Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)

Template with guiding questions

Teacher(s)
Name Candice Davies / Allison McCord

Position First Grade / DHH Paraprofessional

School/District Shallowford Falls / Cobb County

E-mail Candice.davies@cobbk12.org / allison.mccord@cobbk12.org

Phone 347.512.6919 / 404.433.3710

Grade Level(s) 1st / 4th

Content Area Social Studies Benjamin Franklin

Time line 3 class sessions (45 minute slots)

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.

Social Studies: Ss will describe the contributions and influences of historic figure Benjamin Franklin, as
well as describe how his everyday life was similar and different from everyday life in the present. Addi-
tionally, Ss will be able to describe how Benjamin Franklin displayed positive character traits.
Reading: Ss will learn how to use and recognize various text features found in non-fiction texts, as well
as how to use these features to locate key facts or information in a text.
Writing: Ss will write informative/ explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts
Content Standards: about the topic, and provide some sense of closure

Technology:
ISTE Standard 2b Digital Citizen (safe, positive and ethical use of technology)

ISTE Standard 3a Knowledge Constructor (effective research strategies to locate information)

ISTE Standard 6a, b - Creative Communicator (choose appropriate platforms and tools; create original
work)
ISTE Standard 7b, c Global Collaborator (Ss use collaborative technologies; contribute constructively)
NETS*S Standards:

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Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

Benjamin Franklin Unit

Throughout the unit of study on Benjamin Franklin, students were introduced to this historical fig-
ure. It was their first experience with learning about a famous historic figure. The standards include
learning about his life and contributions as a great American. Additionally, students reflected on his
life in the 1700s and compared it to their modern life. Various teaching methods were used to reach
the standards including direct instruction, small-group activities, and research practice using web-
sites such as BrainPop and PebbleGo, and a visit from a local performance storyteller, who brought
Benjamin Franklin alive for our students.

The lesson integrated various student-centered web tools including Flipgrid. Flipgrid is a video dis-
cussion board that allows your students to build an online community, as they share their video re-
sponses. First, the teachers shared the Essential Questions with the students, then they had to craft
and record their responses. After, they posted their videos to Seesaw (a digital portfolio) to share
with their families. The Seesaw class account provides updates to parents that their child has posted
new work. Parents can like, comment, or ask questions in response to their childs post. Students
get very excited about their parents seeing/reading their work online, and even more excited about
comments and questions posted. Having students reply to comments and questions is a good practice
of digital citizenship.

Next, they selected what they felt were four strong videos and we shared them on our class Wiki.
The Wiki is available to other teachers in the county to view and share their STEM and technology
projects as well.

Students will access and learn how to comment on their classmates' posts. Having students reply to
comments and construct questions is good practice of digital citizenship.

The culminating product will include several groups of students addressing the standard which com-
pares life in the time of Benjamin Franklin with the current world. Working with a partner, students
will write an interview with one student taking on the role of Benjamin Franklin and the other as a
student in current time. They will then create puppet-like characters on an app called YakIt. The pup-
pets will be an image of Benjamin Frankin and the student. Students will record their two-way con-
versation while giving examples of why he was an important American who made peoples lives bet-
ter; while comparing/contrasting their modern daily lives to that of BF. Additionally, they will reflect
on how they can make life better for their community. The final YakIt project will be uploaded to
both Seesaw and our class wiki.

The final product will be assessed using a rubric (attached). Students will have the rubric throughout
the project, so they can be sure they are meeting the criteria for the score they are working toward.
The final product is meaningful to students because it gives them the opportunity to demonstrate their
ability to evaluate and analyze the life of Benjamin Franklin, create their own presentation, and re-
flect on how they can make contributions to their community similar to those made by BF, a person
who is so important, his face is printed on money.
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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 inter-
est 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.

How are the inventions of Benjamin Franklin beneficial to us today?

