Lesson Plan - The Wonderful World of Worms

Technology Integrated Lesson Plan

Lesson Title: Worms and their Habitats

Teacher: Allison Liem and Danielle Faucher

Subject: Science

Grade Level: 3rd

Lesson Objectives: In this section specify both the content and technology objectives. If the lesson is cross discipline, be sure to include objective from all content areas.

Science:

The student will be able to label parts of a worm and distinguish facts vs. myths about worms. (the students have already been taught about fact vs. myth so this is a content based lesson on worms)

Technology:

The student will be able to create their own drawing of a worm using the technology program, kid pix.

Standards: In this section include the state and/or national standards which will be met through meeting the lesson’s objectives.

Science:

Strand 4, Concept 1, PO 1: Compare structure in plants (ex. Roots, stems, leaves, flowers) and animals (ex. Muscles, bones, nerves) that serve different functions in growth and survival.

Strand 4, Concept 3, PO 5: Describe how environmental factors (ex. Soil composition, range of temperature, quality and quantity of light and water) in the ecosystem may affect a member organisms ability to grow, reproduce, and thrive.

Technology:

Strand 1, Concept 4, PO 1: Analyze information using digital creativity tools to create orginal works and express ideas.

Technology Integration: In this section determine if the lesson objectives can be supported by the use of technologies. The technologies may be used by the teacher, but should be used, primarily, by the students to demonstrate their understandings of the objectives.

The teacher will use the smart board to do an interactive pre-assessment on how much prior knowledge students have about worms. The teacher will show students a book about worms on the overhead so that they can all follow along and learn facts about worms. The teacher will use a smart board to show a movie on worms. In addition the teacher will use a smart board to show a powerpoint that will cover information about worms and their habitats. Then the teacher will demonstrate to the students how to use kid pix to draw and label the parts in their worm and their worm’s habitat.

Differentiated Instruction: In this section you will describe how you will meet the needs of special populations. These include English language learners, special education students, gifted students and students at-risk of failing. Be sure to refer to information about SIOP lessons universal design.

Modifications for English language learners: We are meeting the needs by having lots of visual representations to make up for the language barrier. Something we could modify is by allowing students to work with a partner. Also, in kid pix you can change the language to Spanish.

Modifications for special education: The student could use an alterative key board and keep a word bank on the smart board during the individual assessment where they label the parts of the worm on kid pix.

Modifications for gifted students: The student could make up a story about the worm they created in kid pix.

Modifications for at-risk students: During the time where the students are working on creating their kid pix picture and doing the fact vs. myth cut out assessment the teacher could provide more one-on-one assistance with these children as well as providing additional time another day to complete the assignment.

Procedures: In this section describe what the teacher and the students will do throughout the duration of the lesson.

Before Technology Use: In this section describe the anticipatory set and any other activities that the teacher and students will do before the students use the technology.

The teacher will begin the lesson by grabbing their attention by telling a story that happened between them and a worm.

During Technology Use: In this section describe how the students will use the technologies to develop artifacts that demonstrate their understandings.

The students will volunteer to come up to the smart board to circle things on given list that they think is a fact about worms.

The teacher will read the students a story called “Wiggly worms at work” by: Wendy Pfeffier on the overhead.

The teacher will show a teacher tube video on worms.

The teacher will show a powerpoint presentation on worms.

The teacher will demonstrate to students how to use the program, kid pix.

The student will create their own diagram of a worm.

After Technology Use: In this section describe what the teacher and students will do after using the technology to develop artifacts. Include any activities, presentations, or conclusions that will be included.

The student will print off their diagram of a worm that was created on kid pix and submit their vitual assessment in vista. The lesson will be concluded with the students making their own dirt cups where they will create soil with chocolate pudding and oreos and their gummy worm will act as the worm inside its habitat.

Assessments: In this section describe the items that will be assessed. Include descriptions of the criteria that will be used for assessing student success. If needed, attach rubrics, checklists, or other documents used for assessment.

For the chart that they make where they assemble fact vs. myth they will be graded on how many successful fact/myths they identify. For every fact/myth they identify, they will get one point. Their grade will be out of 12 points. For the kid pix picture the teacher will grade the student’s pictures and labels against a teacher created labeled picture of a worm. For each part of a worm they identify correctly, they will get one point. This is out of 8 points. To receive a passing in each assessment the student needs to receive a 75%. While the students are drawing and labeling their worm they will be able to look at a blank diagram of a worm on the smart board and a word wall of the parts on the whiteboard to reference.

