Introduction
The Solar System “What is the Solar System”
6th grade Science Lesson: Duration 4- 1 hour lessons
Students should gain a basic understanding of what the solar system is and how many planets are located within our solar system. By the end of the lessons students should be able to:
Give a brief explanation of what the solar system is in their own wordsName all nine planets that are part of the solar system.
The five “E’s Instructional Model will be used to structure this lesson. Various tasks I will also include Multiple Intelligences, tiered activities, and flexible grouping (Trowbridge, Bybee, & Powell, 2000).
Task
Engage: show students short extracts of the moon landing a documentary on the solar system, place a four large pieces of paper on the walls in the classroom titled “What we Know” and “What we want to know”. Explain to students that they will be learning about the solar system. Provide students with color markers and allow them to write on each of the pieces of paper. Encourage them to read what others have written before adding their own contribution. Initiate a class discussion about what they have written.
Explore: Place students into small scientific teams. Have the students identify a team leader, a recorder, and time keeper. Students will rotate through all four stations that will help them to learn more about the solar system. In this section multiple intelligences, written in the brackets, will be employed to allow students to investigate the information from different intelligences. Each group will be given a paper detailing the work requirement for each group, this will allow me to set higher levels for my more advanced students and provide support for the students that find school challenging.
Explain: Students will be asked to answer two questions:
What is the Solar System?What are the Planets in the Solar System?
Student may choose to answer these questions in numerous ways; the can create a poster, a power-point presentation, oral presentation or video, they can do an oral recording of themselves using the digital recorder.
Extend: Students are to work in groups of 4’s and are to choose their planet from the solar system. Together they will design an activity that will teach the other students in the class about their chosen planet. Students will engage in each others activities to further understand about the solar system.
Process
Station #1: Video (visual Spatial Intelligence)
Students will watch a short documentary together about the solar system (Harlen, 1985). They will be ask to use the information they have learnt and as a team write a short description of the solar system. This will be placed on display along with the other teams’ descriptions. (descriptions can be drawings).
Station #2: Model (Kinesthetic/Body Intelligence). Students will investigate a model of the solar system that is in the classroom. They will be ask to record using a digital recorder to identify five important things that they as a team noticed about the solar system.
Station #3: Books and websites (Verbal/linguistic Intelligence). Students investigate a number of books and websites on the solar system. They will be ask to create a mind map using a computer program to present their interesting facts.
Station #4: Songs and Pictures (Music Intelligence). Students will investigate a set of songs and pictures related to the solar system. They will be asked to pick one song or picture and describe what information they have learned about space from it.
Evaluation
Evaluate: Students will use the product that they produced at the “Explain” stage of the lesson. They will have time to expand upon what they have done or they will or create an additional piece of work that answers the two essential questions. They will also include a section that explains what they would like to further learn about the solar system.
The student completed each section of assignment (3 pts):
95-100% complete (3)
75-94% complete (2)
50-74% complete (1)
The student answers are related to the question(3pts):
Most or all responses are completely related to the question (3)
Approximately half of the responses are related to the question (2)
Most responses are unrelated to the question (1)
The student answers are complete (3pts)
Nearly every answer or every answer completely answers the question (3)
Many answers have some missing information (2)
Most answers are incomplete or fail to answer questions fully (1)
Total Points for assignment (9pts)
Retrieved from: http://www.edutech.nodak.edu/diit/assigment-rubri
Conclusion
In this lesson there where numerous strategies used to allow all learning styles the opportunity to succeed.
The 5 E’s: is an instructional model that allows students to build on their prior knowledge of a topic.Tiered Activities: this activity allows students to work with the same concepts and essential ideas but at different levels of complexity, a number of steps.Flexible Grouping: The key to grouping is flexibility. Group vary topic based on pre-assessment, Interest, learning styles; readiness ability for small groups to function there must be adequate preparation for students in role responsibilities and opportunities for reflecting on the success of a group’s efforts through established criteria.Stations: stations are a part of whole concept, topic, or theme being taught. Students rotates through the stations in steps, as pat of a unit of instruction.Choice Activities: Are a great motivator for students to participate. Provides options based on learning styles. It is the processes for how content will be learned.Adjusting Questions: this is an easy way for teachers to help students meet success but also a way to challenge higher-level students with open-ended, divergent questions.Assessment: in the differentiated classroom is considered as diagnostic and informative.
All students learn differently, and the learning styles are different, therefore using differentiated instructions like: Tiered activities, Flexible grouping, stations, choice activities, Assessments, and adjusting questions and many more will provide students’ the success needed to learn. However hands on projects create interest, equal skills, it allows abilities to vary, regardless of proficiency. In order to support each students learning on an individual level, curricula need to be altered, edited or instructions need to be differentiated (Tomlinson, 2014). As an educator it allows me to better guide my students in the direction of learning with a better understanding of what they are learning.
Credits
Harlen, W. (1985). Primary Science: Taking the Plunge.Trowbridge, L.W., Bybee, R. W., & Powell, J. C. (2000). Teaching Secondary Science: strategies for developing scientific literacy.Tomlinson, C. A. (2014). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of all Learners: 2nd Edition. ASCD: Alexandria, VA: 22311-174 USA.
Teacher Page
I will use a number of differentiating strategies such as Blooms taxonomy, Multiple Intelligences and the five “E’s” which is a scientific method to explore scientific concepts. These are various methods that can be used to support differentiation in the classroom.
Terri Davis of Miami, Fl. Creator
I am a Middle School Science Teacher in Miami, Fl. I am currently seeking the knowledge to better educate my students.
This web-quest has been designed to meet the needs of middle school students in grade 6th grade. This web-quest, as long as groups are created heterogeneously, will meet the needs of all types of learners. Students will be using cooperative learning along with differentiated strategies.