Sybil Bladon Lesson Analysis and Redesign Project

Before Lesson

Audience: 4th grade ELA

Standards:

Standard 7: Research events, topics, ideas, or concepts through multiple media, formats, and in
visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities.

Standard 4.E.3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the locations, movements, and
patterns of stars and objects in the solar system.

Objective: Students will be able to conduct research on the planets and report their findings in a
brochure.

Materials: anchor charts, reading notebooks, pencils, research materials(books, articles,

pictures, etc), construction paper, crayons, markers, colored pencils, handout with questions,

Activity:

1. Teacher will review with students what they have learned about conducting research in
their reading unit so far. Review anchor charts.
2. The teacher and students will review the whole group topic ‘Tornadoes”. Review the
research techniques used such as thinking about what we know first, previewing topics,
highlight vocabulary, ask questions, take notes, jot down your ideas, synthesize
information you have collected.
3. The teacher will explain to students that they will start researching a new topic today, the
planets. Explain to students that for the next three days, they will work in groups to learn
more about the planets. After they complete their research they will create a brochure
about what they learn.
4. The teacher will show students the new materials available to students to use during their
research such as books, articles, pictures, and encyclopedias.
5. The teacher will arrange students into groups of three, and assign each group a planet to
research.
6. The teacher will give students a handout with questions to guide their research. Explain
this is the information they are to include in their brochure.
7. The teacher will explain to students they may begin their research. Explain to students
they have only this block of class to conduct their research so it might be a good idea to
split their guiding questions among their group members to get it done in time.
8. The teacher will explain to students when they have finished their research the teacher
will look over their findings and conference with those needing to go back and refine
their research.
Sybil Bladon Lesson Analysis and Redesign Project

Day 2

1. The teacher will review with students what they have learned about conducting research
in their reading unit so far. Review anchor charts.
2. The teacher will remind students they started researching the planets yesterday and
should have learned a lot of information on their topic.
3. The teacher will explain she will give them 15 minutes to decide as a group the most
important information they want to include in their brochure.
4. After 15 minutes is up, the teacher will bring the students back together to demonstrate
how to put their information in the brochure.
5. The teacher will allow students to begin making their brochure. Explain that today’s
block is dedicated to creating their brochure.

Day 3

1. The teacher will allow students to finish creating their brochures if necessary.
2. Once every group is finished, allow groups to present their findings to the class.

Assessment:

Students will record 3 facts from each presentation on a handout given by the teacher.

After Lesson

Audience: 4th grade ELA

Content Standards:
Sybil Bladon Lesson Analysis and Redesign Project

Standard 7: Research events, topics, ideas, or concepts through multiple media, formats, and in
visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities.

Standard 4.E.3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the locations, movements, and
patterns of stars and objects in the solar system.

Technology Standards:

Standard 2: 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.

Standard 3: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.

Standard 6: 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.

Objective: Students will be able to conduct research on the planets and report their findings in a
slideshow presentation.

Materials: anchor charts, smartboard, chromebooks, reading notebooks, pencil, handout with
questions, highlighter.

Activity:

1. Teacher will review with students what they have learned about conducting research in
their reading unit so far. Review anchor charts.
2. The teacher and students will review the whole group topic ‘Tornadoes”. Review the
research techniques used such as thinking about what we know first, previewing topics,
highlight vocabulary, ask questions, take notes, jot down your ideas, synthesize
information you have collected.
3. The teacher will explain to students that they will start researching a new topic today, the
planets. Explain to students that for the next two days, they will work in groups to learn
more about the planets. After they complete their research they will create a Google slide
about what they learn. Then, they'll combine their slides to create a complete Google
slideshow.
4. The teacher will explain to the students that a researcher does not collect their
information from just paper resources but from digital resources also.
5. The teacher will demonstrate researching and collecting information with the whole
group topic ‘Tornadoes’ reminding students of previous expectations discussed when
looking at websites and videos.
Sybil Bladon Lesson Analysis and Redesign Project

6. The teacher will arrange students into groups of three or four, and assign each group a
planet to research.
7. The teacher will review expectations for using the chromebooks. The expectations are:
holding the chromebook with both hands, keeping the chromebook on your desk, no food
or drinks near the chromebook, no bagging or hitting the chromebook, only use the
apps/websites you are told to, and if there is a problem ask the teacher.
8. The teacher will give students a handout with questions to guide their research. Explain
this is the information they are to include on their Google slide.
9. The teacher will explain to students they may begin their research. Explain to students
they have only this block of class to conduct their research so it might be a good idea to
split their guiding questions among their group members to get it done in time.
10. The teacher will explain to students when they have finished their research the teacher
will look over their findings and conference with those needing to go back and refine
their research.

