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Sample Lesson Plans | Teaching
Methods
(This lesson was modified from one which Dr. Glen Aikenhead designed.)
HINT: To write up a lesson plan so that a substitute teacher could do it takes
several hours. You do not want to do this every night for every lesson during
your internship!
1. Have a stock of
easy to implement, fit just about anywhere, lessons for substitute teachers.
Start collecting these now, so you can try them out during your internship.
2. Learn how to set
lessons into units, so that you can make unit plans with paragraph descriptions
(like on the data table I gave you for your unit plans), which will save you
immense amounts of time during your internship and your teaching. For your
internship, you will be expected to write many lesson plans. But once you
start teaching, you will mostly use the unit plan framework.
Instructional
Method: Simulation
This is a conceptual
(the students have to think), co-operative model (the students have to work
together). The activity fits within the Saskatchewan curriculum guides, since
it is transactional and since the emphasis is on the dimensions and factors
of scientific literacy.
I chose simulation
to teach these particular FSL since simulations are powerful for teaching
complex, real world situations which change as the students are involved in
the activity. This particular simulation will help the children gain an understanding
of the following FSL. They will not learn all the FSL, but will learn those
FSL which I bring out in the debrief. I will target the highlighted FSL.
Foundational Objective:
To help students gain an understanding of how science knowledge is constructed
by communities of scientists.
Learning Objectives:
A1 public/private, A3 holistic, C1 classifying, C2 communicating, C3 observing
and describing, C4 working cooperatively, C8 hypothesizing, C9 inferring,
C12 interpreting data
Other possible learning
objectives from this activity: A5 Empirical, A2 historic, A4 replicable, C6
questioning, C10 predicting, Fl longing to know and understand, F2 questioning,
F3 search for data and their meaning, F4 valuing natural environments, F5
respect for logic
Common Essential
Learnings: Communication (Students must communicate with members of their
small groups, must write their group results on the board, must present group
results to the class, must discuss questions and invite audience response,
and must write for assessment), Critical and Creative Thinking (Students must
analyze the difference between data and inferences, must attempt to discern
a picture without having complete data), Personal and Social Values and Skills
(Students must reflect on the importance of competition and co-operation,
must learn how to invite other members of their group to discuss their ideas,
must learn how to present to an audience and invite the audience to participate
in the discussion)
Time: About
two hours
Motivational Set:
The students will be put into groups of peers with whom they get along. The
activity in itself is inherently interesting to most students.
Activity:
The students are given the instructions for the activity. See attached overhead.
The students have 20 minutes to sort and put together their puzzle pieces.
As soon as they can, at any time during that 20 minutes, they will publish
their results on the board – publishing both empirical and theoretical
“papers”.
After 20 minutes, the second stage of the activity, sabbatical leaves, takes
place. See second attached overhead. Students take five minutes to decide
where they would like to go on sabbatical, and then they apply to go on sabbatical.
Each student on sabbatical has five minutes to work with their other team,
then return to their own team.
Students have another
five minutes to prepare a presentation for a conference. Each group presents,
and the next group can modify their presentation according to the presentation
they have just heard. Students write answers to the first student evaluation
sheet. They should start this in class, but will probably have to finish this
at home.
Student Assessment
(to first day activity): Each student fills in the attached sheet on what
s/he thinks the Big Picture is and why.
Criteria for Assessing
the student writing: Does the student differentiate between data and inferences
made from the data? (Differentiation is good.) Does the student logically
justify his/her version of the Big Picture by drawing on the data from all
groups, or just from his/her own group? (Using evidence from all groups is
good. But choices must be made.) Does the student justify why some data were
disregarded? Does the student present alternative hypotheses for what the
Big Picture could be? (If the student explains why these hypotheses are not
acceptable, this is better.)
The teacher should
note grammatical errors on the students’ writing, and write the proper
spelling of words in the margins. But the teacher’s role in the assessment
is to encourage the student to develop his/her ideas more. The teacher should
write a paragraph asking the student some interesting questions which challenges
the student to think a little more carefully about his/her answer.
Second Day Activity:
In small groups, students discuss the attached questions. Each small group
discusses a different question. The students have five minutes to discuss
the question in their small group, then groups present the summary of their
discussion to the whole class. The whole class is encouraged to agree, or
argue with the presenters. Presenters should invite members of the class to
venture opinions, by using tentative language (we thought that maybe, it is
possible, etc.) and by asking specific open ended questions of their audience
members.
