Pathwise Instruction Plan
Teacher: Sarah Qualls
Mentor: Lauren Sahmel
Grade: 1st and 2nd Multi-age
Co-Teaching Method: One Teach, One Observe (During Instruction, then Parallel teaching during Independent practice).
Subject: Science
Topic: Life Cycles
1. Learning Objectives
What Standards (National or State) is this lesson targeting? (The standard(s) provides your ultimate learning goal your students are working towards)
*SC.2.L.14.1 - Distinguish human body parts (brain, heart. lungs, stomach, muscles and skeleton) and their basic functions.
*SC.2.L.16.1 - Observe and describe major life stages in the life cycles of plants and animals, including beans and butterflies.
What are your objectives for student learning in this lesson? That is, what do you intend students to learn? What will students be able to do as a result of this lesson? Be sure to think through how it relates to your standards/ultimate goal.
*Students will engage and perform in “Body Parts Dance,” following along with corresponding kinetic movements that correspond with sung instructions.
*Students will create life-size body parts poster, labeling each body part: brain, heart, lungs, stomach, muscles and skeleton with 100% accuracy.
*Students will be able to verbalize the 4 basic stages of the life cycle of humans with 100% accuracy.
Target Students’ Specific Objectives -
-M.K - Student M.K. will be able to correctly spell and write each body part label as modeled on the Smartboard.
-K.K. - Student K.K. will engage in “Body Parts Dance,” with correct, appropriate motions, as lyrics suggest.
-H.M. - Student H.M. will be able to correctly echo read body part labels after placing them on his body parts poster.
Why have you chosen these objectives? How do they relate to your curriculum and to your students’ current progress?
*Science is the only subject within our classroom that completely integrates both grade levels. Throughout each unit, a combination of first and second grade standards are taught to give second grade a progressing integration into higher leveled concepts and a review on lowered ones. The first graders benefit from such a mixed model by receiving an introduction to advanced concepts along with a leveled progression of first grade ones.
Life cycles are a concept within the 2nd grade curriculum that both grade levels have been learning about for approximately 2 weeks, prior to implementation of this day’s lesson.
The objectives presented within this lesson are designed to review previously introduced concepts, such as the “Body Parts Dance”, which targets parts such as: eyes, head, ears, mouth, arms, etc. This song and dance will serve as an interactive “hook” to engage students in the days lesson as well as an informal assessment of prior knowledge.
Creating the life size body parts posters will allow for students to practice the concept of labeling as well as demonstrate learning of the body parts introduced within the SmartBoard lesson. It will serve as an engaging and interactive way to for students to showcase learning.
Verbalization of the four stages of a human life cycle will be conducted as teachers monitor student progress during independent practice. It will serve as a quick, individualized progress monitoring to ensure that children were able to relate the day’s lesson to their previous lessons on life cycles.
This lesson is vital to the students’ work in science because of the huge connection that the human body has to their greater study on life cycles. Life cycles will be studied throughout the majority of the nine weeks and relate heavily to students’ understanding of the world around them.
Target Students Objective Rationales -
-M.K. - This students in far below grade level in both reading and writing. One major area of struggle is her illegible handwriting and spelling. This objective, specific for her, will allow her to strengthen and focus her handwriting skills.
-K.K. - This student, as noted in the Child Study, has extreme distractibility and attention struggles. He struggles to exercise self control and maintain attention during most activities. While the dance will allow for kinetic movement, which is an area of strength for K.K., a major milestone for this student would be to focus on specific motions that relate to the lyrics rather than random motions.
-H.M. - This student struggles greatly with reading abilities. Fluency is an area that we have been targeting within his small group work. The vocabulary words within this lesson should be able to be echo-read upon completion of independent practice, due to repeated readings and creation of life size body parts poster.
2. Content Knowledge
What is the underlying content knowledge that you must help the students to understand?
What are the tricky pieces in the content? When you deconstruct the content you are teaching, what are the pieces that are essential for children to understand? Are there individual students who you anticipate will have difficulty with any of these pieces?
*The underlying content that must be understood prior to this lesson is the concept of life cycles. This is an important standard within the lesson, but one that will only be briefly discussed due to the prior experience that the students will have had with the topic. However, if one of the students does not have a clear understanding of the concept, this section could present some confusion.
*Also, the vocabulary within this lesson can prove tricky for students that hold little previous knowledge of more advanced body parts. Instruction must be engaging and explicit when introducing and reinforcing vocabulary within this lesson.
*Thus far, the students that I anticipate having some trouble with this lesson are essentially the target students previously mentioned. Their individual objectives will allow for attainable goal achievement.
