Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name

Jennifer Dupler

Position

Third Grade Teacher

Grade Level(s)

Content Area

Social Studies/ELA

Time line

2 weeks

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:
The student will describe the four types of productive resources.
The student will give examples of interdependence and trade and will explain how voluntary exchange
benefits both parties.
The student will describe the costs and benefits of personal spending and saving choices.
NET*S Standards:
1. Empowered Learner: Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and
demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.
2. Digital Citizen: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in
an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
3. Knowledge Constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct
knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
4. Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve
problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
5. Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of
purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

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This unit lesson is used to teach the 3rd grade Georgia Performance Social Studies Standards for
economic understanding. The students will use a variety of technology tools to aid in instruction and
foster critical thinking skills. Students will use foundational knowledge to identify key terms, and
demonstrate an understanding of their meaning. Throughout the lesson, students will build upon their
knowledge as they begin to recognize the relationship between similar concepts. Students will also
collaborate in inquiry based activities to share ideas on their experiences, and work together to apply
what they have learned to real life situations. Assignments will be differentiated, and will be used to
assess understanding after each concept is taught. An end of unit assessment will be administered to
assess students comprehensive understanding of the basic concepts. Informal observations will be used
to examine higher order thinking skills as students participate in activities and share ideas through
discussions.

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.

Why does an economic choice involve giving up something else?

How do stores get the things you want to buy?
How do you decide what to buy?
How does your family decide to make and spend money?
How do you decide what price to list a product at and when it will go on sale?
If an item is popular, do you ever increase the price?
How are consumers and producers interdependent?
How do decisions about spending money have both costs and benefits?
How do decisions about saving money have both costs and benefits?
Why must people make decisions about the use of productive resources?

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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Formative and summative assessments will be administrated throughout the lesson. Quick checks will be
completed on paper after each substandard is covered to assess students understanding of content
outlined in each lesson. The Lemonade Stand recording sheet and blog post will be used to assess
students understanding of supply and demand and the importance of making economic choices. Students
will use Kidblog to answer higher level thinking questions on spending, saving, costs, benefits,
interdependence, supply and demand, and productive resources. An end of unit assessment will be used
to assess their knowledge on basic concepts.

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?)

The students have access to a 1:1 ratio of devices. The classroom is equipped with a promethean board
and projector, 5 touchscreen desktop computers, and a mobile laptop cart with 16 laptops (shared
between two teachers). With eleven third grade teachers, we have 5 mobile carts on our hall, so students
can borrow a laptop form another mobile cart if any issues arise. All devices are equipped with Windows
10 and have an internet connection.
Vocabulary concepts are supported through the use of Popplet and Tagul. Students will use Kidblog to
practice typing, reflect on learning experiences, respond to reading, and collaborate with peers. BrainPop
is used to provide students with auditory and visual aids to support different learning styles.
Higher order thinking is fostered through the simulation game, Lemonade Stand, as students collaborate,
share, and use problem solving skills.

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?)

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Students will need to understand the concepts of money and how it is used to purchase goods and
services. Students will need to identify the goods and services we need versus ones we want. In order to
find out if students have this foundation, a pre-assessment should be administered. A KWL Chart will be
used to find out if students have the foundational knowledge needed to move forward. Prior knowledge
will be activated through BrainPOP videos that address the 2nd grade social studies economic standards.
Students may have difficulty identifying needs and wants as items you can and cannot live without.
While most of the technology is used for this lesson, I have taught these standards previously. Many
students have identified computers, cars, pillows, etc. as needs, and struggle to think of the resources
needed to survive. This is a great opportunity to allow the students to explain their reasoning as to why
such items are needed and it usually sparks a productive debate. I always allow students to debate on any
appropriate topic, as it leads to a better understanding on expression of opinion.
In order to give students a real life perspective, I ask them to imagine they are lost in the woods. Would
they need a computer? A car? A bed? In the past, it has been easy to clear any misconceptions by
providing them with scenarios that prompt the students to identify what is truly needed to thrive. Once
they understand this concept, they are better able to comprehend the meaning behind more advanced
economical relationships, like supply and demand.

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.

