"The Maker Movement is about moving from consumption to creation and turning knowledge into action"
- Laura Fleming
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I recently had the opportunity to create a lesson plan that would fit in with The Maker Movement. I wanted to create a lesson that was deeply integrated within my context and included various opportunities for students to make physical models of systems that they had learned. Since I teach 5th grade science, I thought I would make a 5th grade science lesson that prepares students for the Grade 5 Science MSTEP by reviewing past concepts that we have learned throughout the course of the year.
Before you read, view my full lesson here.
My lesson begins with students revisiting past science concepts from their science notebooks. Their notebooks include KWL charts, graphic organizers, drawn models, notes, etc., that can help students revisiting what they have already learned, activating their background knowledge about the concepts. We then move into the reviewing piece of the lesson, in which students learn how to review past learning through annotation, note taking, drawing, and rereading. We will chat about how to review and what it means to be a good reviewer. Students will spend some time here deciding what concept they would like to review and then honing in on their specific topic. Finally, students will move into group work. Here, students will be choosing a concept, and no concepts will be overlapped, so it will be based on a lottery system. This way, all concepts are reviewed by the end of the project. Students will be grouped into partnerships or groups of 3 based on their choice concept. They will then begin the process of mapping out their work. Students will be creating a 3D model of a system that we have learned in the past, including the water cycle, chemical reactions, food webs, food chains, moon phases, sun/earth rotations, etc., and then creating a stop motion animation of this system to show the interactions of all pieces. They will begin this process by sketching out their models and their stop motion animation series of photos on comic strip-like paper. They will work with their teams to come up with ideas on how they plan to show how their system works. These models will then be shared out with the class and students will give feedback on the models, giving students a chance to revise their models. After feedback, students will begin their journey of creating their 3D models and filming their stop motion animation. There isn't much criteria that students must meet in order to be successful with this project, except that videos should be at least 30 seconds long, and should include labels of all parts of the lesson.
In order to introduce the lesson and teach students the basics of the animation software we will be using (StickBots Studio), I have made an introduction video to show my students. This video not only gives students a chance to see how to make the video, but also shows students what makes a good model and how to label each part of their models. Watch the video here.
This lesson was thoughtfully made with TPACK in mind as a driving factor. TPACK stands for technology (T), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and content knowledge (CK), and is a framework used to show the integration of all three of those factors in a given lesson.
T: The technology used will be transformative of the information presented because students will be creating 3D models of their system and creating a stop-motion video to show how the system works. Most of these systems have various interactions that students can show using the stop motion software.
CK: In order to know this content, students must have completed their science notebooks throughout the school year. It is important to know how each system works, and be able to label parts of the systems (for example: Label precipitation in the water cycle). As M.J Koehler and P. Mirsha state, “In the case of science, for example, this would include knowledge of scientific facts and theories, the scientific method, and evidence -based reasonings (Koehler & Mishra, 2008). Students must know the facts and theories about their systems, parts of the scientific method, including making models and observations, and evidenced based reasonings to be able to create a 3D model and be able to label the parts and pieces of their system.
PK: For pedagogical knowledge, I know that making models can help students understand their systems at a deeper level. According to the International Journal of Science Education, “Scientific models are an important part of the scientific process and although the role of the model and the scientific process are not always taught directly, the concepts are shown through examples in many different topics across the science curriculum" (Treagust et al., 2002). Treagust et al. also states that to “assist in this constructivist process, scientific models are valuable tools because they can be used to ‘make sense of abstract, difficult and non-observable science concepts to accommodate the explainer, the audience, the content, and the context’” (Treagust et al., 2002). Models are a great way for students to make sense of what they are learning in an abstract way, in a way that can help them grow as scientists.
To view these interactions in a different way, see the photograph below:
Overall, creating this lesson was a fun, yet challenging process. In early stages, it included far less student choice, in which all students were going to be making a stop motion video on the water cycle. After feedback from my colleagues, I realized that this lesson would be better if the end product included more choice, so I added in that this would be a review unit on all the systems that we had learned throughout the school year. This way, students would become experts in their section of learning, and then teach the class about this.
References
David F. Treagust , Gail Chittleborough & Thapelo L. Mamiala (2002) Students' understanding of
the role of scientific models in learning science, International Journal of Science Education,
24:4, 357-368, DOI: 10.1080/09500690110066485
Koehler, M.J., & Mishra, P. (2008). Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge
(TPCK) for Educators. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group for the American Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education.
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