3. Student Grouping
How will you group students for instruction? Why have you chosen this grouping? How have individual students affected this grouping decision?
*Students will be grouped in whole group for the opening and guided practice portions of this lesson. Independent practice will be completed in pairs. Students are accustomed to both grouping styles within each of their lessons. The whole group setting allows for active engagement of the SmartBoard and for all students to engage with material. Paired groupings during independent practice will allow for small group work and collaboration as each students creates their own poster. They will be able to cooperate on the assignment through conversation and sharing of ideas.
4. Methods
What teaching method(s) will you use for this lesson?
Why have you chosen this method or these methods? What individual students affected these methods decisions?
*For the Opening of this lesson, students will be in the direct instruction, whole group setting, but will be engaging in an interactive song and dance to access prior knowledge on the topic of simple body parts. A great number of the students, especially K.K. influenced the implementation of kinetic movement during this phase of the lesson.
*During the Explicit and Guided Practice, students will be engaging in the interactive SmartBoard and practicing the skills targeted within the lesson. Each student will have at least one opportunity to complete a task on the board and then choose a fellow classmate to participate. All tasks are interactive and will allow for students to demonstrate learning.
*During Independent Practice, students will be in pairs because of the interactive and collaborative aspect that this method offers. They will be completing individual work, but will be interacting and exchanging ideas with one another to achieve higher order thinking. This portion will be differentiated by the pairs that students will be grouped in and the different assessment strategies that the students, namely the Target students will be engaging in.
*My target students effected these methods by their unique learning styles and motivational needs, as highlighted in my Child Study.
What students need differentiation in this lesson in order to be successful?
*K.K., M.K.,H.M
How will you differentiate for these student needs?
*K.K. - This student will need to be paired with a student that is highly focused and self-motivated. Any student with even minor distractibility can lead K.K. off task and therefore, a self-driven student is usually the best match for this student.
*M.K. - This student has a great deal of trouble expressing her learning in writing. To allow her to demonstrate her learning, while the other students will be expected to write descriptions to accompany their labels, this student will be able to achieve by only writing the labels legibly and with correct spelling, which will be modeled.
*H.M. - This student will have an additional assessment to demonstrate fluency and understanding of the vocabulary introduced. He struggles a great deal with reading and reinforcing his learning of specific science vocabulary with individualized instruction will allow him to gain confidence and a better understanding of the content. During independent practice, we will work on echo-reading the vocabulary labels.
5. Activities
What activities have you planned? There should be clear alignment between your activities, your objectives, your evaluation strategies, and your methods and grouping.
Activities Time Allowed
Opening:
5 minutes
Teacher will begin by introducing students to the topic of learning about humans, our life cycle and body parts. Teacher will ask students what body parts they already know about and then discuss that they will be listening to a song that will review the body parts we already know. Teacher will explain that the song is very fun and that students will be able to dance to it, however they must follow along with the lyrics and move the individual body parts that the song discusses. Furthermore, all students will not be required to dance, but must all stand and at least point to the part discussed in the lyrics.
Play:
Body Parts Song by: Have Fun Teaching
These are the parts of my body
From my head to my toes
I’m gonna move each body part
And say it, here we go
I move my head
I move my eyes
I move my nose
I move my ears
I move my mouth
I move my neck
I move my shoulders
I move my stomach
I move my arms
I move my elbows
I move my hands
I move my fingers
I move my legs
I move my knees
I move my feet
I move my toes
Teacher will model motions for students and informally observe to ensure each student is actively participating.
Main activity or activities:
SmartBoard Lesson - 25 minutes
Slide 1 - Life Cycle Review
Teacher will go over past life cycles that have been studied by the class and go over characteristics of life cycles in general such as: the life cycle is never ending, most have four major stages, all of them show growth.
Slide 2 - Human Life Cycle
Teacher will discuss human life cycle, which has been previously discussed in class. Slide will provide examples of what a human looks like at four major life stages - baby, child, teenager, adult.
Slide 3 - Teacher Life Cycle
Students will fill in blank life cycle with picture of teacher at the four life cycle stages of her life: baby, child, teenager, adult.
Slide 4 - Brain
Teacher will go over brief overview of brain locations and function. Students will practice firing neurons with interactive brain picture and discuss what the brain tells us to do.
Slide 5 - Heart
Teacher will discuss actual location and function of heart. Students will listen to pumping heart and trace flow of blood through body on SmartBoard.
