Michelle Read

Nativity School of Worcester

Eighth Grade Science

Period 6: 1:15-2:01pm

January 18, 2013

Clark University Master of Arts in Teaching Program

Learning Activity Plan

I.  Content: Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content?

Today, my scientists will present their research to younger students and the school community at-large during a gallery walk. They will also have time to look over the work of their peers as we are a community of learners.

II.  Learning Goal(s): Describe what specifically students will know and be able to do after the experience of this class.

·  Present their research on their element through their Element Super Hero Comic Book Project to the sixth grade class and visiting faculty members

·  Review the work on their peers as a community of learners

III.  Rationale: Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your Curriculum Unit Plan learning goals.

This is the summative lesson of the unit and allows my students to present their work to the school community. Not only do students now recognize that elements make up the world we experience around us, but they are now familiar with the properties that elements have and are experts on the element that they researched.

IV.  Assessment: Describe how you and your students will know they have reached your learning goals.

·  Students will share low stakes writing assignments

·  Students will write a letter to a fifth grader telling him about the properties belonging to three elements (not including what he researched)

·  Students will present their research to their peers, fellow Nativity Men, and teachers

V.  Personalization: Describe how you will provide for individual student strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each student and scaffold learning?

I recognize that some students thrive in a presentation situation and enjoy sharing their work with others, while other students become quite nervous in this situation. By allowing students the option to dress as their super hero, draw their super hero, and have their comic book with them at their gallery station, students have access to an aid that can help them to explain their work to others.

VI.  Activity description and agenda: Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of your class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path toward understanding.

Time / Teacher Activity / Co-Teacher Activity / Student Activity
1:15-1:20 / Greet students at the door, circulate to ensure students are on task and answering their Do Now / Circulate during Do Now / Class enters room, sits at their seat and answers Do Now prompt in their Interactive Science Notebooks, “If you were teaching science, would you do this project again next year? What would you do differently?
1:20-1:25 / Listen to Do Now answers / Listen to Do Now answers / Share Do Now Answers
1:25-1:35 / Circulate to ensure students are on task, answer questions, encourage and probe for higher level thinking / Circulate to ensure students are on task, answer questions, encourage and probe for higher level thinking / Set up, walk around to the stations of their peers, write down the properties of three elements in their notebooks
1:35-2:01 / Circulate to ensure students are on task, answer questions, encourage and probe for higher level thinking / Circulate to ensure students are on task, answer questions, encourage and probe for higher level thinking / Present their research to younger students and faculty by means of a Gallery Walk

VII.  List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses.

PS. 5 Recognize that there are more than 100 elements that combine in a multitude of ways to produce compounds that make up all of the living and nonliving things that we encounter.

PS. 7 Give basic examples of elements and compounds.

SIS1. Make observations, raise questions, and formulate hypotheses.

VIII.  Reflection

a.  In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose and learning goals, in what ways was the activity(ies) successful? How do you know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned differently another time?

I had originally anticipated one class to come in and visit our Gallery Walk, however two classes and 6 faculty members came to see my students’ research. My students were so happy and so proud to share their work with their community! I think that it was important that I gave students time to see the work of their peers before the other classes came in. In the future, I may break this into two days. The first day, students would present their work to each other, and on the second day they would present it to the school community.

b.  What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your next LAP?

In listening to students discuss the elements with the visitors, I noticed that several of them do not have a firm understanding of the size of elements and that they make up molecules and compounds. My next unit will begin with an NSTA assessment probe that will help me to better see where their misconceptions lie.