End of Day 1

Day 2.

6. The teacher will review with students what they have learned about conducting research
in their reading unit so far. Review anchor charts.
7. The teacher will remind students they started researching the planets yesterday and
should have learned a lot of information on their topic.
8. The teacher will remind students today they are going to put their information together to
put in a Google slide.
9. The teacher will explain she will give them 15 minutes to decide as a group the most
seven important facts they want to include on their Google slide. Tell students to ask
themselves “Which or what information would teach someone about this planet?” Give
students a highlighter to highlight this information.
10. After 15 minutes is up, the teacher will bring the students back together to
demonstrate/remind students how to put their information in Google slide.
11. The teacher will then explain how to access the Google slide presentation she shared with
the class to create one presentation once everyone has added their information. The
teacher will explain how everyone needs to work carefully in the presentation and make
sure they are working on their slide as not to mess up someone else’s work.
12. Explain to students that the remainder of today’s block is dedicated to putting the
information in the google slide. If time permits, you can change the formatting of the
slide -- the background, fonts, an image, etc.
13. When the Google slideshow is complete share the final product with the entire class.
Sybil Bladon Lesson Analysis and Redesign Project

Assessment:

Students will be assessed several ways:

1. Their knowledge of their assigned planet, based on their research.

2. Their digital citizenship based on gathering their research.
3. Their cooperative skills within the group.
4. Their ability to use digital tools to present information.

Students will be assessed on these four things by a performance task and a formative assessment.
The performance task will be the Google Slide they created about their planet. The formative
assessment will be a short essay or video production explaining and analyzing their research
process.

The performance task will assess the student’s knowledge of their topic based on their handout
and the information they provide in the Google slide. It will also assess the following technology
standard; Standard 6: 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. The formative assessment will assess the following technology standards; Standard
2: 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. and Standard 3: 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.

Reflection:

Research is such a huge standard in fourth grade that it is carried across several of our
reading and writing units. Students can easily get bored with the concept. After my first year of
teaching the units, I started incorporating technology into the celebration days at the end of the
units to keep my students hooked in the units. The units originally wanted them to create posters
or the like to celebrate their work but I changed that to creating something digital to peak their
interest like observed in the after lesson. We have technology standards we have to adhere to
now so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone. The lesson allowed for students to
continue conducting research but with a more interesting goal in mind. It also allowed them to
practice digital citizenship by deciding on appropriate websites to gather information from and
communicating with several people working on the same document at the same time.
Students really begin to dip deep with researching topics in the fourth grade. I like to
begin the year having students create projects based off the information we have learned. We use
Sybil Bladon Lesson Analysis and Redesign Project

apps like Poplet, PuppetPals, Shadow Puppet, Story Buddy, Toontastic, and Trading Cards. I like
to use the information that we are learning so students can learn how to use the creation apps and
become experts at using them for later on when we use them with research projects. I learned
that trying to teach a creation app and researching your information is overwhelming for the
students. It is also a way to hook the students for the research unit. It helps students recognize
what type of information they need to be looking for when they research their topic.
Students like to use a reading app called EPIC! Students are able to pics books by topics,
interests and level. The app can also read books to students who have difficulty reading. When
researching this is a great app to use because students can go directly to their information.
Students use kiddle.co to conduct research. It is a friendly version of google. It searching the
web, images, news and videos. Students are able to get multiple representations of the content to
improve their understanding and reading.
When beginning the research unit, we first start with text so we can integrate lessons on
how to appropriately use technology to research. We start with basic topics and gradually build
to deeper topics. In the beginning I teach as a whole group, closely monitoring the students as we
move through the steps. After the first two weeks, I move into small group instruction and have
students research topics in teams. This allows for independent practice with guided instruction
where it’s needed. I use small group instruction for a week. After small group instruction,
students work greatly by themselves researching, only meeting with their groups on designated
days. During this time I am serving as more of a facilitator.
I can honestly say that after the research units the students knowledge on a topic has
greatly grown from the beginning. Some measurements are not testable by a formative
assessment. I use checklists and anecdotal notes of students gains throughout the units. It really
amazes at the connections students will make with the information throughout the unit.