Slide 6 - Lungs
Teacher will discuss lung function and allow students to pump lungs on SmartBoard in and out and practice taking deep breaths, taking notice of body’s reaction to inhale and exhale.
Slide 7 - Stomach
Teacher will discuss stomach location and ability to digest food. Students will model adding food to stomach on SmartBoard.
Slide 8 - Muscles
Teacher will discuss how muscles are all over the body and control movement. Students will work on moving interactive muscled man on SmartBoard and notice how they push and pull together to function. They will also practice finding muscles on their own bodies.
Slide 9 - Skeleton
Students will observe skeleton and discuss functions. SmartBoard activity will involve moving xray photos on top of appropriate location on human model.
Slide 10 - Fill in The Body Parts Diagram
Students will work on labeling diagram as class that will mirror their own independent work.
Body Part Posters 25 minutes
Students will be paired up and asked to collect crayons, pencils and find a spot on the floor in the room. Each student will be given a student sized piece of bulletin board paper. One student will lie down on their back while their partner traces their outline with pencil. Then the students will switch places. After tracing, students will cut out their person. They will each be given six labels to write discussed vocabulary words on each one. Then, students will draw the inside of their body poster, modeling it after the one discussed together. After drawing each body part, brain, lungs, heart, stomach, muscles, and skeleton, students will tape vocabulary labels in their proper place. Then, they will fill in their posters with other parts of what makes them unique - i.e: hair, face, clothes, etc. Students will work together to draw and place labels in their correct location. Teachers will assist with questions and informally observe each students progress, clarifying misconceptions and confusions. They will also ask each student to briefly verbalize the four life cycle stages of humans. Upon completion, students will hang their posters outside the classroom and inside for display. Teacher will take their picture next to their hanging poster to use for parent blog.
Closing:
5 minutes
When students are finished with their independent practice, teacher will call class together for final discussion and review. Students will discuss the body part learned today that they find most interesting and why. They will also discuss good and bad points of the lesson for teacher reflection and improvement.
Important questions to ask during the lesson that will a) push student thinking, and/or b) provide you with informal evaluation information:
Opening:
*Where there any body parts in the song that you didn’t know?
Main Activities:
*What stage of the life cycle are you at now?
*What ages do you think correspond with each stage for the human life cycle?
*What do you notice about how I, the teacher looked as a teenager and now as an adult? - elicit response - Growth slows between teenager and adult
*What does our brain help us do?
*How does our skeleton help keep our body safe?
Closing:
*What body part did you find the most interesting?
*Is there one that you would really like to learn more about?
*What about what we did today did you really like?
*What about today didn’t you like?
What achievement motivation strategies are you planning?
*Using modeling and guided practice and additional time to scaffold students to success
*Using fun or game like activities to boost interest
How are you communicating with students during the lesson? (2+ ways) How are students communicating during the lesson? (2+ ways)
Teacher to student
*Individual conferencing with students during independent practice to assess overall learning and life cycle stages.
Student to teacher
*Discussion and group conversation
*Interaction with SmartBoard lesson
What strategies are you planning for maximizing participation by each student?
*Allowing for students to participate in a variety of ways ie: not every student has to dance if they don’t want to, but they can still participate by pointing to body parts.
*Giving students an interactive and engaging activity that allows them to create their own life sized poster.
6. Materials
What instructional materials will you use, if any? Why have you chosen these specific materials? How have your students affected your materials decisions?
*SmartBoard lesson on Body Parts
*Body Parts Song
*White Bulletin Board Paper (19, child sized sheets)
*Markers, crayons, pencils
*Sentence strips cut into rectangles for vocabulary labels
*Scissors
These materials were chosen because they allow for increased engagement and interaction amongst the class. They will allow for children to be engaged throughout each section of the lesson with minimal passivity. This group of students have shown to thoroughly enjoy artistic projects, as well.
7. Evaluation
How and when do you plan to evaluate student learning on the content of this lesson? Do not forget about informal evaluation that should occur during the lesson.
*Students will be evaluated based on their participation of the “Body Parts” dance during the opening. They will be evaluated through informal observation during the Main Activities, both in the SmartBoard lesson and independent practice. They will also be evaluated on their completion and accuracy of their life size poster labeling as well as their verbalization of the four stages of the human life cycle.
Target Students -
M.K will be assessed with consideration of all other evaluations but with emphasis focusing on her handwriting legibility and proper spelling of vocabulary words. The words will be spelled for all students to reference, but even the act of copying correct, legible spellings has proven difficult for this student. We will have a brief conference on using our “very best handwriting” and the skills we have been honing so far such as sitting up straight and holding our pencil correctly.