Instructional Materials/Resources: In this section describe any instructional materials that you will develop or use during the lesson.

Overhead, smart board, kid pix, teacher tube video on worms, book “Wiggly worms at work”, cups, spoons, chocolate pudding, oreos, gummy worms, power point presentation that addresses facts, body parts of worms, and their habitats, worksheet that students will cut facts and myths out of, glue, scissors.

Here is the video we showed about worms:

Allison's Final Reflection

1. What did you learn from your simulated teaching experience about:

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

           

From this simulated teaching experience, I learned that it is extremely important to assess prior knowledge. If you do not assess prior knowledge, you might be completely off-base with what you are teaching the students in your lesson. It is also important to assess prior knowledge, because your students might have some knowledge of the subject, but might just need some review or remedial information on the topic. We assessed prior knowledge with our students, and they knew nearly everything we were going to cover, prior to our direct instruction. But in a real 3^rd grade classroom, the students would not have had as much prior knowledge about worms. Before this simulated teaching experience, I knew that it was important to assess prior knowledge, but this lesson allowed me to understand the importance from a real-life, concrete experience. In the future, I will be sure to asses my student’s prior knowledge before diving into any instruction.

Planning and Designing Instruction vs. Actually Teaching:

Through this simulated teaching experience, I learned that no matter how much time you spend planning, you are probably always going to have to make changes to your lesson when you actually teach it. In our lesson, we had to be flexible a few times. For instance, a few students computers did not work, and they were not able to use the Kidspiration program. We accommodated them by allowing them to draw their worm and label it, instead of designing it on the computer. Also, a piece of information about worms that we had in our PowerPoint was different from information that was presented in the video we showed. Since we had a question about this particular fact on our assessment, we decided to just throw out the question all together. I have not had the opportunity to teach many of the lessons that I have designed, so this was definitely a valuable experience for me. I have heard that teachers must be flexible, but this experience allowed me to actually BE flexible, and to learn how to be quick on my feet in making necessary modifications to the lesson. I will definitely remember to be flexible with my lessons in the future, and to always have a plan b!

Planning and Implementing Assessments:

Through the planning and implementing of my assessments, I learned that it is more difficult to come up with assessments that are valid and reliable than I formerly thought it was.  It is also difficult to think about how you will score students and how you will accommodate for students who are ELL or who have learning disabilities.  I also learned that no matter how clear your written and verbal directions are, students are still going to ask you over and over what they should be doing.  I think this is probably because they just want to make sure that they have everything clarified so they can be successful on the assessment.  Designing the assessment helped me to realize how important it is to match your assessment with your learning goals, so students have every chance of being successful.  This will help me when I am designing assessments in the future.  I think when I have my own classroom, I will begin with the assessment and work backwards to make sure that everything aligns with what I am assessing my students on.

2. What did you learn from observing your classmates lessons about:

Assessing Prior Knowledge:

From observing my classmates lessons, I learned that it is very important to assess prior knowledge to make sure that you are teaching the students what they need to learn, next.  Some students may not have any prior knowledge about a topic, while others might be able to write a book about it.  One group used a KWL chart, and I think this is my favorite method of assessing prior knowledge.  Not only does it allow the teacher to see what the students already do or do not know, but it activates the students memories and experiences they have had with the topic.  I think I will definitely use KWL charts in my future classroom.

Planning and Designing Instruction:

From my classmates, I learned that it is so crucial to have everything planned out and ready to go for your students.  I realized that if the teacher is not prepared, they should probably not expect their students to be as successful during the lesson.  If the teacher forgets materials or has a video that does not work, it provides an opportune time for students to begin to misbehave and to get off-task.  However, teachers are human and they will make mistakes.  So I think it is important that we always have a plan b!  That way, if something does not work, the teacher can gracefully pull out the plan b and the class can carry on smoothly, hopefully without disrupting the learning process.  I also got some pretty great lesson and center ideas from my classmates that I would love to use with my future students.

Assessing Learning

From my fellow students, I learned that it is very important not to assess the students on something you have not taught them.  Some of my fellow students had great lessons but used the assessment as a way to further our knowledge on the topic, rather than as a way to assess what we had just learned.  This was frustrating for me as a college student, so I imagine it would be even more frustrating for an elementary school student.  I also learned that there are various ways to assess students with technology.  Before this course, I had never considered using technology to assess students, but now I realize the value and importance of incorporating it into my classroom.

Danielle's Final Reflection

Based on your experiences this semester, answer the questions below based upon (a) how your understandings for each the questions and sub-categories listed below changed and (b) describe how this might impact your future teaching experiences.

