Lesson Plan 2: An inquiry lesson
Secondary School Science Teaching Methods
DUE: Thursday 10/15
Design and prepare to teach a 10-12 minute portion of a lesson on anything you want (but do read the remaining directions before you choose your topic). You will teach/share part of the lesson to the class, and you will hand in a detailed lesson plan.
Requirements:
Your lesson should be inquiry based and student centered. Your lesson will be evaluated not only for its content and organization, but primarily for how well it fits into the characteristics of student centered, inquiry based learning.
Your lesson should address a topic in the 7th or 8th grade core
Your topic should be very focused in scope. Instead of teaching a lesson on evolution, you might consider a lesson on the gray moths in the U.K.; instead of a lesson on gravity, you should probably analyze a specific detail of freefall motion. Be very focused in your goals for this lesson.
Your lesson plan should be clear enough that an informed person/substitute teacher could also understand the lesson plan and conduct it as you intend. Make it clear what the goals of the lesson are (what is the enduring understanding) and how you intend to get this idea across. You should identify and explicitly describe how you are addressing a specific concept to be learned. Remember that the background and other sections need to have sufficient detail/specifics that I can evaluate your content knowledge and a substitute could correctly conduct this lesson.
You will be given 10-12 minutes to teach/share the essence of the lesson to the rest of us. It would help to choose a concept and teaching plan that fits into this timeframe.
Turn in your lesson plan as a hard copy and turn in an electronic file (.html, or .pdf) so that your lesson plan can be posted to our web site for others to use. The hard and electronic copy are due no later than one week after your presentation.
Include with your hard copy a cover letter that clarifies where on the inquiry rubric you think this lesson falls and why, what level of Bloom's assessment you are using and anything else that you think I need to know regarding this lesson.
Have fun! This assignment should be engaging, because you are starting to really think about the nature of learning by real people; and it should be useful, because you really will be using this in your future classroom.