I. Content: Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content? In this lesson, students will begin to explore the regions of the U.S. in more detail. Students will learn about major landforms, climate, vegetation and common wildlife of the regions through reading information about each region. Students will see if the picture from their previous investigation matches the region information they received; students will then jigsaw information about their regions through presentations by groups to the whole class. II. Learning Goal(s): Describe what specifically students will know and be able to do after the experience of this class. o Students will be able to identify and describe major landforms, climate, vegetation and common wildlife of the all six regions of the United States. o Students will become experts in their group s region and will be able to extract and present important information about their region from the reading. o Students will be able to identify the location of their region on a map, as well as the states which make up their region. o Students will begin to develop historical empathy. Students will infer about what life may have been like for indigenous people living in their region based on the geographical features, climate, etc. III. Rationale: Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your Curriculum Unit Plan learning goals. My first lesson didn t go quite as I had expected it to, and I felt that I hadn t given the students enough direction. Through this lesson, I am hoping that by providing basic information about the geography of each region, they will be able to see a connection between the dwellings and environments they examined in their previous lesson and the geography of their region. I hope that students will also be able to answer some of the questions, and confirm some of their observations and inferences about the pictures they examined as a group. Finally, I am also hoping that this allows them to connect back to our essential question: How did where the Native Americans lived, affect how they lived? In this lesson students will be learn about major landforms, climate and wildlife native to each of the six regions of the United States. By scaffolding this information, and presenting my students with foundational knowledge about each of the regions, I am hoping that they will be able to understand more clearly how and why Native Americans adapted to their surrounding environment. This lesson also allows for students to become experts in their particular region, while allowing for all groups to learn about all regions. In addition, students will have a chance to practice group work and presentation skills which will be essential to their final assessment. IV. Assessment: Describe how you and your students will know they have reached your learning goals.
Students will be responsible for reading the region sheet carefully and filling in the chart on geographic features of their region. Each group will present about their region Students will be responsible for filling out the remainder of the chart with information about each region during the presentations. Students will also complete a short answer assignment telling me whether the picture their group got from the previous investigation is from the region their group is studying or not, and how they know (provide evidence). V. Personalization: Describe how you will provide for individual student strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each student and scaffold learning? VI. I ended up making the investigation teams homogeneous, allowing me to differentiate by giving the groups that needed the most support geographical regions which are less complex, such as the northeast, which they are already familiar with. Activity description Agenda: Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of your class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path toward understanding. Teacher will Students will Time -Introduce activity -Go over important vocabulary -display map of states & regions -Listen to directions -Offer any background knowledge they have of vocab. 10-15 Minutes -Break students into previously organized investigative teams & pass out regional information. -Walk around, being available to help students fill out charts, etc., when necessary -facilitate group presentations -point out regions on map -Read through region information and fill out chart as a group -look back on picture and notes from previous investigation to see if the picture is from the region which they read about. -prepare to share information about group s region with class -each group does region presentation (share out) -students responsible for paying attention and filling in information about each region during region presentations. -each group passes out regional information to class during presentation 20 minutes 20 minutes
VII. VIII. List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses. 4.9 On a map of North America, locate the current boundaries of the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii). Locate the New England, Middle Atlantic, Atlantic Coast/Appalachian, Southeast/Gulf, South Central, Great Lakes, Plains, Southwest Desert, and Pacific states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. See Appendix H for a listing of states in each region. (G) Reflection a. In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose and learning goals, in what ways was the activity(ies) successful? How do you know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned differently another time? This lesson was successful in that most students were able to read the information sheet about their region, and identify many of the defining characteristics of that region. I found this to be true through my examination of their regional characteristics charts, as well as through my informal conversations with various groups throughout the lesson. I did notice, however, that students occasionally had difficulty placing features in the proper categories on the charts (i.e. some initially placed bodies of water or other characteristics such as forests, in the landforms category). Another area where I felt the lesson was successful was group work. I encouraged students to work in their groups during this activity, and the majority of the groups worked well together. I noticed that many a couple of the groups took turns reading the information out loud, and filled the chart out together. Others read and filled out their charts independently, then came together to share what they had read and written. I also, in some groups I noticed that the students jigwed the information, assigning sections within the group, circling paragraphs to identify subsections of the text where they might find information to help inform their chart.
Many students were also able to connect the source they received in our first lesson, to the region they are studying, by matching environmental features present in the picture, to what they had been reading about in their region sheets. I was able to see evidence of these connections primarily through informal, verbal, conversations with groups. Although I found that many of my groups worked well together, my two lowest groups struggled throughout the lesson. They had a lot of trouble working together, and were overwhelmed by the amount of information on the sheets. If I were to do this lesson again, I would differentiate the information sheets to provide more support for my lower groups. I would also assign roles within these groups to help make the groups run more smoothly. I also feel that I should have kept track of the time better, holding my students accountable for focusing on the information in front of them by giving them more of a time limit. I had wanted students write about how whether or not they were able to make a connection between the source they examined the first day of history and their region once they were finished filling out their charts. Although many groups were able to make these connections verbally, sometimes without any prompting at all, only one student had time to write down their response regarding this connection. Finally, if I were able to do these lessons again, I would make sure to wrap up the lesson with some sort of conversation or journal as a mini-assessment to see if students were able to make connections between lessons, and bring them back to our essential question. I had hoped that we would end the lesson
with the jigsaw presentations of each region, however, we ran out of time. Looking back, I feel that perhaps I had also tried to squeeze too much into one lesson. b. What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your next LAP? I found that the region sheets and accompanying regional characteristics charts were a good way of providing accessible information about the regions to my students. Because this format will now be familiar to them, I feel that it will be a good way to get the basic and important characteristics about the tribes to my students as well. Taking into consideration how my lower groups struggled more to extract important information, as well as to work together within their group, I will make sure to differentiate their next information sheet on Native Americans by providing subheadings, and making the information clearer and more accessible. I will also pay more attention to the time, and set a clearer time expectation as to how long we should be spending reading and filling in our charts. Because we ran out of time, and still had a significant amount to get through to finish this lesson, I will split this lesson into two; adding one more LAP focusing on regions before we move to studying Native Americans. My next LAP will focus on region presentations, and how to successfully jigsaw information.