ED208B Spring, 2000

Curriculum Critique

Yasuhisa Kato ()

05/03/2000

  1. Overview of “Birds of a Feather”

This lesson plan was developed through the project activities in Fermlab Leadership Institute ( which is a teacher education program for integrating the Internet, instruction and curriculum. This curriculum is three-month program for second graders and integrated with the Chicago Academy of Science Museums in the Classroom Threatened, Endangered, and Extinct Species Program. The main goals of this lesson are to increase content knowledge of birds and field observation, to enhance communication and collaboration between students, and to develop language arts and mathematical skills through creating a field guide.

This lesson consists of three sections. Section 1 is introductory and preliminary research group work, using the Internet and other reference materials including CD-ROMs. Section 2 includes establishing a data collection activities and initial setting of a path, in which students observe and count the number of birds before collecting data. In section 3, students gather data outdoors and analyze it by creating graphs. The results are compared in class and data in the Internet.

Students make their own field guides, which include their drawings, findings, and graphs about the birds. Assessment is based on this field guide and demonstration of technical skills and collaborative contribution through group work.

  1. Rationale, theories, and assumptions

This curriculum is based on the constructivist theory of instruction. Students approach each activity using skills that they have gained from prior activities or from experiences in their own lives. Scientific concepts are introduced following exploration with hands-on activities and investigations. Students build their confidence by exploring increasingly complex ideas on successive levels. In this constructivist theory, assumptions are: what students learn is influenced by what they already know about the world around them; existing ideas regulate the connections they make to new information and concepts. This theory tells that explanations of content do not help students to learn. The constructivists recommend teachers not to try to lecture or involve the concepts until after students have been engaged in the hands-on activities. Students can construct their own scientific knowledge and should be actively involved in the science lesson.

The study of birds is one of the basic units of study in the life science curriculum. It is designed to focus on the characteristics, function of birds as well as how living things change. Birds are an ideal study because they are pretty, fun to watch and found in most every habitat, even in urban environments. They also provide a fun way to explore science and preliminarily study the environment.

This lesson is based on group of five students and at least several internet-ready computers in the classroom.

  1. Analysis

There are four intended goals: (1) Increase knowledge of bird species diversity and basic field identification techniques; (2) Communication and collaboration with other students using technology; (3) Develop an appreciation for the discipline required to conduct a valuable study, (4) Increase language arts of recording, summarizing, and presenting information.

The topic is appropriate for second graders, because they all know something about birds and have some interests. Through web-based research, field observation, and making field guides, students can develop their knowledge of bird. Data collection and analysis is a good introduction to understand scientific methodology and knowledge. It supports goal 3.

The rubric in this lesson plan shows four categories: ability to collect, classify, organize, and retain information; demonstrates skill using resources and technology; collaborative worker, and; creates product that achieve their purpose. Each category has four measurement scales and they are appropriate to assess students’knowledge and skills in light of four intended goals to fulfill.

In section 3, making field guide is a particularly useful activity. Students can present their multiple aspects of intelligence. The analysis and summarize data and information is for language and analytical thinking. Creating graphs and analyzing data is for mathematics and science. Drawing birds and arranging the layout of the poster are for presenting artistic skills.

The drawback of this curriculum is in the web-based research and data collection. In this type of activities, students easily tend to get lost in the gigantic world-wide web space, even though teachers provide limited number of resource links. To conduct a valuable web-based survey, this lesson plan should have provided more specific and detailed processes of web-based research activity unless many teachers/TA’s available in one classroom.

The most disappointed factor is missing resources. It is not unusual for internet-based lesson plans. Web resources sometimes changes its URLs. In this lesson plan, half of the resource links are missing. It is unavoidable in terms of the Internet, but certain amount of resource links should have been provided to make this kind of lesson plan secure and reliable, even though some of the links disappear.