Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETS•S—Template I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Stephanie Ray

Position 5th Grade Teacher

School/District Cobb County School District

E-mail Stephanie.ray@cobbk12.org

Phone 678-983-8540

Grade Level(s) 5th

Content Area Science

Timeline Two Days

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.

Students will learn to research and create an opinion based on their research. They will
also use their knowledge of area and volume for the purchasing of a chicken coop.
Content Standards Students will create a budget for our needed items.
Students will locate and organize information using a variety of sources. Students will
NETS*S Standards: communicate information and ideas effectively using Adobe Spark Creative Cloud.

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

Students will research one of the following four topics that have to do with our future yearlong project at our
school: chicken breeds, chicken needs, chicken coops, and marketing/distributing eggs. Students will research
using a pre-approved list of sites and Cobb Digital Library. Then create a presentation using Adobe Spark
Creative Cloud video for the grade level to watch and then select the type of breeds, items chickens need for
survival, coop, and plan for marketing and distributing eggs. Students will post their videos to a Padlet for all of
fifth grade to view and then we will let students select the presentation for which chicken breeds to purchase for
our school, the items on the list for the needs, the best coop for our school, and how we plan to market and
distribute the eggs by answering the Forms.

Slides used for students to follow (checklist items) - Lesson Plan ISTE Slides.pptx

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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
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.

Essential/Guiding Questions Answered in Research Groups:

 What does a baby chick need to thrive?
 What are the necessary parts of a chicken coop?
 Is it more cost effective to purchase a coop kit or make a coop ourselves from scratch?
 Which breeds of chickens are best suited for a school environment?
 How can we effectively market and distribute eggs?

Background/Prior Knowledge:
 Students should have an idea of some basic needs for living things.
 Students should know the basics of adding and subtracting decimal numbers.
 Students should have basic computer skills.

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.

Students will create a presentation using Adobe Spark Creative Cloud video to share their learning of their
specific topic of research. We will use a rubric to assess students on their given topic and another rubric for their
presentations.

Rubric for Topic and Presentation - Lesson Plan ISTE rubric.pptx

Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resources—online student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

Research sites (Given on CTLS – LMS and students can use any other site in our Cobb Digital Library) –
Allows students a quick list of pre-approved sites to get started with research, however, students can also use our
county’s digital library to research more.
Adobe Spark Creative Cloud Video – Allows students to create with or without the help of a template.
Padlet – Students will use Padlet to post their videos to for others to preview.
Microsoft Office Forms – Students will be able to use the Forms to go vote on their favorite chicken breed
choice groups, coop plan, needs items/budget, and marketing/distribution strategies.
Assessment Rubrics (Presentation) – This rubric will help students to create their presentations meeting all
criteria and constraints.

Background/Prior Technology Skills:

 Navigate CTLS (LMS)
 Navigate Cobb Digital Library
 Basic functions on Adobe Spark Creative Cloud

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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 this lesson our STEM got a feel for how our students would like to take on a project of raising chickens.
Since this group fifth graders will not have it as a yearlong project and only a shorten modified project, she also
felt out the fourth graders. The students love the idea of taking care of chickens and creating a little business
selling chicken eggs to our community.

We also set up a time with our media specialist to help us do a quick introductory lesson using Adobe Spark
Creative Cloud. This helped the students have some prior knowledge of how to work the program before using it
to create a presentation.

Many students do not know much about chickens. This can be difficult before we start this project and might
cause some anxieties. We tried to put our students who have little to no knowledge of chickens in the chicken
needs group, so that they could learn about what needs a chicken has.

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: Troubleshooting 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.

Students will be split into four research groups and sent into a different classroom. All of the students in the
marketing and distribution group will go to one classroom, etc. The students will not have technology in their
hands until the project is fully introduced to help with management. Students will get one laptop per research
group (currently this is all the technology we could use, next year we could allow each student to use their laptop).
Students were then able to begin to create their presentations on the second day. The students returned to their
homeroom classrooms to work on their presentations. The students got to work in quiet areas down the 5 th grade
hallway as teachers monitored various areas. This allowed for a space for students to record their presentations in
quiet manner.

Before the lesson took place the teachers worked together to ensure all the links worked on the PDF documents
and checked each other’s CTLS pages to see that the resource opened. This was to help make sure the day of
research went smoothly.

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 Bloom’s 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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The teacher will take on a facilitator of learning role during this student-led project. Students get the opportunity to
create, think critically, and design throughout this lesson. The technology is helping support the teaching because
students are able to use it to drive their own learning without the teacher help. The Padlet is a great tool for
students to post and communicate with others throughout the grade level.

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 were placed in groups that teacher felt best met their needs. Several students who feel a strong sense
of dread with math were placed in the chicken breeds group. This allowed them to not think about budgeting or
planning. Students that did not know much of anything about chickens prior were placed into the chicken needs
group to learn more about their needs. Some students were able to use the templates in Adobe Spark Creative
Cloud to help with the creation of their video.

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

Students had a lot of fun with this lesson. This was seen through observations and discussions with the students.
Each week they would ask when are eggs arriving, how long until they hatch, and what will happen once they
hatch? They were so engaged because they knew they were a big part of the decision-making process. Students
are still interested in their research, and their learning on chickens. Students worked well in their groups and the
students liked going to a different teachers room than they might be used to for the research groups. Students
were more engaged not being with the same students for the project and they were on their best behaviors. The
timing of the project was too short. We need to lengthen the amount of time for research and presentation making
to at least a week and not just two days. We would also like for each student to have a laptop to research and
then use a Word document to collaborate with their group on their research.

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.
If you plan to implement this lesson with your students, please note that you might want to look into some grant
money to get going. Our STEM teacher, who is fabulous, wrote a grant for us to be able to purchase a coop for
outside and several incubators for our classrooms. Without the grant, they project would not have been as
successful.

Padlet - https://padlet.com/stephanie_ray/a2fw9ilvje4ztjpg
Forms - https://forms.office.com/r/K7W7LNm2LB

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