The students will work in the classroom throughout the unit lessons. Most of the instruction and lesson
activities will be administered as a whole group, however, I will meet with ELL students to check for
understanding of vocabulary terms using picture sorts. All students have the digital resources needed to
complete the activities. In the case that a device is not working properly, the students can use a device
from another classroom. Past troubleshooting issues have occurred with some of the laptops in the mobile
lab. Slow start-ups of involuntary mouse movement are the most common. If this occurs, the students
have access to desktops or laptops from other classrooms.

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?

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This lesson is student led and teacher led. After introducing the content, the students will extend their
knowledge of concepts using technology. Popplet will be used to help students create an ongoing concept
map, and prompt higher level thinking skills as students make connections between terms as they are
discovered. In order to meet the needs of a variety of learning styles, BarinPop will be used to serve as an
instructional support for auditory and visual learners.
Lemonade Stand is a student led, and collaborative activity where the students work in pairs to test the
law of supply and demand, analyze the outcome of lemonade sales per day, and apply what they learned
to change the results. This simulation provides the students with a meaningful purpose, and gives them
control of the outcome. Kinesthetic learners will benefit from the real life scenario of operating a
business. Additionally, students will use higher order thinking skills to reflect on their lemonade stand
results using KidBlog.

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?)

Students will be provided with differentiated activities to meet a variety of learning needs throughout the
entirety of the lesson. With three monitored ELL students, some of the technology will need to be adapted.
Instead of using Popplet to create a concept map with vocabulary terms, ELL students and lower level
learners will use Tagul to create a simplified word cloud. Tiered reading passages and questions for below,
on, and above level learners will integrate economic concepts into reading as students practice responding
to text. Enrichment opportunities will be provided in most activities to prompt higher order thinking skills
as students apply what they learned and enhance its meaning through creative thinking problems. During
the collaborative activity, Lemonade Stand, students will be grouped of mixed abilities, where their
partnership role is differentiated by task. Struggling students will record notes directly from the application
on the screen, and on level and above level learners will analyze the results and lead their partner into
discussion.

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? terms
What went well and why?
What did not go well and why?
How would you teach this lesson differently?)

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I have taught this unit three times, but this is the first time I have integrated Web 2.0 tools into the lessons.
I found that the students were more engaged by the inquiry based learning that took place, and I heard
conversations that demonstrated a deeper understand of the content. I was impressed by their ability to
create relationships in their Popplet mind map. I was expecting them to ask many questions, and need a lot
of guidance, but most were quick to connect the dots between similar ideas such as such as income and
budget; costs and benefits; interdependence, producers, and consumers. ELLs had no problem using
Tagul, but I did notice it lacked the higher order thinking skills that Popplet had provided. I was able to use
this as an opportunity for enrichment by having above level learners explain the connections they made
with Popplet to the ELL students.
Students also collaborated during the Lemonade Stand activity, and had to use problem solving skills to
figure out how many of each ingredient would give them the best result. I loved the conversations I heard
during this activity, as the students were able to express their thoughts on the mistakes they had made and
provide suggestions to achieve a better outcome. The only struggle I had with this activity was with the site
itself. The application kept refreshing for some students, and they had to start all over. Most students were
fine with this and remained flexible, but some started to get frustrated. I ended up finding another
Lemonade Stand game that provided the students with the same experience, without all the complications
of the other.

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.

As the students participated in the activities, there was a lot of productive debate and reasoning between
peers. During the Lemonade Stand activity, I observed them as they tried to prove to each other their idea
would work. This is something that I try to teach all year through opinion writing, and error analysis
problems, but the students have always struggled to explain their reasoning. I was shocked as I watched
them start drawing charts, adding, subtracting, comparing, contrasting, and using vocabulary terms in
context just to prove that their ideas would be profitable. I realized that they struggled with this because
they had been trying to reason on scenarios that lacked meaning to them, and therefore hindered their
determination to prove the why in previous activities. We all hear that students learn best through
meaning, and I always ensure to use interests in discussions and activities, but this was the first time I
saw such effective results. If I could see the passion I saw during this lesson every day, I would never
doubt if students were actively learning. It has definitely made me think about future lessons in all
subjects.

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