1. What did you learn from your simulated teaching experience about:


Assessing Prior Knowledge

I learned how important assessing prior knowledge is because your students might not be developmental ready for that material or your students may already know the material.  Knowing what your students know and what they don’t will help you significantly with planning your lesson.  Not all students are ready for the same material at the same time this is key to remember.  In my lesson we had pre-assessments to know what our students knew so that if they all already knew this information we would not focus on it as much as the information the students did not know much about.  This will impact my future teaching because I will use pre-assessments as the base of my teaching.

Planning & Designing Instruction vs. Actually Teaching [i.e. What instructional decisions or changes did you make & why?]

We made our power point longer than we had planned.  We felt we needed more direct instruction instead of letting the students free with content they may had not yet mastered.  We changed the book we read allowed because they did not have it at the library up here but I think we got a more engaging book in the end so I did not mind changing it.  We also added a video to incorporate more technology to support learning other than just learning from the power point. My ideas have changed a bit about this category because I realized how teachers review and go over lesson ideas and realize sometimes that they need to make changes to have the biggest impact on their students.  This will impact my future teaching experiences because it will show that just because you are planning something that does not mean it will be the final draft of that.  Sometimes you have to make changes in what you design.

     

Planning and Implementing Assessments [What did you discover about your students and your teaching with your actual learning assessment?]

I learned that my students are very smart.  All the students received 100% on their kid pix of the worm. I think it has something to do with the fact I had a word wall, definitions of each word, and a blank diagram.  I don’t believe in tricking or having my students memorize things.  By having them create their own worm and get this assistance does not make them have to memorize and it still tells me if they understand where parts are on a worm.  I also discovered that some students do not follow directions.  I repeated a couple of times that on the worksheet the students must write why something is a myth.  I did this because I wanted to see if the students really understood the information or if they were just guessing.  About 3 students did not write why something was a myth.  This shows that I need to teach and remind my students to follow the directions and look more at their papers when people are turning it in so I can see if they did what I wanted.  This will impact my future teaching because I will need to constantly remind my students to follow directions because if not this may turn into something bad.  Students need to know how to follow directions because they are apart of our everyday life. 

2.  What did you learn from observing your classmates lessons about:

 Assessing Prior Knowledge:

I learned that other student’s lessons either had no assessing or prior knowledge and some just did a simple discussion on it. My group did a brief discussion and got all our students involved in assessing prior knowledge because we would have students raise their hand to vote if they thought something was fact or myth.  I learned that it is super important and we must do this.  In one lesson they assessed nothing and I knew nothing about the material and right away I had to do centers and activities on it. It made me feel unprepared and nervous.  I did not like it.  We need to know what our students know or else our lessons and activities may not be Developmental Appropriate for our students.  None of my ideas had changed since I already knew the importance of this. This will impact my future teaching because I need to know at all times what my students know.  How can I plan a lesson on something if they may not have any prior knowledge or skills needed for the lesson?  Also activating prior knowledge is good because your brain will connect new information with old which will make it easier to remember.

Planning & Designing Instruction:

I learned that many people use centers.  Centers are amazing and can be a great thing to have in the classroom but that should not be our main instruction.  Students cannot learn if they have no base on a subject area.  This is why in my lesson we actually did a lesson and taught students information instead of letting them free to learn everything on their own.  I want my students to learn things on their own but we can not just rely on centers for everything.  Students may get information confused and it will be hard to break something after they already learned it.  My ideas on this has changed a bit because it has shown me how you need hands on and not worksheets because that is not how students learn.  They learn by “doing.”  My ideas have also changed because I have learned not to rely on activities to teach everything.  I must work with my students to teach them the base for them to learn the concept.  This will impact my future teaching because I know when I teach I must have a combination of direct instruction with centers/hands on activities.  My teaching styles cannot be all or nothing.  It can’t be all direct instruction or none, just like it cannot be all centers or none. I need to have a mix of both.

 Assessing Learning:

While observing others assessing of lessons is that we must assess what we taught.  If you never taught how to do something do not assess it.  Our assessment must match our objective or it does not have validity.  I also learned from other’s lessons we must assess individually.  One group did a group assessment.  The problem with that is that you do not know who did what and if one student did everything and another student did nothing.  If you do everything individually you are able of seeing exactly what that student knows not what their friend knows.  This idea has not changed for me.  I have always known the importance of individual assessments.  It bothers me when I do a group project and I landed up doing everything and people still got my grade.  That is not a good representation of what each student actually knows.  This will impact my future teaching because assessment is all around us.  We must assess what they have learned.  If they have not mastered the material I will have to think of an alternative way to teaching it.  If I do a lesson on writing an essay but their assessment is to write a sentence that is not good validity.  It does not show what my student’s may actually know.  This will also impact my teaching because I need to see each of my students as an individual and know what they know.  I should not do everything as a group because you really do not know if that student had master the concept or if their group did but not them.

