Barriers to Education Mini-Lesson Plan

VTFT Student Name: Val O’Neal

Date Lesson Will be Taught: 2/8

Lesson Topic
(your barrier)
Poverty
Students will learn ABOUT the barrier (causes, preventions, and
Objective/
treatments. statistics), HOW the barrier impacts students, and
Learning Target WHAT schools/teachers can do to help.

Intro/Hook/Warmup Team Pink: Relationships - students will compete to build a tower

What will you do to get Team Orange: Cognition - students can only look at the picture once
the attention of the class Team Yellow: Constant - students will build a tower
& introduce them to this Team Green: Health & Nutrition - students are not given instructions
lesson? (Time: 1-3 min) Team Blue: Hope & Growth Mindset - students will build a tower of cards
Team Purple: Distress - students must build a complicated tower
under a time restraint

- Upon entering the classroom, students will sit in different

groups. Each group should have at least one person—except
for Team Pink, which should have at least two people.
- When everyone is situated, the teacher will tell the students to
open up the envelope that indicates their team name and read
their instructions silently to themselves and assemble their
materials. After a few moments, the teacher will ask if any
group—aside from Team Green—has any questions.
- If any group has any questions, the teacher will go up to the
group and answer their questions without revealing too much.
- When everyone is ready, the teacher will allow the groups to flip
over their paper and begin the activity.
- When most of the groups are complete—aside from Team Blue,
who will surely take quite a long time—the teacher will cut the
rest of the groups off.
- Each group will read their directions and compare their stacked
cups to the picture on the back of their instructions.
- The teacher will ask the groups to replace their instructions in
their envelope and place their materials back in their baskets.
While they are cleaning up, the teacher will then take the time to
pass out hand-outs and get the PowerPoint ready.
Body of Lesson
List activities.
Use “Students will…” &
“Teachers will….”
Include lecture, activity,
discussion, etc. but not
hook or closure again.
Include links to materials.
(Time: 4-6 min total.
Lecture portion should
be 2-3min at most!
Make sure to schedule time
for class to copy notes or
answer questions, if you
include those tasks. ☺)
Closing
What will you do to finalize
the lesson/gauge students’
learning?
(Time: 1-3min)
- The teacher will explain the handout: ”this handout will be used
to take notes on the effects of poverty on education, so please
fill them out when we get to that portion of the presentation.”
- The teacher will begin the lecture with a brief introduction to the
topic.
- The teacher will define poverty—as established by U.S.
governmental standards.
- The teacher will read poverty-related statistics and students
will be asked to react to these.
- Students will answer the question in a whole-group discussion:
“what are the effects of poverty on academic performance?”
- The teacher will introduce the effects of poverty on academic
performance and have the students guess which groups
represented which effect.
- The teacher will go through each effect and elaborate on why
each group was represented the way it was.
- Students will be asked to complete their “what can you do”
section of the handout at this time.
- Students will then discuss what they can do to accommodate
the needs of children in poverty.
- The teacher will finish the presentation, making sure to note the
importance of aiding students in poverty.
- The teacher will answer any questions about any of the
information presented.