Allison Miller ED617 November 20, 2017
Lessons in Practicum Rubric When You Don’t Present Item
Point(s)
Lesson plan includes all UAS template components and is organized and well-written
2
Before and after discussions with host teacher are summarized
3
Three student work artifacts are posted
2
Lesson is self-evaluated including reference to student work
3
Total
10
Professional Collaboration - When I asked my teacher to help me schedule a lesson to teach, she gave me the choice of teaching a lesson out of the regular curriculum or designing my own lesson on the rock cycle. She said that although the district has adopted the NGSS, they are still testing science at the fourth grade level on the rock cycle. I think it’s a bit odd that the NGSS doesn’t include the rock cycle, seeing how the concepts about Earth Science are hinged on the concept of cycles, nevertheless I was overjoyed to tackle designing this lesson! Candidate Name: Allison Miller
Host Teacher Name: Karen Bornheimer
School: Susan B. English
Grade Level: K-6
Date & Time of Lesson: 11/15/17
Length of Lesson: 1 hour
Topic of Lesson: The Rock Cycle
Content Area: Earth Science
# of Students: 19
Materials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bkyXvYP4jM - Untamed Science Video A white board or chart paper to draw a diagram of the rock cycle on. Rock Notes graphic organizer (attached) Rock Flip game (instructions for components attached) Rock and Roll Comic Strip sheet (attached) Fill in the blank Rock Cycle diagram sheet (attached) Standards: NGSS- 4-ESS1-1. Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers for changes in a landscape over time to support an explanation for changes in a landscape over time. Although the NSES has been replaced by the NGSS in the district, my host teacher said that students are still being tested on the rock cycle at the fourth grade level. STAGE ONE: Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings
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Enduring Understanding(s) : Students will understand how rocks form and change in a cycle. STAGE ONE (con’t): Objectives/Learning Targets (Acquisition) Knowledge and Skills: • Students will be able to describe the three main types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. • Students will know how rocks form and change.
Essential Questions to be Considered: How are different kinds of rocks made?
STAGE TWO: Assessments/Acceptable Evidence Of Learning Sources of Evidence: Students will • Keep notes in a graphic organizer (grades 3-6) • Create a comic strip of a rock’s changes while playing Rock Flip. • Fill in the blanks on the Rock Cycle Diagram worksheet
STAGE THREE: Learning for Understanding/ Instructional Activities The Rock Cycle Pre-Requisites: Students should have read their associated science content on Earth’s Four Systems, specifically on the Geosphere. Introduction: The teacher asks for a review of Earth’s Four Systems. Asks for show of hands of who knows what the cycle is called in the hydrosphere: water cycle. Today we are going to learn about a cycle that happens within the geosphere: the Rock Cycle. What is a Cycle? Something that happens over and over again. Does anyone have any ideas about what might happen in the rock cycle? Show students the Untamed Science video on the Rock Cycle. Action/ Lesson
Mini-hook/connection to prior learning/ knowledge
Process: Teacher does/ Student Does
Product: Assessment/ Evidence of Learning
Lesson on the Rock Cycle
What were the three types of rocks you learned about in the video?
Teacher will begin to draw a diagram on the white board of the rock cycle that closely resembles the handout they will fill out the blanks on. Students will provide input as requested by teacher. Students in grades 3-6 will fill out a note organizer.
Grades 3-6: Rock Notes (formative) Differentiation: Younger students will be involved in discussions, but as this is basically an introduction for them, their comprehension will not be assessed as closely.
Rock Flip Game and Comic Strip
Now we are going to pretend to be rocks that go through the different forces that change rocks from one type to another. We are going to play a game and create a comic strip of the changes we go through.
Teacher introduces the separate stations and explains the procedures of the Rock Flip game: (Divide class into 3 groups) You will roll the dice or flip the coin to find out what happens to you next. MODEL THE PROCESS. Before you move on to your next transformation, draw a little picture of what happened to you at this station. THE BEST COMIC STRIP GETS THIS COOL ROCK FROM MY COLLECTION. (Maybe one prize for each age group.) Keep playing the game until all the frames on your comic strip are full.
