the dissection. the kids quickly became very alert. Not that they were not already alert, however, you can definitely see the excitement amongst the student's faces when they think about that dissection activity. Just another reason we partake in experiential learning opportunities!

    It was hard to take off my "student hat" when sitting in on this class, however, when I was able to I quickly realized that there was a reason it was so hard to take that metaphorical hat off. That was because Mr. Mitchell did such a great job of engaging his students with questioning techniques and changes in instructional techniques. While we were not up and moving doing activities, we were still moving between some labeling activities, informational discussion, and independent questioning work. I could immediately tell that his students enjoy being in his class and find all of the information very useful. When thinking about physiology, I realized that it is very applicable and many of the concepts can be demonstrated right in the classroom because of its functionality with the human body! Pretty sick if you ask me! I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to observe Mr. Mitchell do his thing, and for his students to be so accommodating during my time in class. I could not have chosen a better class to observe!