Ms. Muller's Class
*This photo is licensed for use through creative commons.
Sample Lesson Plan
There are many great resources for lesson plans available to teachers. One resource I have found to be particularly helpful to me is Alabama Learning Exchange because the lesson plans are designed to teach the curriculum required in the Alabama Course of Study (ALCOS) standards. The lesson plans on Alabama Learning Exchange (ALEX) have provided a starting point for developing lessons that I can make my own through modification. This page walks through my thought process on creating lessons plans that meet my own standards, ALCOS standards and ISTE NETS-S standards concerning technology use. The button below is linked to the original lesson plan in its entirety.
Why I chose this lesson plan:
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The lesson involves working in groups.
-The lesson plan dictates that students be broken into groups of 3 or 4 to facilitate discussion and collaboration. Each group will work together to brainstorm what questions the word problem might be asking and will present their word problem to the class together. Group work is an important part of developing the social and interpersonal skills students need to be an effective member of a community or team. Collaboration also helps students learn from each other and approach problems from different perspectives.
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The lesson can be completely taught in one day.
-The expected time frame for the lesson is 30 to 60 minutes, allowing it to be taught during one class period. It only covers one standard so the lesson is focused and concise enough to fit into one day. This is important because if students master one concept at a time, they will not become overwhelmed or fall behind.
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The lesson plan includes the handouts needed to teach the lesson.
-The lesson plan provides the content materials that are needed by including handouts with the problems for each group, the handouts for determining what is known and predicting questions, and the handouts for putting everything together to solve the word problems. The handouts are provided in PDF form so they can be printed and handed out, or they can be accessed from the Internet if students were absent or using devices instead of pencil and paper.
Why this lesson plan needs modification:
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Lack of technology use.
-The only technology used in the original lesson plan was an overhead projector with a document camera (sometimes called by the brand name ELMO). The technology was used in the lesson to display the work of each group so they could present their word problem and how they solved it. This is a weakness because the students are not actively using and engaging with the technology, they are simply putting a piece of paper under a camera. The use of the overhead projector does not meet any of the ISTE NETS-S standards because it the students are not using the technology in an involved way. It requires no critical thinking or understanding, which are two foundations of the ISTE NETS-S standards.
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Provided a range of grade levels.
-This is not practical for me as a teacher, as I plan on teaching in a standard elementary school classroom that consists of students that are all in the same grade. Also, in trying to relate the lesson to multiple grade levels, the lesson looses focus. The lesson plan provides standards from grades 3 through 5 that require varying levels of prior knowledge and complexity of the problems. There are too many standards covering a wide range of skills for the lesson to meet them all in the one day it is taught. In order to try to meet the standards, there are separate handouts with different problems for each grade level, but this is unnecessary and confusing.
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Does not cover methods for solving word problems.
-This is a gap in the lesson plan because even if students know the quantity that is missing, they may not know how to use the information they have been given to find it. The lesson needs to give students strategies for solving the problem in addition to the strategies it teaches for interpreting what the question is asking.
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Weak assessment strategy.
-The lesson plan only states that students should be given an “exit slip” with a problem to solve individually. However, the exit slip only requires students to solve a word problem and show their work. This does not require students to show what they have learned about picking out key information in the problem and deciding what the question is, all they have to do is be able to perform the correct computations. The rest of the lesson is taught using group work, so it is important that the individual assessment shows whether students have really mastered the skills taught in the lesson but the exit slip in the original lesson plan does not.
How I would modify the lesson:
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Technology Modification
-I would improve the lesson’s use of technology by having students use another technology tool in addition to the overhead projector. I would make sure each student had an iPad for his or her individual use with the app Explain Everything. My technology modification would also be a modification of the individual assessment as I would have students use the app to create a video going through the steps of solving a word problem. I would post a PDF version of the word problem to my class website or another location where students could access it and upload it to the Explain Everywhere app. Students would then create a video of them working through the word problem. Students would record themselves annotating the story information to determine what the question is asking by highlighting key words and writing notes on the screen. Students would also use the recording feature of the app to add audio of them narrating and explaining each step. I would also have students show the strategy they use to solve the word problem by drawing a diagram and showing all other work. By using the technology tool Explain Everything, the lesson now meets one of the ISTE NETS-S standards, “creativity and innovation,” as students are applying the knowledge gained from the lesson to solve a new problem and create a unique product, a video tutorial.
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Pick one specific grade level.
-I would tailor the lesson to be implemented in a third grade classroom because I think solving word problems is crucial in improving the critical thinking and mathematics skills of students, so it should be introduced early. I would eliminate the ALCOS standards for grades 4 and 5 from the lesson to specifically focus on third grade. By focusing on the single third grade standard of solving two-step word problems using the four operations, I can make ensure that students have mastered this concept in one lesson. Also, by removing the fourth and fifth grade standards I would not have to worry about catching students up on prior knowledge needed to solve the problems as all students will be on the same level. I would modify the lesson to only have one set of problems, those that meet the third grade standard, to keep things consistent and uncomplicated. The whole class will be working on problems requiring the same skills, so students can help each other in their groups more effectively and present problems that are applicable to all groups.
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Provide further instruction on strategies to solve the problems.
-Students may have difficulty using the information provided in the word problem to actually solve for the missing quantity. I would tell students to draw a picture of the information so they can visualize the quantities in the problem and their relationship before solving. This would allow students to truly understand the concept fully and make it more appropriate for the ALCOS standard, as it focuses on actually solving the problem correctly and not just deciphering the question.
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Use technology tool for a summative assessment.
-I would modify the lesson to use the video created on Explain Everything as a summative assessment of the lesson instead of an exit slip. The use of Explain Everything is more involved and provides a better picture of the understanding of students. Using Explain Everything to create a video shows if students can apply the strategies taught and practiced in groups to a new problem they must solve individually. The video will not only show if students can come up with the right answer to the word problem, but that they understand the process involved.
ALCOS Standard:
Grade 3 Mathematics: Operations and Algebraic Thinking
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8.) Solve two-step word problems using the four operations. Represent these problems using equations with a letter standing for the unknown quantity. Assess the reasonableness of answers using mental computation and estimation strategies including rounding. (This standard is limited to problems posed with whole numbers and having whole-number answers; students should know how to perform operations in the conventional order when there are no parentheses to specify a particular order (Order of Operations).) [3-OA8]
The lesson plan connects to this standard because it requires students to decipher what a word problem is asking and then solve it. By looking only at the story information of the problem, the students must predict what question might be asked by determining what the unknown quantity is. Once the students determine what they are solving for, they must use the four operations correctly to get the right answer.
ISTE NETS-S Standards
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1. Creativity and innovation.
Students will individually use the app Explain Everything to create a video that breaks down and solves a word problem step-by-step. The students will be applying what they are taught in the lesson about interpreting and solving a word problem to a new problem in order to make the video. The students will develop an innovative product by using Explain Everything to make a video that annotates the given problem by narrating each step, highlighting important information, and drawing visual representations of the story information. The student will create an original video by using their own voice and drawings to express their method for solving word problems, so each student’s video will be different.