301 Applied Lesson Plan: Social Constructivism

My lesson plan is based on three different types of faults that cause earthquakes and how they affect the Earth's surface. This lesson plan can also be taught from the Social Constructivism perspective. I have decided to teach this lesson using an instructional conversation. In an instructional conversation, the teacher is the more knowledgeable other. The teacher is the one who leads the conversation, providing instruction on the topic when necessary. This instructional conversation would start by asking the students if they have ever been in an earthquake, and if they have, what it felt like. It is important to activate and use background knowledge in any good teaching, but it is also a key component of a good instructional conversation. The conversation would then turn to what causes an earthquake and asking how the Earth moves during an earthquake. This helps establish the thematic focus for the lesson. Then the instructional part of the instructional conversation comes into play. This is when I would share the first type of fault that causes earthquakes, or the lateral fault and model the fault with my hands. Then I would have the students participate and do the same thing with their hands. I would then ask the students where they felt pressure when they did this demonstration and how their hands reacted. I would ask them why they think the demonstration worked the way it did. I would ask them what they think the connection between the model we made with our hands and how the Earth responds to this kind of fault. Because I am doing an instructional conversation, I would ask these questions to encourage general participation and allow them to express their thoughts instead of just telling the students about the lateral faults without the students' involvement. I would have this kind of conversation for the next two faults as well.

At the end of this activity, I would have students work in pairs and discuss diagrams of the different types of faults. They would label the faults and discuss how they know which kind of fault to classify the diagrams. This is a good way for the students to apply their knowledge to a new situation.

In my lesson, I used cultural tools by having the students look at diagrams. These kinds of tools help them to break down the knowledge they learned in the instructional conversation and apply to a different setting. I also tried to make sure that this lesson would be able to take into account the students' zone of proximal development, which is what a student can do with help that they cannot do on their own. Although all the students will not be at the same level, it is important to try and reach as many of the students that I can. I tried to do this by realizing that most students would have a difficult time just reading about faults and trying to figure out what they actually look like. By having the students model these faults themselves, they are hopefully able to understand the concepts better than if they had tried on their own to understand them. This lesson also has opportunities for teachers to scaffold student learning. This can be done by reminding the students of the characteristics of each fault before students work in pairs to identify the faults in diagrams. By doing this the teacher supports their learning and helps them be ready to work by themselves. The relationship between the learner and the more knowledgeable learner, the teacher in this case, is important to consider also. It is important that this relationship is built on trust and understanding. When teachers and students have this kind of relationship, there is a safe learning environment and students are more willing to take risks in order to understand the concepts. While part of the goal is for the learner to gain knowledge from the more knowledgeable other, it is also important for the teacher to take advantage of opportunities to learn from the students. There is always more to learn and different perspectives and explanations that are good to consider. This is why it is important to have a solid relationship of respect and an attitude of learner between the learner and the more knowledgeable other.

TPACK for Virtual Tour

The content that I am using for this virtual tour is found under the 5th grade social studies core. It is standard 4, objective 3 indicator a which states that students will identify the key ideas, events, and leaders of the Civil War using primary sources (e.g. Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, news accounts, photographic records, diaries). This activity focuses on a key leader of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. Students will use primary sources when they read or listen to the text of Lincoln's first inaugural address and the Gettysburg address. In addition, they will learn more about Lincoln's life and how much the American people mourned his death. This content will help the students understand the background of the Civil War.

The pedagogy for this activity is to teach the students about Lincoln and his life in a way that makes him real, not just some old President. By going to places that he lived, students will learn more about the things that he did and how he impacted history. A tour of a person's life gives insight into that person and establishes a connection between the learner and the person being studied. This is why teaching about Abraham Lincoln through a tour of main events of his life fits well with the content. The boring facts on a textbook page come to life when using this method to teach about Abraham Lincoln and his role in the Civil War.

For this activity I am using Google Earth to create a virtual tour. This technology fits well with the content and pedagogy. By creating a virtual tour, students can personalize the content more than if they were reading the text by themselves. Google Earth has Wikipedia articles that are helpful for students to do their own research. This helps them become owners of the information, because they discovered it for themselves. Also, by creating a path, students will see the connection of events through Abraham Lincoln's life. The content of the Civil War comes to life when it is learned through the technology medium of Google Earth.

