5 E Lesson Plan Rationale

Context: I developed this lesson plan as an assignment for Jeff Goodman in my 2008 Spring Semester at Appalachian State University for GS-4401. This was specifically designed for my 6th Grade Practicum at Blue Ridge Elementary School in Warrensville, NC. This is a hands-on activity where I had my students develop a sun-dial to figure out what time it is without using a clock. I used a wooden steak, a piece of paper, a pencil, a protractor, and a clock-just to tell you when it is time to go outside and check and see how far the shadow has moved. The students would go outside and trace the shadow every hour. They then refined their sun-dial and made their own functional sun-dial.

Impact: This is an excellent classroom that I will hopefully be able to use in my own classroom one day. This is a great way to integrate many different subjects such as science, social studies, math, and language arts. Students are required to understand the rotation of the sun for science, and why it makes the shadows move, and how that helps you tell time. For social studies, students study the early methods of telling time and all the different ways that our ancestors used things in nature to tell time. For math, students have to be able to measure, use a protractor, and have the ability to tell time. Using lanuage arts, students explain how this process works.

Alignment:

Standard 3 Indicator 3: I have met this standard by having a broad knowledge about science, in the specific area of the solar system, including the interaction of earth and its living systems, things the earth is made up of, its dynamics, and astronomy.

Standard 7 Indicator 1: I have met this standard by making all of my activities and methods of teaching appropriate by aligning them with the standards set aside by the standard course of study.

Standard 7 Indicator 2: I have met this standard by integrating other subjects into my science lesson such as language arts and math where my students used protractors to figure out the angle of the distance that their shadow had moved on their sundials. Afterwards they wrote this information down for me and explained it.

Standard 7 Indicator 4: I have met this standard by implementing various teaching strategies to help my students grasp the concept of the earth's rotation and its relationship to the sun.

Standard 7 Indicator 5: I met this standard by asking my students to answer high order thinking skills such as taking what we had learned and coming up with their own way to tell time using things in nature and what does the shadow made by the stick tell us about the rotation of the earth?

Standard 7 Indicator 7:  I met thsi standard because I used many different assessments during this unit, both formative and summative.  I observed my students and listened to their answers during discussion for their formative assessments, and for their summative assessment I asked my students to write me a story about how all the clocks disapeared and tell me how they developed their own way to tell time, and explain to me how their sundials worked.

Standard 10:  I met this standard because I had my students engaged in different process skills throughout my lesson such as measuring, communitcating, and observing.

Standard 15 Indicator 1:  I met this standard by encouraging everyone to participate throught the whole lesson.  I let my students just discuss openly and freely so that whenever someone had an idea they could just jump in, and all students were doing this, not just the students who like to take the lead role and talk over everyone else.