Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) Planning Template1

Task
What is the main activity that students will be working on in this lesson?

Instructional SupportTools, Resources, Materials

What tools or resources will be made available to give students entry to, and
help them reason through, the activity?

The main activity that students will be working on in this lesson is an

investigation to answer the question: Why do you think drinking seawater
killed the sailor faster than if the sailor had not drunk any water at all?
Students will set up different experimental conditions using dialysis tubing,
balances, beakers, salt, and water. They will measure their cells while setting
up their three experimental conditions and again the next day to determine
what happened to the cell. They will use evidence from this experiment to
reason about why the cells expanded, shrunk, or stayed the same. This will
help them to answer the investigation question. They will also consider the
implications this task has for the cells in their body and their lifestyle choices.

Students will be provided with dialysis tubing, salt, water, beakers, balances,
and the task worksheet. The task worksheet will introduce students to the
scenario and provide context. They will be working in groups of four; working
collaboratively will help them sense make, reason through the activity, and
build on one anothers ideas. They will also be drawing their experimental
set-up which allows them to observe and record what is happening throughout
the experiment to the cells in each condition. We will be monitoring the
students and asking questions which will also help students to clarify their
own thinking and give them the opportunity to ask questions.

Prior Knowledge
What prior knowledge and experience will students draw on in their work on
this task?

Task Launch
How will you introduce and set up the task to ensure that students
understand the task and can begin productive work, without diminishing the
cognitive demand of the task?

Students will need to draw on their prior knowledge of cell structure (i.e.
function and organelles). They will have just learned about the plasma
membrane which will be instrumental to developing an understanding of how
the plasma membrane controls what enter and leaves the cell. They will also
draw on the fact that the function of cells has an overall effect on the way in
which the body as a whole works. Students will use their experience in
conducting investigations and asking questions to set up an experiment in
which they can test the effect salt has on cells. They will draw conclusions
based on the evidence they gather from these experiments.

We will set up the task by first providing the students with a real world
scenario about a sailor. We will begin by asking students why it is important to
explore what happened to the sailor and how this situation can be relatable to
their own lives. We will then ask how drinking seawater affects our bodyspecifically leading into the role of our cells. We will tell students that the
dialysis tubing is meant to represent our cells in order to create a shared
language in the class. We will talk about the components of designing an
experiment and what materials they will be using. We will ask students why
measuring the cells before and after is important. Specifically, eliciting ideas
that lead to the shared understanding that an increase in mass of the dialysis
tubing means an increase of the mass of the cell. We will have students write
their hypothesis before even starting to maintain cognitive demand and have
students think and commit to a response before starting.

Based on Smith, Bill, and Hughes (2008)

Modified version of the template that was developed and used by Dr. Margaret Smith in her Teaching and Learning in Secondary Mathematics
course at the University of Pittsburgh.

Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) Planning Template1

Anticipated Solutions
What are the various ways that students might complete the activity?
Students might set up beakers with no salt, different amount of salts, or just
salt. When observing their results students with similar observations may draw
different conclusions such as when the cell is shrinking, they may think that
the salt is what is entering or leaving the cell instead of water. They may also
claim that water enters the cell where there is less salt or that water is
traveling to the higher concentration of salt, therefore leaving the cell.

Instructional SupportTeacher
What questions might you ask students that will support their exploration of
the activity and bridge between what they did and what you want them to
learn?
What did you observe in the different concentrations of salt?
What caused what you observed to happen?
Did the water or salt move in or out of the cell?
Why would it move that way? (concentration gradient)
According to your observations, what type of solution was your cell immersed
in?
How do you know this, what evidence do you have?

Use the monitoring tool to provide the details related to Anticipated Solutions and Instructional Support
Sharing and Discussing the Task
Selecting and Sequencing
Which solutions do you want to have shared during the lesson?
In what order? Why?
If a response came up that said salt is moving in or out of the cell and is
responsible for the cell expanding or shrinking, we would invite this group to
share first. We would first want to address whether salt or water is moving in
or out of the cell. This links to ideas about what can pass in and out of the
plasma membrane without help. Then, we would ask a group to share that
said water is moving into the cell and making it expand. This idea of water
moving into the cell is still incorrect but moving in a productive
direction.This leads the discussion to consider if water is moving to the inside
of the cell or moving outside of the cell. We can use evidence from the
experiment to help answer this question. Finally, we would end with the idea
of water moving out of the cell and making the cell shrink which is the
canonically correct idea.

Connecting Responses
What specific questions will you ask so that students
- make sense of the scientific/mathematical ideas that you want them
to learn
- make connections among the different strategies/solutions that are
presented
Thinking about the structure of our cells, what do you think this tells us about
how our cells behave in our body?
Do you think our cells expand and shrink like in your experiment?
What do you think would happen if our cells didnt have a semipermeable
membrane to control what enters and leaves?
Think back to the demonstration we did yesterday when we poured the blue
food coloring into the beaker of water, what would happen if our cells did not
have a semipermeable membrane?
Given what we just learned about hypertonic, hypotonic, and isotonic
solutions, how would we classify the sailors cells? Why?
From what weve gathered, what exactly happened to the sailors cells?
What do you think our cells look like in our bodies?

Based on Smith, Bill, and Hughes (2008)

Modified version of the template that was developed and used by Dr. Margaret Smith in her Teaching and Learning in Secondary Mathematics
course at the University of Pittsburgh.

Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP) Planning Template1

Based on Smith, Bill, and Hughes (2008)

Modified version of the template that was developed and used by Dr. Margaret Smith in her Teaching and Learning in Secondary Mathematics
course at the University of Pittsburgh.