Virtual Tour Plan

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site	Read Wikipedia article- What was the Lincoln's farm called?	Wikipedia research
2. Washington, D.C.	Look at pictures of Lincoln's first inaugrual address- What is one thing he said in his speech?	Outside link to pictures and address
3. Gettysburg National Military Park	Listen to Gettysburg address	Link to Gettysburg address
4. Ford's Theatre National Historic Site 5. Lincoln's Tomb State Historic Site	View pictures of interior and read wikipedia article- What play was Lincoln watching when he was assassinated? Read article and measure distance that the funeral train traveled to bring Lincoln to his grave	Wikipedia research Measure pathway
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:	Pathway between Ford's Theatre and Lincoln's tomb, overlay of pictures of Lincoln's tomb

301 Applied Lesson Plan: Developmental Cognitivism

My lesson plan is based on the three different types of faults that cause earthquakes and how they affect the Earth's surface. This lesson plan can be adapted to support the Piagetian constructivist learning principles. For example, taking into account Piaget's stages of cognitive development allows us to consider what the 5th graders will be able to understand about this particular concept. Fifth grade falls under the concrete operational stage, and while not all children develop at an exact rate, it is still most likely that the majority of students will be at this stage. Thinking about the characteristics of this stage will help us understand how the students will respond to the lesson. For example, in the concrete operational stage, children understand reversibility, so if I wanted to first show the students a picture of the aftermath of an earthquake, the students would be able to think backward from the end result to the beginning (the earthquake). Also, in the concrete operational stage students are able to classify, which is important because the lesson asks the students to be able to distinguish the characteristics of each type of fault and classify them as either a lateral fault, a reverse fault, or a normal fault. By looking at Piaget's stages of cognitive development, we understand more about the students we want to teach.

Although this helps us better understand our students, it is not enough. Every student learns in ways that are specific to them. In other words, there is a uniqueness of individual learning that always exists for each student that is in a classroom. This is why it is important to learn about each individual student and what helps them most to learn and understand content. In order to facilitate learning about the content of the types of earthquakes, I would make sure that the students have an experience that involves action. This lesson already has an activity like this in it; it uses hand movements to help the students understand what the types of faults look like. This activity helps the students be involved in the discovering of new information. Another important factor to learning when using the developmental cognitivism approach is the necessity of social interaction. Interacting with others is important because it helps us construct our knowledge in a social context. This particular lesson plan does not take into account this need, so I would modify it by having the students quiz each other on the types of faults. They could model with their hands and their partner could tell them which fault they were modeling. They could also work together as pairs to come up with lists of characteristics that each fault has. This would be a way to incorporate social interaction into the lesson.

There are other concepts of developmental cognitivism that are beneficial to consider when thinking about this approach. For example, it may be necessary that students adapt their previous thoughts about earthquakes when they learn new information. This could happen if students thought that earthquakes only happen suddenly without any warning. The conflict of previous knowledge and new knowledge that the student is experiencing is called disequilibrium. By realizing that the types of faults determine how an earthquake will happen, they will adapt their thinking to fit the new information. When the student realizes that their previous knowledge does not help them understand the new information, that is when they use assimilation to fit their their thinking with the new information. They students adapt their earthquake schema, or organized systems of thinking, to fit into what they have just learned. Also, this lesson can incorporate guided discovery learning to help students learn and adapt to the new information. This could be done by having the teacher not do so much direct instruction, but instead allow the students to notice the characteristics of each fault type and to come up with conclusions on their own. These are some of the ways this lesson can be descirbed from a cognitive development point of view.

"Tryin' On Clothes" Digital Storybook

This is our digital storybook. We did a poem interpretation of the Shel Silverstein poem Tryin' on Clothes.

301 Applied Lesson Plan: Behaviorism

My lesson plan is about the types of earthquakes and how they affect the Earth's surface. My goal for this lesson in the form of a behavioral objective is that students will understand the three kinds of faults: lateral fault, reverse fault, and normal fault by using their hands to model these faults. The students will demonstrate this understanding at the end of the lesson by writing a paragraph about the types of earthquakes and how they change the landforms around them.

When teaching this lesson, I will encourage class participation by using reinforcement. If I gave the student praise about how their response showed a good thought process, that would be considered positive reinforcement because I am trying to strengthen behavior (participation) by presenting a desired stimulus (praise) after the behavior. If I told my students that if they participated and showed me they understood the concepts through their written paragraphs, then I would excuse them from doing clean up crew before recess, that would be negative reinforcement. It would be negative reinforcement because I would be trying to strengthen the behavior (participation and understanding concepts) by removing an aversive stimulus (picking up scraps before going to recess).

