Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name
Tracy Kienel Castleberry
Position

Science Teacher

School/District

Woodstock High School/Cherokee County Schools

E-mail

tracy.castleberry@cherokee.k12.ga.us

Phone

770-335-4183

Grade Level(s)

Content Area

Science/Honors Biology

Time line

Oct 1-15, 2014

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please
put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which
standards were addressed.

Content Standards

SB3. Students will derive the relationship between single-celled and multi-celled organisms
and the increasing complexity of systems, SB5. Students will evaluate the role of natural selection in the
development of the theory of
evolution.

NETS*S Standards:

1a,b,d 2a,b,d

3a,b

4a,b 5a,b 6a,b,c,d

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Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)
The unit covered in this lesson plan is evolution and the evolutionary basis for classification. The lesson is
divided into three parts.
Part 1: Natural Selection, history of the theory, life and Charles Darwin
Part 2: Specific examples of natural selection, types of evolution and experimental design
Part 3: Evolutionary basis of classification of organisms
Part 1: The students, after the material is presented, will post to a class Padlet page, something they learned
about evolution OR they will post to the class Wiki to help build a review sheet. They will also take a quiz on
Socrative.
Part 2: Students will watch a video on http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ and choose to write a research
proposal about leafcutter ants or peacocks (sexual selection). When complete, they will upload their completed
research proposal to the online submission tool in Aspen.
Part 3: Students will create their own dichotomous key using Google Presentations. Students will choose how to
build their tool and what characteristics to classify.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest about the topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on important
aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring
to this topic and build on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry.
They should not be answered with a simple yes or no and should have many acceptable answers.

1. Whatismeantbyevolution?
2. Arecertainlinesofevidenceforevolutionstrongerthanothers?
3. Whataresomeexamplesofthingsthatdriveevolution

4. WhattiesallcurrentlifeonEarthtosinglecelledorganismsthatevolvedbillionsofyearsago ?
Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess
what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or
rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

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Assessment tools are as follows:

Socrative Quiz (formative)
Rubric for Lesson (formative)
Unit Test (summative)
Students will be formatively as we go, the teacher will make sure that daily objectives are met by checking off the
students activities. The Socrative Quiz will assess benchmark knowledge halfway through, and the lesson will be
graded using the teacher created rubric. The summative assessment will be the unit test on chapters 14 and 15.
Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resourcesonline student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etchelp elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)
Padlet
Wiki
Socrative.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
Google Presentations
leafcutter ants
peacocks
Rubric
Ga Standards
Technology supports student learning by fostering creativity and real-life authentic learning. The technology literacy
required is basic use of a laptop computer, and students need to be able to create a PowerPoint (Google Presentation) and
edit it.

Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can
you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)
Students should be able to recognize characteristics of organisms, understand the basic premise of evolution
(change over time), and from 8th grade have a basic knowledge of Charles Darwin and his works. Some
difficulties with the content that the students might have are keeping the types of evolution straight in their mind.
Also, students (and parents) sometimes have religious reservations about the topic of evolution.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
trouble-shoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

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The students were placed in partners or small groups based on ability level and have access to the classroom set of
laptop computers. Equitable access is not really an issue, because there are twenty-four computers for student use,
more than enough for partners and/or small groups. The main technical issues are: laptops with slow processors
that jam on Google Drive when too many people are on the Drive at the same time. Two computers at the front of
the room with faster processors helped to combat this issue. The class wiki was also a bit of an issue, because the
students thought it would be cute to erase what their classmates had written and make them go back and redo it. I
had to make sure to stay on top of this issue and remind the students to be good digital neighbors. In implementing
this lesson, I learned to be more clear at the beginning while talking about being good digital neighbors. I never
dreamed that they would try to sabotage each other. The lesson went rather smoothly except for the two issues
stated.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or
creativity levels of Blooms Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic,
relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge
and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other
and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?

Vocabulary was a main part of this lesson and was integrated throughout. Making comparisons and contrasting
the types of evolution, prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells (and drawing conclusions on which of these cells most
probably made up the Earths earliest organisms is Depth of Knowledge 2. Classifying organisms and learning
how to deconstruct the classification and identify and name the organisms is another application. Students
summarized when posting to the Padlet page and drew conclusions on what was the most important thing that
they learned about evolution and the history of life. Students also were required to generate a hypothesis and
build a sample research proposal. The technology used in this lesson helps to generate prior knowledge by
engaging students to reach the objectives.
As a teacher, the role that I played was one of facilitator. I checked off daily tasks to make sure the students
were staying on track. I also developed the formative quiz and the summative unit test.
The students role is to collaborate and work with their group members/partners to complete the task. The
technology made it easy (Google Drive, Wiki, Padlet) for the students to collaborate and see what the other
students are posting. The students also played the role of a scientist when generating their research proposal.
This brought a layer of real-world authenticity to their activity, after watching videos or real-world scientists
researching an evolutionary hypothesis.

Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)
Differentiation in this lesson included ability level partnerships and groups and choice differentiation. Students
were able to choose to summarize using Padlet or a Wiki (though some students chose to do both). Another
opportunity for differentiation was for the students to choose how to build their dichotomous key, including which
characteristics to classify. Extensions might have included students making their own extended Google
Presentations instead of building on a class presentation. I would also require the students to follow their
classmates key and critique it.

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Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
In what ways was this lesson effective?
What went well and why?
What did not go well and why?
How would you teach this lesson differently?)
Students did not reflect formally on this experience, though I wish I had required it. I did ask informal questions
about how they liked the activities and they seemed mostly enthusiastic. They finished the entire activity; there
were no students that did not compete all parts of the activity. It went well mostly, the students were engaged and
working the entire time, and I think one reason is because these students are mostly highly motivated (honors)
and another reason is because I was up and in the thick of things every day making sure that they stayed on
track. The only two issues I had were that the Google Presentation did jam up when too many people were
working on the same document and the students that were trying to sabotage each others work. I would teach
this lesson differently by being more aware of the issues that might crop up regarding being good digital
neighbors and I would make sure to say something about this at the beginning of the lesson. I also would ask the
students to more formally assess the activity and talk about the parts of the lesson that they enjoyed and the part
that they might not have enjoyed so much.
Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
Overall, I think this lesson went really well. There were only two small issues, one that can be discussed at the
beginning of the lesson and the other that can be dealt with as it happens. The computers actually behaved for
the most part, something that cant be said about every time I try to use technology in the classroom.
Implementation was smooth; the students worked every day to complete their objectives and I was pleased with
their engagement and their motivation. The differentiated parts went very well, the students enjoy having a
choice.
The advice I would give to all teachers that might implement this lesson is to make sure that they discuss
netiquette and also to make sure that they are on their feet and in the class, watching what they are doing and
providing feedback and help when needed.

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