Student Assessment:
Each student will write an answer to one of the questions. This writing will
be assessed holistically. The teacher should note grammatical errors on the
students’ writing, and write the proper spelling of words in the margins.
But the teacher’s role in the assessment is to encourage the student
to develop his/her ideas more. The teacher should write a paragraph asking
the student some interesting questions which challenges the student to think
a little more carefully about his/her answer.
Name:_______________________________________
1. What data did your group collect on the Big Picture?
2. What did this lead you to believe about what the Big Picture was?
3. What data did other groups collect on the Big Picture?
4. Did you change your idea of the Big Picture after considering other groups’ data? What do you think the Big Picture is now? Why?
5. Did other groups have different hypotheses of what the Big Picture was? Why do you believe your Big Picture is right and theirs’ is wrong?
In small groups, students will discuss the following questions. Each group will discuss a different question. The groups will have five minutes to discuss, and summarize their discussion. Then each group will have five minutes to present the results of their discussion (five minutes each group for presentation and discussion). Then each student will choose one question to write an answer to.
1. Did you work competitively
or co-operatively with other members of your small group? Did your group work
competitively or co-operatively with other groups? Do you think that scientists
compete or co-operate? Would competition or co-operation be better for the
development of scientific knowledge?
2. How did you communicate
with other members of your group? How did your group communicate with other
groups? How do you think scientists communicate with other members of their
research group? How do you think scientists communicate with other scientists?
What modes of communication are available to scientists?
3. Different groups
initially had very different ideas of what the Big Picture was. Why was this?
Scientists want to understand how the natural world works. Do chemists believe
the same thing as physicists? Why or why not? Do different kinds of scientists
have to work together to find out how the natural world works? Do you think
different kinds of scientists meet to discuss big ideas very often?
4. In what ways do
you think this activity was similar to what scientists do? In what ways do
you think the activity is not similar to what scientists do?
5. What have you learned about how the world of science works?
Name:__________________________
In what ways did the student encourage audience involvement in the discussion?
Name:__________________________
In what ways did the student encourage audience involvement in the discussion?
Name:__________________________
In what ways did the student encourage audience involvement in the discussion?
Name:__________________________
In what ways did the student encourage audience involvement in the discussion?
Each of you will be in a group, which will be your science research group.
Each group will have a set of data. Your group is to try to determine what
data you have, and what those data mean.
Your data are pieces
of a jig saw puzzle. You must try to find out what your pieces are a picture
of, and you must try to find out what the complete picture is.
Scientists gain status
by publishing the results of their research.
Rule 1: Publish often.
Scientists gain status
by establishing new fields, but this is very difficult.
Rule 2: Try to be the first to publish.
Scientists gain status
by publishing big ideas; however they must convince others that their big
ideas are true.
Rule 3: Try to get your theory of what the Big Picture is accepted by writing
a logical “argument” for it.
Rules for this simulation:
1. You must not look
at the work that other groups are doing. They are in their own laboratories
and are separated from you, perhaps by thousands of kilometers.
2. There are two
journals to publish in. One is an empirical (data) journal. In the empirical
journal, you describe what you have put together, or what your pieces look
like.
3. The other journal
is the theory journal. When you publish in the theory journal, you guess at
what the big picture is. You may (you will probably have to) draw on the publications
of other groups. For example, you might theorize that the big picture is maps
of the world because three other groups described map like qualities.
4. You must acknowledge
the people whose information you draw upon for your theory.
Remember
You do best at this game
If you publish the big picture first
If you publish often
If you publish first.
If you have been 'cited' often
Sabbaticals:
Your group may apply to send one member to work with another group. If your
application is accepted, your member will join the other group for 5 minutes.
The member may not take any puzzle pieces with him/her. The member takes only
what s/he has written down, or what s/he remembers.
Grant application
for sabbatical:
1 Write up an application:
which group you would like to send one member to, and why you think an exchange
with this group will be beneficial. In your grant application, you should
mention how the other group's research will be beneficial to you, and how
your research will be beneficial to them.
2 Submit the application
to your teacher, who will decide if your application is thorough enough. If
it is, s/he will contact the other group, to see if they are willing to have
you as a member of their group.
3 If all is accepted,
your member may take notes but no puzzle pieces to the other group, and may
work there for five minutes. While your member is working with the other group,
s/he will publish with them.
4 After five minutes, your group member may take notes, but no puzzle pieces, back to your group. Continue working as before.
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