1. Group 7

2. Goals and Objectives to teach the children about genes and how different combinations produce different offspring. To help children easily recognize and recall information To allow the students to execute and implement gene changes and visually see the results. The focus of this lesson is to teach children how to : 1. Use the Genscope program. 2. Learn through means of technology. 3. Understand dominant and recessive genes. 4. Understand the basics of genes and chromosomes. 5. Apply knowledge to a “real life” situation. 6. Foster critical thinking and problem solving

3. NET Standards 1. Creativity and Innovation Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. Students: Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. Identify trends and forecast possibilities. 6. Technology Operations and Concepts Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Students: Understand and use technology systems. Select and use applications effectively and productively. Transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

4. Theoretical Framework This instructional goal guides our colleagues to follow a set of instructions that will guide them to apply existing knowledge to a new product and process new ideas into a modeling agent that will explore complex systems that will provide domain-specific environments. It will also apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes that can reach into our existing lesson planner for our own classroom science applications. This lesson can be presented for any grade after modification to its standards and instructional appliance

5. The Plan Introduction: We will introduce the ideas and objectives of this lesson by giving a brief overview of scientific terms (genes, recessive, dominant, etc). We will also do a demonstration of the software without answering the questions but putting in an x for response just to give students an idea of how the assignment will go. We think the story at the begging of the lesson about dragons and the idea of working with dragons is a great motivator. The activity itself gives a pre assessment of the student’s current knowledge on the subject. We would ask questions in an open discussion before the lesson that would assess their general knowledge and interest on the matter and hopefully both will increase upon the culmination of this lesson.

6. The Plan Main Activity: The students will be working individually on the computer. After a brief overview, verbally and visually through the use of demo-creator the students will begin the lesson. They will follow the prompts given by the software. The software is set up to move through questions and have the students complete several different activities. The software will not move forward until students have completed all parts and answered questions correctly. The activity is to first asses their knowledge of genes. Secondly they will learn about dominant and recessive genes through the variety of dragons. Third they will experiment with changing the genes. Then they will answer several questions about genes and their differences. Finally they will creature dragons’ by changing genes. The last part of the activity offers several ways to create dragons which will give time to those who need it and keep students who finish early occupied.

7. The Plan Conclusion: At the end of the lesson we will ask students if they liked the lesson. We will find out why or why not? We will then ask the questions the lesson asked to the students and have them respond in a large group discussion. We will ask what questions they struggled with and try to clarify through models on the board. Some questions we might ask of the lesson might be: Do females and males have the same chromosomes? If not what is different? What types of different physical characteristics did the dragons have? How many chromosomes did they have? Were there specific genes on each chromosome or were they all mixed up? We will provide oral feedback through answering and clarifying questions we will also develop a rubric and assess each student learning based on the discussion and outcome of the activity.

8. Implementation The implementation and field test that we applied was a pre assessment of what a sixth grade student may know than an interactive lesson where the student learned different traits and change different genes to make new traits. The software let the student see how recessive and dominant genes on certain chromosomes can determine traits on a dragon. Considering that the movie “ How to train a Dragon” was in the public eye, we used that topic to relate it with the GenScope.

9. Implementation A sixth grade student from Vista Middle School was our volunteer for this activity, we gave him first a questionnaire to fill out on what he knew about the recessive and dominant genes as well as what he knew about offspring. The student knew the basics about how we get our genes from our parents and how those depend on how we look. He also mentioned that he never thought on how genes can be created, but he read on a magazines on how you can build your offspring to your own taste. He was very interested in this topic.

10. Implementation After responding to the questionnaire the students had an activity to do with the GenScope program, where he had to recognize and recall information on genes and build his own dragon explaining the dragons dominant and recessive genes. After 30 minutes the student was done and had a presentation ready, I saw him working with lots of patience however he didn’t seem interacted, he kept saying that the pictures where so fake and complaining on the sound of the activity. He seemed a little disappointed on the program, because he was very interested on the topic and he lost interest with the program.

11. Evaluation After the activity was done we presented the same questionnaire to the students to see if he had learned anything knew. This time he added new information on recessive and dominant genes that he didn’t know before. The results of the activity presented were positive too, however I think that the environment and the day implemented were negative components to the activity (the activity was done in an elementary classroom on a Saturday) and it could have made the students a little unwilling to put more effort to the activity. However it was proven that the activity caught the student attention for 30 minutes straight. If we would have applied a more challenging task for the student to do maybe it would have had more result out of it, instead of the basic.

12. Assessment Procedures We assessed the students’ learning through a rubric (shown on next slide). We also evaluated questions and responses in the discussion. Lastly we compared pre and post assessments to determine the learning and growth achieved.

13. Rubric Rubric for Genscope Assignment Very little to no knowledge at all 0-1 Grasps basic concepts, needs additional help 2-3 Grasps concepts and can use them in a “real world setting” 4-5 Student ratings and comments DiscussionSeemed withdrawn; avoided conversation Asked/ answered questions, some knowledge, participated Asked/answered questions, demon. knowledge, actively participated. ParticipationLimited or no participation Participated in discussion/assignme nt Actively participated, collaborated with others. Genscope Assignment Didn’t complete assignment. Completed with difficulty Completed assignment with little difficulty in a timely manner.