Planning Value of Planning What to consider when planning a lesson Learning Performance Structure of a Lesson Plan

Class considerations for lesson plans Connecting objectives to assessment –Is the lesson plan assessing the particular objective? –Linking assessment to activities Linking activities to objectives Clarity of Representation - Activities and Models –Is it easily comprehensible and relative to students? Vividness of representation or phenomena Complexity of representation Meaningfulness to students Major features of representation or phenomena should be salient Audience & context –age of students and their prior knowledge –What else have they learned in science class? Scientific accuracy - demo, explanation & conclusion Order of instruction or sequencing –Building up in complexity –Accessing students’ prior knowledge

Value of Planning  Central activity of every teacher  What distinguishes an okay teacher from an excellent teacher!  A non-linear process

What to consider when planning a lesson? What learning outcomes do you want students to develop? How will you establish purpose? How will you engage students in lesson? How will you take into account students’ prior experiences and knowledge? How will you represent the content? What vivid phenomena will you use? How will you allow students to express their ideas? How will assess if students have met the learning outcomes? How will you sequence lessons so that they support the understanding of the learning outcomes?

What to consider when planning a lesson? Cont. How will you allow students to express their ideas? How will you assess if students have met the learning outcomes? How will you sequence lessons so that they support the performance specified in the learning outcomes?

Specify Learning Outcomes in Terms of Learning Performances Learning is more than acquiring declarative knowledge –Know or understand is too vague Understanding requires rich disciplinary specific applications of knowledge –Explaining, modeling, interpreting data Move from the standards, which are descriptions of the scientific ideas, to an articulation of the knowledge and skills students should demonstrate Use disciplinary practices/action terms to specify the performance students should learn. Makes explicit what students should learn and be able to do.

Learning performances l Use ideas that describe the performance you want students to learn and be able to do. n Explain, synthesize, verify, compare and contrast, apply n Not “know” or “understand ” l Example Not n Students will know the parts of the water cycle. But rather n Students will illustrate the water cycle by developing a model. n Students will explain the relationship between the various parts of the water cycle. n Students will interpret data to ……… l Makes explicit what students should learn and be able to do.

A Range of Performances (simpler to more complex) 1. Identify, describe, … –Students identify the type system, open versus closed, for a process and describe that in a closed system no material (atoms and molecules) can enter or leave the system. 2. Measuring –Students measure important physical magnitudes such as volume, weight, density, and temperature using standard or nonstandard units. 3. Representing data and interpreting representations. –Students using tables and graphs to organize and display information both qualitatively and quantitatively. 4. Predicting/Inferring. –Predicting/inferring involves using knowledge of a principle or relationship to make an inference about something that has not been directly observed. 5. Give an example of –Student produce an example 6. Posing questions. –Students identify and ask questions about phenomena that can be answered through scientific investigations.

Performances (continued) 7. Designing and conducting investigations. – Designing investigation includes: identifying and specifying what variables need to be manipulated, measured (independent and dependent variables) and controlled; constructing hypotheses; specifying the relationship between variables; constructing/developing procedures that allow them to explore their hypotheses; and determining what observations will be made, how often the data will be collected, and what type of observations will be made. 8. Constructing evidence-based explanations. –Students use scientific theories, models and principles along with evidence to build explanations of phenomena; it also entails ruling out alternative hypotheses. 9. Analyzing and interpreting data. –Students make sense of data by answering the questions: “What does the data we collected mean?” “How does this data help me answer my question?” Interpreting and analyzing can include transforming the data and finding patterns in the data. 10. Evaluating/Reflecting/Making an Argument. –Students ask: Do these data support this claim? Are these data reliable? Evaluate measurement: Is the following an example of good or bad measurement?

Learning Performances Content Scientific Learning Standard Practice Performance

Structure Of A Lesson Plan Lesson Title Lesson Overview A short description of the lesson. Learning outcomes (performance) What do you hope to accomplish in the lesson? What concepts or inquiry skills will students develop? Will students develop background experiences for the project? Students’ Prior Knowledge of Experience How will you take account of students’ prior experiences and knowledge? Establishing Purpose How does the lesson establish purpose and meaning for the students? Does the lesson show/establish connections to other lessons and students’ interests and motivation? Instructional strategies –What are the instructional strategies that you will use in the lesson?

Lesson plan cont. –Materials needed What materials will you or the students need? –Time required Estimate the amount of time it will take for you to complete the benchmark lesson. –Instructional sequence How will you sequence lessons so that they support the understanding of the learning outcomes? –Introducing the lesson How will you introduce the lesson to the students? How will you motivate and capture students’ attention? How will you find out about students’ prior knowledge? How will you engage students in lesson? –Representing the content How are you representing the content students will learn? What explanations or learning activities are you using? Are the phenomena vivid for the students in the class? How will you connect the ideas to students’ prior knowledge? –Promote students thinking about concepts of the lesson How will you promote student think about the concepts of the lesson? How will you allow students to express their ideas?

Lesson plan cont. –Establish links to the purpose of the lesson and unit: How is the activity related to the unit, to issues in society and to student lives? How will you point out to students that what they are learning is related to the driving question of the project? –Concluding the lesson: How will you bring the lesson together. What the main idea of the lesson? How is the activity related to what students are to learn? Assessing Student Understanding – How will you determine if students met the learning outcomes? What is the relationship between this lesson and student products or artifacts or other forms of assessment that you will be using? Sources –Where did you get the idea for this lesson. List references used to develop lesson plan (e.g. curriculum materials, Internet resources) Student Resources – Include student materials Cautions –Are there any dangerous or hazardous components of the activities associated with the lesson? What precautions need to be taken?

Elaborating Standards 1. Considering students prior knowledge –Students prior knowledge –Possible non-normative ideas 2. Interpreting –Decompose into related concepts –Clarify ideas –What other ideas are needed –Examine Atlas to see links 3. Make links to other standards/benchmarks 4. Specifying learning performance

Standards’ Elaboration Materials Instruction Assessment Learning Standards