Week 12, Assignment 1: Lesson Plan, Technology Integration

Your name:  Henry Chiu        

Grade Level: 4

Title of the lesson:  Exploring Ways to Publish Science Research

Length of the lesson: One 40 minute period

Central focus and central technology of the lesson The central focus of this lesson will to introduce Google Docs as an effective collaborating tool for students to work on their small group projects with the goal of publishing their science research on the development of tadpoles.

Knowledge and skills of students to inform teaching (prior knowledge/prerequisite skills and personal/cultural/community assets) Through prior instruction and practice, students will have proficient skills in writing informative texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly and with descriptive details and clear event sequences.  Students will also have practiced conducting scientific research through observation to build knowledge of a specific topic.  Students will have observed and taken notes of the classroom’s developing tadpoles prior to this lesson.

Common Core State Standards/Content Standards CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.

Support literacy (traditional literacy, domain specific literacy, or new literacy) development through language (academic language) Students will describe their scientific research with descriptive details of their observations in a logical sequence.  They will create a shared Google document that will describe their project, analyze the physical changes of the tadpoles, provide evidence, make scientific inquiry and generate predictions.

Learning objectives The objective of this lesson is to introduce the use of Google Docs as a collaborating tool to capture the observations of students in written form.

Formal and informal assessment (including type[s] of assessment and what is being assessed) The teacher will work with students individually who have challenges using Google Docs before pairing up more technologically proficient students to assist fellow classmates.  In this introductory lesson, students will be assessed on their understanding of the benefits of a collaboration tool and their ability to utilize Google Docs to begin capturing their written work.

Instructional procedure: ·         The teacher will lead a class discussion to review their recent observations of the developing tadpoles. ·         The teacher will utilize the classroom SMART Board to demonstrate Google Docs using previously-prepared files that show collaboration. ·         The teacher will explain and demonstrate the key functions of Google Docs on the SMART Board. ·         The teacher will task the students with collaborating in their previously-established small groups to capture their observations, scientific inquiry and evidence. ·         In their small groups, students will begin their collaboration using Google Docs while the teacher will provide assistance as needed. ·         After twenty minutes, the teacher will regroup the students for a class discussion on their experiences and challenges using Google Docs.

Instructional resources and materials used to engage students in learning. Classroom SMART Board plus one classroom computer for each group of 3 or 4 students.

Reflection This lesson supported the objective of introducing a collaboration tool like Google Docs so students can capture their written work, analysis, details, and evidence.  This was meant to start the students on a multi-week project that will result in final small group projects that will be presented to the class.  With minimal instruction provided by the teacher, students will engage in constructivist learning to form their understanding and develop practical knowledge of Google Docs.