Artifact # 4
Math Unit expounds ideas and concepts about graphing for first grade students. This lesson plan unit provides four lessons that link together and deal with collecting data, recording data, graphing data, and making predictions. Students practice language arts skills, problem solving skills, and computer skills throughout the four lessons.
Context
The Math Unit was created using Microsoft Word. It was developed
by myself and a fellow colleague during our Block experience at ASU.
We created the unit to provide additional instruction about collecting
data and graphing it. We include four lessons that build on one another.
Students make predictions and develop hypotheses about the jar of m&m’s.
During the following lessons they test their hypotheses by proving or disproving
them as they discover the truth. They graph their results using a
computer software program. This program provides challenges for students
with various levels of graphing comprehension. In other words, the
learning experience within the four lessons deal with a subject matter
that students can discover the knowledge they need in order to complete
the assignment. This creates a most meaningful and lasting learning
experience.
Impact
Integration across the curriculum is a strong focus of this Math Unit.
Teachers can utilize this unit to enhance writing skills. Writing
about math aids students in deeper comprehension of math concepts, as well
as developing as a writer. This unit focuses on small group work
and targets various developmental stages. Group work allows students
of various developmental levels to work together and help one another.
The software program accommodates students’ levels by providing easy to
hard graphing tasks. Teachers collect information about student learning
and assess their development levels through their work on the computers.
Although students are learning math skills of counting, sorting, and organizing,
they are simultaneously learning computer skills that meet the NC Standard
Course of Study requirements. This unit plan can be modified for
older students by changing the material being investigated or the topic
of graphing. It is important to note that the activities in these
lesson plans are fun, intriguing, and engaging so that students do not
fill pressured and stressed by the project at hand.
Alignment
The fourth lesson of the unit plan provides the technology/computer
curriculum skills that are met through this assignment. These skills
identify what the students should know and be able to do by the end of
this unit (Tech Competency 10.4).
Students create their own graph and print it out to be evaluated.
Teachers can assess their computer skills, their knowledge of collecting
data, graphing data, and proving or disproving hypotheses from the products
they create using the computer (Tech Competency
12.2). All the curriculum goals that are intended to be met from
this unit are expressed in each lesson. Students begin the unit with
hands-on activities discovering for themselves the knowledge they need
to know. This unit requires students to develop a graph using computer
software that has been evaluated by me (see Software
Evaluation) to prove their comprehension of the curriculum goals that
have been met. They create their graphs using the colors and design
of their choice. This is a symbol of student expression (Tech
Competency 12.7). Students have physical interaction with the
materials and engage in meaningful experiences. To create these experiences
for our students, my colleague and I had to test collecting data from the
materials we were wanting our students to work with. It was important
for me to evaluate the software to know what my students would be dealing
with and whether it would satisfy the needs and goals I wanted to achieve
from my lesson. Students generate knowledge and a hypothesis from
the material they work with. The students go through a scientific
process to prove and disprove their hypotheses, as well as, write about
it in their math journals. These experiences will provide students
with meaningful and lasting learning (INTASC
#1).