Author:
Crystal Hurt
Subject:
Environmental Studies, Botany, Physical Science
Material Type:
Lesson
Level:
Upper Primary
Tags:
  • Digital Age Pedagogy
  • Digital Age Skills
  • ESUCC
  • NE Blended
  • Nebraska Department of Education
  • Plant Parts
  • Plant Structure
  • Science
  • science
  • License:
    Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
    Language:
    English

    Education Standards

    Digital Age Skills: Grade 4 Plant Structures

    Overview

    This resource was created by Tessa Janssen in collaboration with Crystal Hurt as part of the 2019-20 ESU-NDE Digital Age Pedagogy Project. Educators worked with coaches to create Lesson Plans promoting both content area and digital age skills. This Lesson Plan is designed for 4th Grade Science. Students will demonstrate their learning of the functions of external plant parts. 

    Lesson: Internal and External Plant Structures

    Participant Name: Tessa Janssen

    Coach Name: Crystal Hurt

    Student Grade Level: 4

    Content Area: Gen Ed

     

    Explore:

    List Content Area Standard (Link to NDE Standards):

    • SC.4.6.3.B I can construct an argument that plants have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.  

     

    List Digital Age Skill (Link to ISTE Standards):

    • Empowered Learner: 1c Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.

     

    Brief Description of what Students might do to show mastery of both Content & Digital Skills:

    • Students will demonstrate their learning of the functions of external plant parts by completing the instructions on teacher created Google Slide template that is shared out on Google Classroom. Students will demonstrate their ability to edit Google Slides by dragging and dropping, typing, inserting pictures from the web, and highlighting. When students have finished following the instructions on the Google Slide template then they will turn it back into Google Classroom to be graded.

     

    Investigate (Link to Toolkit):

    Compare / Contrast 2 Tools students could use to accomplish the goal:

    Criteria (Link)Google SlidesWizer.me
    Criteria 1 Relevance4 - The app’s focus has a strong connection to the purpose for the app and appropriate for the student.Allows for a variety of activities to show learning such as fill in the blanks, drag and drop, inserting pictures, typing short answers, label the parts of a picture, and drawing a picture. Con: Students can mess up the template.3 - The app’s focus is related to the purpose for the app and mostly appropriate for the student.Students can’t add their own pictures, highlight, or drag. Benefit is that students can’t mess up the template, since there isn’t lock features. Quicker to make for teachers.
    Criteria 2 Engagement4 - Student is highly motivated to use the app.Allows the student to manipulate the slides more creatively.3. Student used the app directed by the teacher.
    Criteria 3 Feedback3 - Student is provided feedback.Teacher has to provide feedback through comments and grade on google classroom.3 -  Student is provided feedback.Some of the answers can be graded automatically unless it has a short answer.

     

    Which Tool have you selected? Why?

    I have selected Google Slides instead of Wizer.me because it allows the students to add pictures, highlight specific words, and label the parts of a plant, where wizer.me doesn’t have those capabilities. Wizer.me is a website I really would like to look into more since they do have a lot of great tools for students to use to answer questions in a format that they will see more on state assessments and ones that show the students creativity like the drawing tool. I really think getting students more familiar with Google Slides will help them tremendously once they get to higher grades and will need to soon create more complex presentations of their own. In this lesson, students are answering questions on the science content being taught while learning how to use the tools on Google Slides.  Typically students in previous grades know how to type on google docs and do activities on learning websites. Students in the 4th grade need to start getting familiar with how to use Google Slides and that Google Slides is more than just creating presentations.

     

     

    Implement:

    Description: What will students do?

    Students will go to Google Classroom and click on the copy of the google slides template that was created individually for them. Students will follow the directions on the google slide template. They will first label the parts of a plant by dragging the word to the correct box. Then students will complete sentences by typing the correct vocabulary words in the yellow boxes. Students will type short responses in complete sentences responding to questions about how parts of the plant function. Then students will insert pictures of parts of plant in the correct boxes by searching the web. Lastly students will highlight the correct answer to weather the certain parts of a plant support protection, growth, or reproduction.

     

    Rubric Assessment: How will you grade student work? (Include link to rubric)

    Interactive Slides Rubric

     

    Link to Exemplary student work:

    Blank Template

    Exemplary Student Work

     

    Recommendations: What went well / What would you do differently?

    Students were highly engaged, since they never have had an assignment like this before on the chromebook. I observed that some struggled with dragging on the touchpad, so some students needed to use mice. I also observed students helping each other learn how to use the tools on Google Slides without doing the problem for the student. I do think the lesson needs to incorporate a little bit more student choice than what picture they would like to choose to represent the label given. Next time I will want to include a couple more ways the students can be creative to show their learning within the Google Slides.