Report on Virtual Experiment at Rimba II Primary School, October 26, 2009

REPORT

INTRODUCTION

Virtual experiment is another way to teach Science. It is an inquiry approach without using experiment apparatus which can be used to enhance pupils’ learning in the use of ICT (Information Communication Technology) in Science. This approach can be used if the school is not able to provide necessary experiment items relevant to the topics and it can benefit teachers in terms of preparation time. The virtual experiment has its advantages and disadvantages. However, if the internet connection is down teachers have to be prepared by using alternative means such as using broadband internet device to connect to the internet.
The website that we had used is shown below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/living_things/plants_animals_environment/play.shtml

We conducted the lesson on Saturday, October 24th at Rimba II Primary School. The participants were 14 students from class 4C. The lesson was on Plants and Animals and the sub topic was habitat and food chain. We had only picked 14 students with high and average abilities because the class teacher wanted to prepare the rest of the students for their upcoming Final Examination on the 9th of November, 2009. Actually we had planned to conduct the lesson a week ago due to unavoidable circumstances where the school had problem with internet connections so we had to reschedule the lesson.

We started the lesson with reciting the `doa’ with the students. Students’ seating were arranged carefully so that they could view the whiteboard and the IWB (interactive whiteboard) clearly.

Our lesson includes the set induction, content, activities and assessment. Firstly, I began the lesson with set induction by asking students to give some examples of Brunei’s local fruits followed by the name of local animals. All contributions by students were noted down on the board. Next, students were also asked to give the similarities and differences between plants and animals. After the discussion, the students were shown some pictures of local fruits and animals using power point presentation. In my observation, all pupils were very active during the discussion. They could answer when they were asked questions I think it was because they had studied the lesson earlier this year. Also, the students were very interested when they were shown pictures using the power point presentation.

My colleague Shahriah continued the next part of the lesson which was the content. As for the content and the assessment we had used activities and assessment provided by the http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/living_things/plants_animals_environment/play.shtml. In this session, teacher showed students examples of habitats and they were asked questions during the lesson. Oral assessments were also given to check students’ misconception by using the virtual activities. Students sat and listen while teacher conducted the lesson using the visual experiment.

Next, Shahriah continued with ‘food chain’ and implemented similar strategies to deliver the lesson. In my observation, I found out that all students were very active during the lessons and activities at the same time some students looked restless in the activities.
Benefits for pupils
· The activity was fun and pupils enjoy the lesson.
· They used their hands-on and minds-on experience in the activity.
· The activity was colourful.
· The environment is a change from their classroom environment. Pupils usually enjoy going

into the computer room away from their class.
· The experiment is safe and effective.

Some vocabulary learned by pupils that day:
· Woodland
· Habitat
· Heron
· Desert
· Seashore
· Meadow
· Woodlouse

In the last part of the lesson, students were divided into 7 groups of two students to do the assessment. Worksheets were given and discussion in pairs were allowed. During the activity, we played our role by facilitating the students; showing them pictures of some animals using http://www.google.com such as heron, wood louse, desert and meadow.

As for my conclusion, teaching students using virtual presentation can be effective for delivering a lesson. The ideas or concepts are presented in a very interesting and colorful ways which helps to motivate students to learn. Also, Power point presentation can help teachers to plan ahead of what they want to teach in sequence and with the aid of animation it can attract pupils’ interest during lesson. In the lesson, students were very excited to see pictures and they looked very eager to see the next picture on the next slide during the presentation (power point presentation). On the other hand, surfing using http://www.google.com can be very useful to help teacher and pupils search for pictures of habitat and animals that they do not know; for example during the lesson the teacher used google to find pictures of Barnacles, Heron, Woodlouse and Meadow.

There are also weaknesses in using the virtual experiments. For example the `Habitat’ that is shown in the activity is not from our local habitat which is only suitable for students in the United Kingdom. In the future, if we were to conduct the same activity we would have to find some local habitats to be shown to students so that our students would be more aware of their local environment. Besides that, the written assessment that we have given to students provided by the website have very difficult terminologies that our students were not used to for examples; Barnacles, Heron and Woodlouse. As a suggestion teacher should modify the assessment paper if they are interested to use the assessment worksheet for example; use animals that students are familiar with which can be found in our local environment. After marking the assessment papers of the students we found out that many of the groups of students got wrong answers for some questions. We feel very disappointed that we could not do corrections with the students as they are going to sit for their final examination in the next 2 weeks.

In brief, our objectives were achieved in the session based on our observation. However, we feel that the lesson could be more effective if the students could make used of the computers in the lab to carry out the activities. The pupils could learn more if the students were able to manipulate the computers; which could help in developing their skills in handling the computers.