Assess the individual so you know exactly what each student knows and what they don’t.

Group Post

Assessing Prior Knowledge: 


If you were teaching this with the targeted grade level students, how would you assess prior knowledge/experience:


In our lesson we assessed prior knowledge by having the class work together to determine what they think are facts and myths about worms and habitats. This will allow us to know what they already know about and what they may be confused about as true.

What would be the implications for instructional planning and assessment based on the activities you chose to do for assessing prior knowledge:


Since our prior knowledge is tested during the lesson we will look at their responses about what they think is fact and what they think is myth and focus more on things they are confused on.  So if every student seemed to understand that worms live in the dirt while some many students where focused on if worms had hearts or not we will emphasize more in the lesson on body parts of the worm especially if they have a heart.

Plans Instruction: 


Discuss how your goals, objectives, and outcomes are: 

Clearly stated:


They are clearly stated because we are stating exactly want we expect from our students.  For example, we expect our students to create a diagram of a worm and fill out the fact vs. myth sheet with 75% accuracy.  Anything below that is failing and the teacher will need to reassess how they will re-approach it.

Appropriate for students: 

This is appropriate for students because we are getting our students involved in their own learning.  The students are creating things such as a habitat with the dirt cup.  In addition this is appropriate for learning because we have instruction with our PowerPoint.  Another group we watched relied just on centers without any formal instruction.  Centers should support the students learning not be their only way of learning and we recognize this.  

Aligned to state standards: 

We used the state standards as a guide when creating our lesson plan.  We made sure that everything was covered in our lesson.  In this grade students are learning about habitats and worms and we feel we have a fun approach to this standard.

Designing Instruction: 


Discuss how your instructional design is contextually and logically organized: 


It is contextually and logically organized by starting off with a book to capture the student’s attention.  Afterwards we do a pre-assessment/prior knowledge activity by having the students state what is myth and what is fact about worms and myths.  After this the teacher is presenting a PowerPoint that cover the myths and facts we just tried to assess.  This is the time for the student to gain some insight and rethink about things they previously thought was true.  Afterwards we have the students do an assessment that is based on things we covered.  During this time we will be walking around the classroom and clarifying things to those students who have questions or are confused.

Discuss how it uses varied instructional methods that meet individual student needs and target higher order thinking skills:


We have a book and PowerPoint for the visual learners, our lecture and discussion over the PowerPoint meets the needs of our auditory learners, and our dirt cups and kid pix word diagram meets the needs of our hands on learners because they are “doing” what they just learned.  This lesson assesses their comprehension by making the students take their knowledge and apply to the same activity they did at the beginning of the class (the fact vs. myth sheet).  The lesson includes evaluating by having the students determine if the statement is a fact or a myth.

Discuss how it integrates technology from a constructivist perspective:


We included technology throughout the entire lesson.  We use technology to construct and create items like the worm diagram through the kid pix program.

Planning Assessment: 


How will your assessment tools demonstrate... 

The performance of linked goals and/or objectives: 


Our objective states the students will be able to determine facts about worms and myths so by giving the worksheet I am assessing if they truly learned information from the instruction I did with the PowerPoint.  In our instruction we are teaching students about the body parts of the worms and the importance of each part.  So at the end we assess the student by having them make the diagram in kid pix.  Our assessments are directly linked to our objectives.  We are not testing students on things we did not teach to them.

Student engagement in higher order thinking:


We are having the students compose and create their own diagrams and having them evaluate statements as either fact or myth.  We are not giving the students a boring multiple choice question.  We are getting the students involved and really seeing what they know by having them create something.  In a multiple choice test you don’t really know how much information your students actually know.  They might just be guessing.  This is a better choice is looking at what your students actually know. 

Meeting individual student needs: 


This will allow me to see if the student has mastered the concept or not.  If not I will be able to rework the way I did this and think of a new approach that meets their needs.  In addition it allows me to see where their confusion may be.  Maybe they are good with creating the diagram but are challenged by distinguishing facts from myths so I can take this information and focus next time more on facts about worms.  The assessment is also meeting individual student’s needs because the teacher is walking around the classroom and providing one-on-one assistance to those who need it.