Simultaneous to taking EDU 290: Science Methods and Curriculum Development, I had the opportunity to complete an internship two

days per week in a 7th grade Science classroom. My mentor teacher provided me with many opportunities to teach lessons in his class, beyond the required observations for the course. This helped me to better connect with the students and to become more familiar with the content, and the typical day in a middle grade classroom. This particular lesson plan and reflection demonstrate my competency with many of the course competencies, as well as the ability to reflect on the experience with regards to those competencies. One of the main goals in EDU 290 was to analyze the use of technology to teach science. This lesson allowed me to experience the integration of technology in a lesson. For this lesson, a webquest was used, exploring components of geologic time. Using this tool, students were able to recall information about the age of the Earth, identify specific events in geologic time, and relate the rock cycle to geologic time and absolute dating. The use of the computer lab for this lesson was nice, because it offered both the students and myself the opportunity to apply our learning in another environment, and by using technology. This lesson also required me to identify management needs in this alternate classroom setting. Students were excited to be using the computers, so off-task behavior needed to be watched for, and students were more talkative, because of the change from the regular environment. The computers also created a need for additional monitoring, since students have varying levels of computer knowledge. It was a challenge to make sure that I properly modeled use of the webquest, and monitored student progress throughout the lesson. Overall I believe that this lesson was a positive learning experience, because I was able to reflect on the success and room for growth in 4 attempts, since I was able to teach this to different periods. I was able to see where I lacked monitoring, clear directions, or engagement strategies and strengthen such areas the next time.