Section 1: Lesson Preparation
| Teacher Candidate Name:
| |
| Grade Level:
| 5th Grade |
| Date:
| |
| Unit/Subject:
| Social Studies and Arts Incorporated |
| Instructional Plan Title: | Understanding of Europe’s Geography / Meanings and Application of Creative Thinking
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| Lesson Summary and Focus: | The lesson explores the purpose of the European Union and the association between the member countries. The students will research on European Union and demonstrate their levels of critical thinking using drawing to illustrate and demonstrate understanding
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| Classroom and Student Factors/Grouping: | The educator will divide the class into three different groups based on their skills. Learners will work in groups to help one another to comprehend the context. |
| National/State Learning Standards: | This lesson will implement different state standards including SS5G8, SS5G5, SS5G10, SS5G11, and SS5CG4 |
| Specific Learning Target(s)/Objectives: | · The students will learn to understand various European languages including English, German, French, and Spanish. · Learners will be able to analyze various economic systems · Learners will be able to explain how the distribution of natural resources, climate, and location impact trade and population distribution across Europe. · Learners will discuss the characteristics of European culture · Students will also be able to discuss different ways that governments distribute powers, and identify a particular distribution given a description |
| Academic Language | The lesson will employ simple language using a range of vocabularies and keywords including countries, the United Kingdom, Germany, Europe, Geographic region, economic system, produce, goods, command, authority, government, population climate, and trade. Other words will be civics, unitary, confederation, presidential system, autocratic, oligarchic, parliamentary system, the federal system, and democracy.
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| Resources, Materials, Equipment, and Technology: | For the students to comprehend the context easily and develop an interest in the lesson, the teacher will use digital tools, media, and other resources such as virtual pen-pal options with learners from the identified nation. The students will also practice safety precautions using the internet provided in the class. Other important devices and tools include art supplies, Promethean, projector, laptop, PowerPoint presentation, illustrations, and handouts. |
Section 2: Instructional Planning
| Introduce the European continent and its geography as well as the economic activities in the region. Students will draw the continent while mapping out different countries to show their creative thinking and comprehension of the lesson requirements. | 30mins |
| Multiple Means of Representation I will use a PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate and communicate easily with the learners. Besides, the presentation will contain different histograms and pie charts and bar graphs to demonstrate and illustrate various demographics and patterns of trade and other geographic information.
· English language learners (ELL):
Materials for ELL students will contain a lot of graphs to help them comprehend the context in the lesson.
· Students with special needs:
Materials for this group of learners will be classified and labeled with individual needs.
· Students with gifted abilities:
For gifted learners, I will use varying ways of giving the same idea to further understand the students’ abilities. Their materials will be labeled and placed in a different place.
· Early finishers (those students who finish early and may need additional resources/support):
Materials for this group will have extra activities included to engage them for longer than the other groups so that they may finish the lesson at the same time.
| Time 30 mins |
| Multiple Means of Engagement
I will have a flexible grouping that can help to easily differentiate instructions. Students can form teams and collaborate in the group so that they can exchange cultural experiences through visual support, sign language, and illustrations
| Time 30mins |
| Multiple Means of Expression · English language learners (ELL): Students will explain the impact of natural resources, climate, and population distribution.
· Students with special needs:
Students will identify different features of Europe as highlighted . · Students with gifted abilities:
Learners will compare and contrast different forms of government. The comparison will help the students to comprehend and link the primary government institutions before comparing actual forms of government.
· Early finishers (those students who finish early and may need additional resources/support): Learners in this category demonstrate their comprehension by sharing at least a culture. This discussion will show a general idea of the diversity of European cultures.
| Time 30 mins |
| Extension Activity and/or Homework “Find a military personnel aboard or an international pen-pal”: Learners will utilize their homework journals to write as if they were indeed addressing a pen-pal. The learners will begin with at least two paragraphs of the introductory letter. In the first paragraph, students will write about themselves while the other paragraph will concern questions addressed to the pen-pal.
| 30 mins |
Reflection
This lesson aims to help students develop critical skills by integrating social studies and arts. The lesson focuses on European geography and culture among other demographics. Students will draw various elements of European geography to demonstrate their comprehension of the concepts and ideas presented in the topic. Students explore the relationship between Europe and the United States. Before the lesson starts, the class is divided into three different groups based on their skill set. I was able to enhance students’ readiness for learning by having a general talk and interaction with questions on different hobbies and interests. The practice helped the students to develop a rapport with the teacher to avoid fear to ask questions during the lesson.
The class involved 5th graders who were very busy and interactive. They revealed to me the significance of employing diverse teaching methods to make them remain engaged and concentrating on the lesson. In my future classes, I will enhance my introduction to the lesson by using more practical engagement by letting the students share their feeling about the lesson while giving feedback concerning the previous lesson. Although developing clear lesson objectives is critical, I will ensure that the students develop an interest in comprehending the objectives in detail so that they can be attentive. When students are interested in a different topic they are highly likely to ask questions regarding the lesson. Questions often help the teacher to explain a point that could have otherwise been missed out. As such, it is necessary to keep the learners engaged by enhancing their interest in the topic.
Utilizing lesson materials also helps students to become curious about the topic and the entire lesson. Being organized is important because it helps in giving ideas in a way that the students can easily understand. I adequately organized the lesson by ensuring that all teaching materials are available and in good order. For instance, I tested the laptop, projector, and PowerPoint presentation several times to ensure that the lesson will be effective. Notably, technical failures usually make the audience to be attracted to other things while losing concentration on the subject matter. Besides, I prepared handouts for the students so that they can use them after the lesson. PowerPoint presentations also help to further organize the content.
The value of cross-content lessons is incredible and be viewed from different perspectives. Firstly, cross-content lessons enhance students’ critical thinking skills because they can be able to analyze content from different perspectives. Cross-content lessons limit the amount of time teachers may spend to explain certain ideas and concepts since one content will supplement the other and hence creating time for teaching other concepts. It is noteworthy that students will usually need a reference to make it easy for them to progress with the lesson even out of class.
In light of this, I provided the students with PowerPoint handouts. I also understand that different students can understand different content differently. As such, I provided different types of educational materials including the PowerPoint slides, the handouts, graphs, and maps. Using these materials students engaged in group discussions and identified various content in the materials that helped comprehend the unit and meet the desired objectives. Although the lesson was interesting, I will change some areas such as the introduction and examples in class. Also, I will strictly examine students’ skills set so that I can form the groups consisting of students with very close skills.