Rock Flip Comic Strip sheet (formative, performance) Differentiation: All students should be able to participate in this activity. Teachers and aides can help younger students by reading the information at each station. I have also included descriptive photos of each step in the process of change.
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Rock Cycle Diagram Sheet
Review what you learned about the rock cycle by completing the Rock Cycle Diagram sheet.
Once students begin to complete their comic strips, the can move on to completing the last page of their packet- a representation of the rock cycle diagram drawn on the board during the direct instruction section of the lesson. This fill in the blank sheet will serve as a review for the student and a summative assessment for the teacher.
Rock Cycle Diagram Sheet (summative) Differentiation: Younger students will not be assessed by this worksheet. Once they are finished drawing their comic strip, they can color it.
Closure: Restate EQ and briefly discuss whether objectives were met.
Self-evaluation: I felt a lot more at ease teaching this lesson than I have been in the past two lessons. I feel like I have come into my role finally and I have begun to take ownership of the authority and influence this position can have. I feel that my attempts to keep all students engaged really paid off. They were fully engaged in the instructional part of the lesson. I try to involve a lot of student input when it comes to instruction so I’m not just trying to lecture at young children, but I also was cognizant of the time constraints, so was wise in choosing which concepts to take student input about so it didn’t take up too much time. They were definitely engaged in the introductory video, but I’m not really sure how instructional it was for the younger students. As my host teacher said though, this was to be more of an introduction to the ideas of rocks changing for younger students. I might have done better to choose a Bill Nye video, but I really thought that the video I chose did an excellent job of showing actual footage of the changes occurring (well, except for maybe the metamorphic stage) in their natural state, where as the Bill Nye video was more of a clinical approach. Perhaps if I had more time, I would choose to show both of them, as they both have valuable things to offer. The rock flip game went pretty well for the older students, but it was difficult for the younger ones to really understand what was happening to them as rocks in each station, even when older students or aides read the transformations to them and they were accompanied by supporting illustrations. Another problem was that I might not have explained the procedures of playing the game well enough. I went through the motions of modeling a few turns, but some of the students didn’t understand what type of rock they were when they came to their station. Perhaps better station labelling would have helped, as well as simpler wording for the transformations. Either way, they seemed to be engaged in the process and didn’t rush through the turns doing sloppy drawings of the changes as I had anticipated. The worksheets I designed varied in success. The note taking form I created should have been better aligned with the video because they all stopped taking notes when the video was over. Perhaps a simple reminder during the instructional phase of the lesson would have been enough. The rock cycle diagram sheet was pretty successful, but I’m not sure that I could count it as a real assessment. If I had more time, I would like to review this information again at another time and give students a short quiz. I think in the next lesson I would also include reading material for the older students and have them do independent work. Student Artifacts:
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Michael is in 4th grade. He will be tested this year on the rock cycle during district standardized testing. I feel that he has a good understanding that the geosphere has cycles, just like the other systems that exist on Earth. He knows that rocks change and what forces change them, but maybe needs more instruction and practice on how these forces interact.
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Faith is a sixth grader. She was tested two years ago on the rock cycle and seems to have a good understanding of the idea of how different forces interact to change rocks. There was a bit of confusion for her about forces that change rocks into metamorphic rocks, but I am not confident claiming that any of these documents provide any kind of summative assessment.
5
Lily is in second grade. She did a very thorough job of drawing the changes she went through on her journey as a rock. I especially like the two that are cracks in the earth, exposing metamorphic rock being eroded by a river that forms in it. Reflection Overall, I feel that this lesson was a great introduction to the rock cycle and the idea that rocks go through changes. I would love to continue on with exploring the different forces and how the different systems of earth effect one another and interact. I feel like if I had one more hour session with them, we could review and practice these concepts and I could better assess their comprehension in a more summative way. If I were to do this lesson over again, I’m not sure that I would include the younger students. Even though I only gave them the comic strip assignment to complete, I feel like their participation even in the game might have been detrimental to the entire success of the lesson. If I would have only had the older students involved, I could have spent more of my time interacting with them on how these different forces work. Instead, a lot of my time was spent reteaching the younger students how to play the game. 6