Connections to those inventions: Who in your family wears glasses? Who was born in hospital? Have you ever been
the library? Have you ever mailed a letter or gotten a letter in the mail?
How did Benjamin Franklin's character help him in life?
Connections: How does a person's character effect their life and friendships?
How are our lives similar and different to the life of Benjamin Franklin?
What contributions have you made to make our classroom environment better?
How does a person's contributions to their class and family connect to their values and beliefs?

* Students tend to have minimal background knowledge on this topic due to their age and grade level. We are often the first
introduction to historical figures.

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.

Mid-point checklist on group participation

Students will use the attached group participation rubric to reflect on their contributions to their
group. Students will circle a "thumbs up", "thumbs sideways", and "thumbs down" to represent
how they see themselves working in the group. The rubric elements are "My Attitude", "My
Work", and "My Listening Skills". See attached rubric.
Rubric on YakIt
Students will used the attached rubric to use as a guide throughout their work on the project. The
rubric addresses required elements in the project, and a 2-1 rating scale. The elements for this ru-
bric are "Improved the Lives of Others", "Daily Life Comparison", and "How I Make a Differ-
ence". See attached rubric.
Guidelines for Team Work
The first component of this rubric includes five key points that students are tasked with following
when working in a team. Such as listening, encouraging, speaking up and working together. Next,
it includes a self-rating scale of 0-5 on those key points. This rubric will used at the end of the
culminating activity.

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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 ex-
plain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

Technologies used in this project will include:

Desktops and iPads for research
iPads for taking pictures and saving research artifacts to Seesaw
Seesaw (digital portfolio)
Cobb Digital Library (PebbleGo, Brainpop, Brittanica)
Brainpop extension Map-it concept map program
YakIt - app
Flipgrid
The use of many forms of technology supports the indicators of engaged learning and helps to increase the LoTi level. The
technology supports the authentic and meaningful components of the project. The variety of technology used to allow my stu-
dents to be thinkers and problem solvers as they navigate through new programs.

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?)

Prior to creating the Flipgrid, the students have had 3-4 lessons on Benjamin Franklin. Their
background knowledge will include information on his life as a writer, statesman and inventor.
The Benjamin Franklin unit also includes a visit from a local performance storyteller who dresses
as Benjamin Franklin and conducts an interactive presentation for the students.
This lesson plan is at the mid-point and will conclude with the unit.
To help our students prepare for this lesson, we will review how to use the various technologies
(Flipgrid, Seesaw, and YakIt).
First grade students might have difficulty with the breadth of information taught in this unit. To
help with this, the content is delivered in many different ways with integrated technology and stu-
dent performance tasks along the way.

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 oc-
curred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

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 Classroom Management Strategies: Review the appropriate use of technology and digital tools. Stu-
dents are reminded to not use internet search engines to retrieve information and images. Additionally,
we will review the behavior expectations for group work, as well as the rubrics. Students work better
when they have a clear understanding of the project.
Trouble-shooting: To ensure that the various activities run smoothly we will...
Before be sure all technology is charged and available; storage on the iPads has been an issue in
the past. No address we will delete extraneous programs to allow for more storage; review images
on Library of Congress; create a recording area for the recording session.
During- possible issues that could arise are issues with recording the Flipgrid and YakIt videos;
be prepared to help groups during recording; possibly have additional person available to help
students.

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 crea-
tivity 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?

Research-based instructional strategies

Direct instruction of the material to provide new content.
Cooperative learning activities for small group work. Students worked together toward a common goal.
Prior to recording their Flipgrid video, students discussed and summarized information on Benjamin Franklin
Included similarities and differences between their life and Benjamin Franklins life in their YakIt.
Inquiry based learning
The overall lesson was challenging and included high level expectations. It also allowed for scaffolding the materials
for diverse learners.
Direct instruction of the material to provide new content.
Cooperative learning activities for small group work. Students worked together toward a common goal.
Prior to recording their Flipgrid video, students discussed and summarized information on Benjamin Franklin
Included similarities and differences between their life and Benjamin Franklins life in their YakIt.
Inquiry based learning
The overall lesson was challenging and included high level expectations. It also allowed for scaffolding the materials
for diverse learners.
Roles:
Throughout the lesson, the teachers provide guidance. We were both helping students and guiding them through the
process when they needed. We also helped to clarify information and redirect them it necessary.
The students role was as a producer. They were able to develop a completed product for themselves and others.