If I decided to use positive reinforcement in the form of verbal praise, I would need to decide when to use this reinforcement. In other words, I would set up (either consciously or subconsciously) a reinforcement schedule. The type of schedule that provides the most response for the longest amount of time is the variable ratio schedule. If I decided to use this schedule, then I would vary the amount of responses before I gave praise. This shows that I value the students thinking processes, but they don't need to be praised every single time for them to keep up the desired behavior.

Another Behaviorist principle that can be employed in this lesson is using a cueing and prompting system. For example, at the end of this lesson it is suggested that students write a paragraph about their understanding of earthquakes and faults. The cue for this could be getting out a paper and pencil so that they are ready to write. The prompt could be a checklist provided by the teacher that helps the students remember what is expected when writing a paragraph like this. Points on the checklist could include writing in complete sentences, summarize principles, and connect to past knowledge. These things would prompt the students to write a paragraph about what they learned without the teacher guiding them the whole way through the process.

Using the Premack principle when teaching this lesson could motivate the students to become more involved. The Premack principle uses a more-preferred activity to serve as a reinforcer for a less-preferred activity. For example, if my students enjoy drawing pictures and coloring, I could say that if they first write their paragraph about what they learned, then they could draw pictures of the types of faults with their colored pencils under their paragraph. The more-preferred activity, or coloring, would reinforce the less-preferred activity, or writing a paragraph.

This lesson plan supports the Behaviorist principle of shaping. Shaping is reinforcing each small step of progress toward a desired goal or behavior. In this lesson, there are 3 steps that could be used in a shaping approach- making models of faults using their hands, discussing the models, and writing a paragraph about what was learned. Each of these steps can be reinforced when they are reached. This is easily seen in the task analysis that is below.

Digital Storytelling with TPACK

The content we are addressing in this activity is from the Utah State Core. Specifically, we want students to develop language through viewing media and presenting and to help students write daily to communicate effectively for a variety of purposes and audiences. The students will use their language skills to write for the purpose of creating a digital storybook for their peers. This process of writing and creating is the content that we are focusing on through this activity.

This activity has a hands-on approach for the content. By having the students arrange or create the language for their storybooks, it allows them to understand how the language works together to form the whole. By having students also create images to go along with their text, it helps reinforce comprehension. This is why this activity is a good way to teach the content.

To complete the TPACK formula, we need to look at how we use technology in our activity. The technology we use in this activity is a digital camera and a program to put the images together in a storybook form. The technology helps support both the content because they are the medium through which the students are expressing their ideas. The technology also supports our pedagogy for teaching because it allows the students to take control of their learning. Students can record the images they create with the digital camera and then arrange the images to correspond with the text to create the digital storybook. This project allows the students to make decisions on what will be best for their text and to implement those decisions. This is how all the components come together for TPACK in this activity.

Storyboard!

301 Applied Lesson Plan: Cognition

The lesson plan that I have chosen to use is based on the different types of earthquakes and how they affect the Earth's surface. The lesson describes three kinds of faults: lateral fault, reverse fault, and normal fault. In order for the students to remember these types of faults, I would use the chain method. The mnemonic sentence that I made up to help remember this is Lazy Rita Naps. The beginning letter of each of words stands for one of the types of faults (lateral, reverse, and normal). Hopefully this strategy would help students remember these specific terms about faults. Another strategy this lesson employs is that of elaboration. I would use this by relating these faults to existing knowledge they already have. For example, I could relate a reverse fault to an arm wrestle- one hand is pushing up and the other is pushing down. A third strategy for remembering these terms is to create a concept map. The main idea would be "faults" with links to the types of faults. Then arrows would connect to the attributes of each type of fault, such as side-to-side movement for a lateral fault.

This lesson supports cognitive learning. For the beginning of the lesson, I would show before and after pictures of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This would catch the attention of the students because they would be focused on the stimulus of the strong visual images. The processing of this stimulus into information is done initially in the sensory memory. Students process the stimulus and give it meaning and interpretation, such as the meaning that earthquakes change the Earth's surface in dramatic ways. This is known as perception. As we discuss and demonstrate the different types of faults, this knowledge will be in the students' working memories, which is where the information is that you are focusing on at a specific time. As we work on the mnemonics and connecting new knowledge to previous knowledge, hopefully the short-term knowledge about faults will be transferred to long-term memory where the students will be able to access it in the future. Through this lesson, the students will be able to know that earthquakes change the surface of the Earth, which is an example of declarative knowledge. This is how the lesson can be applied from a cognitive learning viewpoint.