1. Carrie, Chris and Amna –
Chromatography
We met in the retail center
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2. Chris could only see the video, and Amna and
Carrie could see only a white screen
Eileen came by and tried to help out

3. We decided to watch the video individually and meet
back in SL to discuss.

4. What Scaffolding( presenting a framework for
understanding) does the teacher do to present the
chromatography?
Teacher explained capillary
action to the students
Indicated that capillary
action is how blood travels
up a tube.
Mentioned that the pores in
the chromatography paper
will help water travel up.

5. What additional questions might
you ask to ensure that students are
understanding the process?
 Why do you think that chromatography is used
in crime investigations?
 What factors do you think cause different ink
colors to separate at different heights?
 What are some possible errors that can occur and
impact our results?

6. What suggestions might you make to the
teacher to get more participation from the
students?
 The teacher could have asked more questions of the students to get them
involved.
 Each student could have a specific role in the lab, as some students seemed
to just be watching others.
 The lab could have been tied in to better or explained in the context of the
crime scene investigation, to give it more meaning and relevance to the
theme.
 The teacher could ask probing questions to get students to think about
factors that could impact accuracy of experiment.
 At the start of the experiment the teacher could have asked some questions
about capillary action and given some more “real life” examples( paper
towels, trees). He could also talk about why larger pores make a
difference.
 Capillary action could be introduced even before the lab, so the students
can understand that before they start thinking about the lab.

7. Observations/Comments
 We noticed that in the videos, there was more than one
teacher for the class, which gave the teacher some extra
help in walking around and giving each groups some
time. We can not expect to always have this in our
classrooms.
 We noticed that in a few videos students were not as
engaged as they would be if roles/tasks were assigned.
 At times the chromatography video we discussed felt
somewhat like a “cookbook” lab because students were
told what to do instead of being involved in thinking
about the next steps.
 It could be beneficial to upload this video to youtube.