Lesson Study Cycle 3
Our lesson study group worked together to plan a sequence of lessons with the goal of supporting scientific academic language.
A lesson study is a group of educators coming together to spend some time deeply crafting a lesson to answer a research question and test a theory of action. The results of the lesson are found through close observation of student experiences. Our lesson study group included four teachers, named Addy, Lilly, and Becca (me).
Research Question
How can we help students develop academic language through movement?
Theory Of Action
If we as teachers design lessons that support multiple means of representation, including total physical response, with life science concepts and scientific academic language then students will feel confident expressing their understanding through various means of expression resulting in students developing skills to independently share their thinking through a personalized method of expression.
Equity Goals
Students will be able to express their thinking through multiple means of representation.
Teachers will design modules, lessons and assessments that welcome and celebrate various forms of expression.
Content Goals
Students will be able to identify the stages of a hornworm’s life cycle
Our team reflected on ways to celebrate the developmental needs of a young child. We considered the need to wiggle and move and how that fits into academic learning. We considered ways students express themselves and what they need to feel safe doing so. Our team planned a lesson where movement and play were a valued form of expression of scientific concepts and language. Our lesson is a formative assessment towards the end of a learning sequence in which students explored the life cycle of a moth through various modalities. It is also a community building syncrinous class meeting during a period of distance learning.
Research
Our research explored Universal Design for Learning, Culturally Responsive Teaching, scientific academic language, and Total Physical Response. We went on a journey that provided the foundation our lesson sequence and helped us develop new understandings of assets, inclusion and joy in the classroom (or classzoom.) Read my synthesis to learn how our research helped us make decisions within the design of these lessons. Read the research to get a better understanding of each reference mentioned.
Planning
I was collaborating on a kindergarten project about bugs and had been introducing new bugs to the children, diving deeply into the parts, life cycles, and roles they play in ecosystems. Our lesson study team had played with the idea of exploring ants and diving deeply into the jobs ants have. We planned on using movements to represent different roles in the colonies. This lesson was to be taught with Addy's students (as well as others) and an extension of Lily's lesson study. We also had decided that it should involve a game, as this is my preferred method to engage students during processing time. That ball was rolling until we went into quarantine.
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At the start of quarantine I grabbed everything I could from my classroom and stopped at the pet store on the way home. I picked up food for my kitten and some feeder hornworms. I wondered what learning would look like and how this lesson study could even continue.
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When our team first met, after we entered quarantine, we decided we didn't need to abandon the Theory of Action; that we could modify the content and be flexible with what this lesson could look like. We switched to hornworms because that is what I had. We were even more interested in Universal Design for Learning and how to use the framework to build lesson sequence that could attempt to meet the needs of students learning from home during a pandemic.
Focus Student Assets and Goals
We were designing learning activities to support engagement with distance learning, facilitate independent completion, and feel accessible with limited resources. We planned a lesson sequence that allowed students to engage with and express learning in a variety of ways. The lesson sequence described below was not only to meet the challenge of distance learning, but we were hoping to help students explore various means of expression and feel pride in themselves and what they bring to their learning experience.
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With the distance learning platforms, it became more apparent how important it is for students to feel safe, connected and happy in their learning environments. Zoom does not make that easy. Exploratory classes are optional during distance learning and class meetings are mainly for community building and connection. We wanted to get the students excited about science learning and our creative lesson sequence encouraged participation.
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Choosing focus students was a challenge as attendance to the end of unit synchronous lesson was unpredictable. We had a pool of 6 students going in. The live lesson hd to be more of an assessment to encourage community and engagement. Students had not used synchronous meetings for new learning and had not yet had a live science meeting due to a tricky timeline. We wanted students to be able to play with the content they had been exploring to feel connected with peers and confident as scholars.
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I taught this lesson a week before the research lessons and using pieces of the NGSS lesson study protocol, we modified small pieces to make the lesson even more effective. The artifacts presented are from the two classes that received the modified lesson.
Asynchronous Lesson Sequence
Lesson Goal: Phenomenon of Pupation
Can Do: Thinking job share predictions of what the pupa will become.
1.
Lesson Goal: Share the pupation of our hornworms. Explore differences between moths and butterflies.