K.K. will be assessed again, with consideration of all evaluations but with emphasis on his ability to follow along with the song’s directions. Listening and following directions is a major struggle that we have been working on with this student. His academics are not affected severely by his lack of focus, but it does make tasks more time consuming and frustrating for him. Working with him to focus on specific, short term tasks have been helping him set short term goals that are achievable.
H.M. will be assessed with much of the same standards as the majority of the students but with an added emphasis on his ability to echo read the vocabulary words discussed within the lesson.
Why have you chosen this approach to evaluation? How do your objectives align with these evaluation strategies? How did individual students affect these evaluation decisions?
The objectives of participation within the Body Parts song allow for the teacher to observe student prior knowledge of simple body parts that are the foundation for the lesson today. Informal observation during the main activities will allow for the teacher to progress monitor and ensure that students are mastering content throughout progression of the lesson and thus allows for reteaching and additional scaffolding, if needed. Evaluation of the life size posters will serve as the only formal assessment and will serve as a summative assessment of the entire lesson to gage understanding. Verbalization of the life cycle stages of humans will ensure that students are able to connect this lesson with the previous ones on life cycles and that a bridge between the two concepts is reached.
REFLECTION AFTER TEACHING
| 1. Did you depart from anything you planned for today? If so, why? | Initially, I wanted for each student to create their own life size, body parts poster. Unfortunately, my mentor teacher told me a few days before writing the lesson that she felt this would be too time consuming, so we put the students into pairs to complete the task, rather than individual groupings. |
| 2. Has anything that happened during this lesson influenced your evaluation plan? If so, how and why? | Yes, I decided to evaluate student M.K. on her dedication to cooperation and the work that she specifically did on her partnership’s poster. She was put in a frustrating group with a child that performed surprisingly poorly on this assignment and therefore the entire poster was not a true reflection of her learning. |
| 3. To what extent did the students learn what was intended? How do you know? As part of your answer indicate: In what ways were your teaching methods effective? How do you know? In what ways were your activities effective? How do you know? In what ways were the instructional materials effective? How do you know? How did any special considerations of accommodations effect the lesson? | I believe that the students learned a great deal of the information presented. The teaching methods were effective as determined by the level of student engagement throughout the lesson. During all portions, students were enthusiastic about material and format of learning. The activities again, were effective based on the student engagement throughout all activities and the level of success that the majority of the students showed through their work. The implementation of the SmartBoard, posters and song were all materials that were very different in nature and thus allowed the students to engage in the material in a variety of ways. I feel that they were highly effective based on student enjoyment and the achievement shown. The specific objectives designed for my three target students allowed the two that were present on the day of the lesson to showcase their understanding in additional ways that have proven in the past to be challenging for them. They responded very positively. |
| 4. Identify an individual or group of students who had difficulty in today’s lesson. How do you account for this performance? How will you help this (these) student(s) achieve the learning objectives? | Student Y.M. had a great deal of difficulty in the lesson today. She is a student of high distractibility and normally needs a great deal of redirection. This activity just provided too much stimulation for her to focus on the task at hand. She was able to pay attention moderately during the dance portion, but had a huge amount of difficulty with the creation of the body parts poster. |
| 5. Identify an individual or group of students who did especially well in this lesson today. How do you account for this performance? | Students C.M. and Z.F. showed a great deal of success with this lesson. They were both able to work together and added in additional labels not required in this lesson but only discussed during the SmartBoard lesson. I think that the hands on aspects of this lesson along with their interest level in the content accounts for their great accomplishment. |
| 6. If you were going to teach this lesson again to the same group of students, what would you do differently? (Consider: grouping, methods, materials, evaluation, activities) Why? What would you do the same? Why? | If I were to teach this lesson again, I would reevaluate my pairing of students and spend more time considering all aspects of grouping styles. A couple of the pairs were not as effective as I had hoped, while others went better than expected. I would keep all activities and teaching methods the same because they were effective for the majority of the students. The students that struggled was due in part to their proximity to the teacher and the lowered level of structure that this activity provided, so I would increase that by putting these students closer to me and making sure that they were accommodated with and more structured setting. |
| 7. Based on what happened in this lesson, what do you plan to teach next to this class? Be sure to explain how you will use information from this evaluation in future lesson planning. | After this lesson, I plan to continue our lessons on life cycles and offspring. The students will learn the basic concept of life cycles in more depth and discuss how parents and offspring are different and similar. This lesson showed that the students are capable and understood the same parts of their body that all humans share, so they are ready to interpret similarities and differences that all offspring have from their parents. |