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?)

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 Content: During the unit on Benjamin Franklin is a fair amount of direct instruction as the overall information is new to my
first grade students. To help support my students with reading difficulty, we will have a close read of the text during guided
reading. This allows those students to hear the information more than once and engage in conversation with me and their
small group peers.
Conversely, to extend my above great level students we also read social studies content during our small group reading time.
We often read from biographies or chapter books with more advanced vocabulary. Additionally, we can delve into deeper
conversation on areas of Benjamin Franklins life beyond the standards.
Process: To help reach a diverse learning population, the content is delivered in several forms. In addition to direct instruc-
tion, students read about Benjamin Franklin using several web resources (BrainPop, PebbleGo, and Brittanica). Additionally,
there are videos that we share with the class to support those students who are visual learners. Throughout the length of the
unit, there are several hands-on activities such as creating a kite with cut and sort facts about Benjamin Franklins life. Lastly,
we read and reenacted the many quotes made famous by Ben.
At this time, our students require no assistive technologies.

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 ques-
tions?
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?)

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The students' Flipgrid and YakIt videos will be posted to the class wiki, which is enabled to allow par-
ents and teachers to comment and ask questions. In addition to classroom parents, the wiki is visible to
other first grade teachers in Cobb County, as part of a STEM sharing project. Those teachers and their
classes are also able to comment and ask questions. The class will complete reflection checklists and
make note of how they feel they did with group work and individual activities. Students will also fill out
a unit feedback sheet, letting us know their thoughts on the lessons and activities. Students really enjoyed
learning about Benjamin Franklin's inventions and agencies he started. They had personal connections to
almost all of them (library, hospital, Franklin Stove, bifocals, odometer, etc.). Since the content accessed
their background knowledge, they shared lots of ideas and reflections on how BF has directly impacted
their daily lives. They found the lessons and activities meaningful for the same reason. The made con-
stant connections to who BF was to our country, and how his contributions affected our country, then
and now. They enjoyed the engaged learning activities because they got the opportunity to use new apps
to demonstrate their ability to evaluate and compare/contrast BF's life with their own lives. They got to
show what they know, and demonstrated to analyze similarities and differences. As with all lessons, you
learn to be flexible and run with what works. We actually started by using two different apps, but they
did not meet the needs of our objectives or our students. With both Flipgrid and YakIt, it was a learning
process for both us, and our students. We found some students were able to easily share on camera and
were naturals, and others needed more practice to feel comfortable. The apps worked well, but we dis-
covered you could only film fifteen seconds on YakIt, so we just created several different YakIts for each
pair of students, so they could complete the assignment. In retrospect, we would teach it the same, and
use Flipgrid and YakIt from the beginning. Both apps were perfect for our objectives, we had to figure it
out through trial and error. Teaching personified! Our reflection will also be based upon the students'
ability to demonstrate their mastery of the content through their student work (Flipgrid, YakIt, booklets,
formative and summative assessments, etc.).

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with im-
plementing 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 with everything in teaching, rolling with change is key. This lesson started off going in a different di-
rection, but we followed teachable moments as they arose and adjusted our technology and activities as
needed throughout. Kids are kids, they zig when we think they are going to zag, so if you are expecting
twenty-two perfect Flipgrid videos or YakIts, being flexible will be your best friend. Realizing they
could only record fifteen seconds in a YakIt was a curveball, but we quickly figured out a work around.
If you opt to pay for versions of Flipgrid and YakIt, there are a lot more features your students can access
and use to show what they know and create great presentations.

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