What was your favorite thing we learned about this year?

I asked this question on the final exam for my physical science and biology classes. I know what my favorite things to teach about were, but I was curious about what they enjoyed the most. I also wanted a question that pretty much guaranteed they would get full credit for answering.

For biology a lot of the responses were about the frog dissection. The girl on the left of this picture wrote: "How to bisect a frog. It was my first time doing it. It was a very fun experience. Its a first time a teacher did an activity like that. It was funny looking at my partner crying. It was a memorable day." Judging from the photo, I'm pretty sure that both she and her partner were enjoying the "bisection" and not crying, but maybe I missed it.

Another student wrote: "Dissecting a frog. Well it was because it was my first time dissecting an animal and it was pretty fun. Even though I kissed it and it didn't turn into what I was hoping for but it was good."

Some of my other favorite frog dissection answers:

"Dissecting frog is the favorite thing I learned in biology this year. It was fun because I have to touch a real frog and dissect it too. The body parts of the frog is cool. Even though it has an awful smell but I enjoy doing it. So I want to thank you Miss Abby for teaching me these new things about Biology. So thank you very much Miss Abby for teaching me biology this year.You are the best, God bless you."

"My favorite things that I've learned is dissecting a frog. My first ever dissecting and touching the frog. Even though I was scared but I enjoyed every single moment of the lesson. Thanks Abby :)"

"My favorite thing that I learned was when we dissected the frogs. It was fun and also disgusting. Why is because that was my first time looking into frogs."

A couple of my students also enjoyed learning about genotypes (the genes that you carry for a certain trait) and phenotypes (what trait you actually express based on your genes). For example, we learned about how there are 2 different genes for earlobes, attached and free, but one is dominant over the other. Students wrote:

"Well my favorite thing that I've learned biology is genotype and phenotype especially genotypes. Its because now I know that we have attached and free earlobes, also hairs on the middle knuckle. I enjoy going and check people's earlobes and knuckles, it makes me feel I'm a scientist." I love that she felt like a scientist because that was something that I really struggled with having such limited resources. It's hard to feel like a scientist when all you do is read a text book.

"My favorite subjects would be phenotype and genotype. There's a reason why phenotype and genotype is my favorite subject since I take biology. When we were learn about phenotype and genotype I am so interesting in that lesson. After that day and then the next day, I went and ask my friends about their phenotype and genotype. Phenotype is what we see, genotype is inside of us. I ask my friends if they have knuckle hair. Some people have some people don't. Some people have attached and some had free earlobes. Mines is free. It's nice to learn more about phenotype and genotype." She was telling her friends about what we learned in class!!!

Physical science students had some good answers, as well. The most popular was the "cake project" for which the students had to make an edible atom:

"My favorite thing that I learned in this class was atoms. It because we had to baked the cake and make it looked like a atom. So we were just having fun doing some cake and design it. So that my favorite thing that I learned in Physical Science."

"My favorite thing that we learned about in Ph. Science was the 'edible atoms' project. I love food, so that was an interesting way to learn faster."

Then there were the suck-ups:

"The favorite thing that I've learned is doing different activities and doing the classworks and homeworks. Plus I like the teacher because she is my best friend."

Also one student referenced the time when I was becoming really frustrated with a few of them for talking and laughing too much and not focusing on their work. I decided to have a serious discussion with them about how I'm trying to help them learn, but when they are not focused and being distracting to other students, it really frustrates me. I must have used the word "frustrated" a lot in the conversation because that's pretty much all they picked out. They decided it sounded like I was saying I was "refridgerated" and instead of taking the talk seriously, they just laughed more and I couldn't help but laugh, too, because they thought it was sooo funny. So one student who was involved in this wrote:

" My favorite was everything because it was fun learning things in Physical Science with Miss Abby. Even though we made her "refridgerated" but it was the fun moments that counts. Thank you miss Abby for being our teacher."

Then there was the kid who failed both semesters:

"What are my favorite things that we learned is speed. Why, because it's very important to people's way of living because if you are very slow than you must be fat, and if your fast enough than your still fit."

I'm glad that most kids enjoyed learning about something that I taught them. I wish we could have done even more fun projects. From what I've heard and seen, most Samoan teachers almost exclusively use the book to teach so it's very exciting when the kids get to things like "cake projects" and animal dissections. I'm happy we got to do a least a few fun things.