Can Do: Hand shadow puppet moths fly at night.
2.
Lesson Goal: Life Cycle of Moth
Can Do: Make a life cycle sculpture with food. Open to other representations.
3.
Lesson Goal: Other ways to show life cycles.
Can Do: Represent life cycle of a hornworm with movement. create your own life cycle movements.
4.
The Lesson
The lesson began with a social emotional check in. It helps me gauge how they are feeling and lets them feel less isolated with their emotions. They were asked to choose a word and communicate this with a facial expression. This is another way we reinforce multiple means of expression. This is particularly helpful for Zoom in which the range of emotional expression can be limited and/or strained. I was also more able to assess the lesson's goals around supporting community and confidence by seeing if their self identified emotional state improved.
We then celebrated their work, encouraging continued participation, building confidence, and reminding them of the various ways they have expressed their learning so far. This montage video included screenshots from their asynchronous lifecycle work.
Students were then introduced to a scaffolded version of the game, in which they identify the life cycle I am pointing to and respond with a movement. They were also told to shout the name of that stage, despite being on mute. They were shown a slide with the suggestions for movements that was shared with them in lesson 4. They were also reminded they could use their invented movements.
Students share how they are feeling.
Montage video of student work.
Reminder slide of movements done by their teachers.
Visual cues for life cycle game.
After a brief review of the life cycle movements, students were then given the challenge round, in which they had to decipher the clues to identify the life cycle stage then respond with the movement and shouting the stage name. This activity was followed by a celebration of the different ways they had expressed their learning about hornworms and an extension question about other ways to show life cycle stages. Students were also asked a SEL question about things they like about learning from home. The lesson wrapped with a mini dane party where we encouraged students to dance with their best moth life cycle moves.
Debrief Notes on Focus Student 2
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FS2 stayed at the computer for almost the whole lesson, leaving once.
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He seemed to watch the lesson, physically participating twice that we could see. The camera showed the top of his head and there were times it looked like he might be moving his body but the camera angle does not show this.
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​He accurately responded with movements 2/6 times.
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FS2 was eager to share his thinking with extension questions and answers were on topic.
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FS2 raised his hand and put it down 4 times. He did not show signs of frustration with not getting called on when he wanted, and showed patience most of the time. One time, towards the end of the lesson, he was acting more silly while he waited to share and showing signs that he was growing impatient.
Findings
My Debrief Reflection
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The tech was acting up at first. I began the lesson with seeing only 3-4 faces and not sure if students could see/hear me.
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The energy started low but picked up.
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The students responded with such great ideas for extension ideas after more processing time. I was leading them with the song idea and I would change that in the future.
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I would have used a visual cue for my extension question to support attention needs that may be challenged with the mute unmute issues with zoom.
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I would have loved if we had already established a routine for mics not working, though our solution worked in the end.
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I wonder about routines we could set up for movement activities to ensure we could see the whole student.
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I felt like this activity was well received and that more students were responding to life cycle comprehension questions then with just verbal responses.
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Students were taking risks with answers, both movement and verbal responses. They were responding confidently and showing signs the learning situation was not a threat.
Major Takeaways From
Equity Commentator Feedback
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The use of auditory attention getters the tambourine and music help grab their attention digitally too!
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Using their work and modeling with their teachers helped them feel comfortable to participate.
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The extension question was phrased in a way that made it inaccessible to some of the students.
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The ability to accurately asses their use of vocabulary was limited with this lesson & platform pairing.e
Students respond to the clues with life cycle movements.
Major Takeaways of the Group
Next Steps
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If we set up a learning environment where students feel safe, they are willing to take risks, no matter the platform.
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We were able to design a lesson that helped young studnets feel confident using their energy in a way that helped strengthened their identity as a learner.
I will work on developing more efficient ways to assess learning over synchronous distance learning.
There was room for student voice that wouldn't
take away from the momentum of the lesson.
I will have variations of extension questions
on hand incase they do not land well.
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Watching a focus student who is often wiggly with his body, but remained totally engaged made us think about ways that we track engagement and assumptions we make about body language in our students. A student’s body language is not always. an indicator of their listening/participation.
I will be sure to include activities that
help students feel like they are
valued in learning environments
and safe to express themselves.