Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
B. CONTEXT OF LESSON:
This magnet exploration activity will be introductory for second graders as they begin to
learn about magnetic attraction. At Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School, Mrs. Garber’s
second grade class will have already begun talking about magnets earlier in the week. On
Thursday, they will participate in this lesson, a scientific investigation of magnets, with me.
Through this lesson, students will investigate and explore what kinds of materials magnets
are and are not attracted to.
While the students’ main objectives are to learn about magnets and their attraction, this
lesson also contains objectives for students to learn about scientific investigations, including
predictions (hypotheses) and data. This is additional information that students must know in
order to complete the task successfully. My hope is that students will contain some prior
knowledge on these topics. In order to know how long I will need to spend on this base
knowledge, I will conduct an informal preassessment with the students where I ask them the
following questions:
Asking these questions during an informal preassessment will allow me to gauge the students
understanding of the process we will be using in order to learn about magnets. Should the
students show much prior knowledge, or are able to make inferences with my prompting, I
will know that I do not need to spend much time at the beginning of my lesson reviewing
these ideas. I might simply ask if they remember when we talked about investigations and
predictions, what they meant, and what they think a SCIENTIFIC investigation is. If during
the preassessment they do not exhibit prior knowledge of these topics, I must address them
again prior to beginning my lesson. Likely, I will do so in the same way as the
preassessment, by asking the same discussion questions and correcting any misconceptions.
After informally assessing students on their knowledge of the process we will be using
during our magnetic exploration, we can move onto talking about magnets. I want students to
know that today they are SECOND GRADE SCIENTISTS and they will be working hard to
conduct a SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION on magnets. I want the students to get into the
mindset of acting and speaking like scientists during this entire lesson.
Before diving into our activity, I will ask the students to tell me what they have learned about
magnets so far with Mrs. Garber. Likely, the students will talk about what magnets are and
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
what it means for things to be attracted to magnets. I will explain to students that are going to
further our research as scientist second graders by exploring magnets. During this activity,
students will be given opportunities as a class to explain what a magnet is, make predictions
about what kinds of materials magnets are and are not attracted to, test those predictions, and
record their results or data.
Another item worth noting is that throughout this lesson I will be using aspects of whole
brain teaching. Whole brain teaching is a philosophy of teaching/method of instruction that is
becoming increasingly popular, because it is said to be extremely beneficial for all types of
learners. Additionally, it incorporates effective ways to promote classroom management,
especially for the most challenging students. Chris Biffle, the father of whole brain teaching,
believes that students are more engaged when they are “emotionally involved in lessons that
[require] seeing, saying, hearing, and physical moving,” (Biffle 2013). Movements combined
with teacher-student echo is very effective in helping students remember vocabulary and
important buzz words, processes, and ideas. I am hoping to incorporate certain attention
getters (call and response) and mirror movements for remembering important vocabulary into
my lesson as whole brain teaching methods. During my lesson, whole brain teaching will
give students the opportunity for teacher, peer, and self-feedback when participating and
checking the mirror motions. Anything I do in my procedure that is a whole brain teaching
method will be highlighted in green.
Biffle, C. (2013). Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids. California: Whole Brain
Teaching.
Biffle, C. (2018). Whole Brain Teaching – The fastest growing education reform
movement in the world! Retrieved October 31, 2018, from
https://wholebrainteaching.com/
D. STANDARD PROGRESSION:
IDENTIFY north and south poles of magnets and daily life applications of
magnets
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
Understand Know Do
By the end of the lesson, students
should know what a prediction is
and how to create a hypothesis.
By the end of the lesson, students Additionally, students will know
Students will be responsible for
should gain an understanding of that in order to test their
making predictions, investigating,
what it means for magnets to be hypotheses, they must conduct a
classifying their results, and
attracted to something, and what scientific investigation or
create a chart that shows these
kinds of materials magnets are experiment. Lastly, students will
results and classifications.
typically attracted to. know what materials magnets are
typically attracted to and how to
classify those objects into
different categories.
FOR STUDENTS
Understand Know Do
I know what a prediction is and
how I can make a prediction I can predict what types of
through creating a hypothesis. materials magnets will and will
not be attracted to.
I know how to conduct a
Today I am learning about
scientific investigation. I can conduct a scientific
magnetic attraction, so I can
investigation on magnets in order
understand what materials are
I know how to classify objects to test my predictions.
magnetic and why.
into different categories based on
their similarities and differences. I can classify my results into the
two categories of magnetic and
I know what materials magnets not magnetic materials.
are attracted to.
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
F. ASSESSING LEARNING:
G. MATERIALS NEEDED:
Lab Notebooks (attached)
Classification Worksheet (attached)
Large Magnets (Enough for students to work in small groups of 2 or 3)
Objects for investigation
o YES MAGNETIC paper clip, safety pin, screw, thumbtack, scissors, pipe cleaner, battery
o NO NOT MAGNETIC crayon, penny, candle, toothpick, rubber band, aluminum foil, key
H. PROCEDURE:
9:45am – 10:40am
Activity Element
Procedures and Management
& Time (in Students
(Instructor)
minutes)
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
IS GOING TO HAPPEN
*walking in place movement*
WE INVESTIGATE OR EXPLORE
*invisible magnifying glass to eye*
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
WE INVESTIGATE OR EXPLORE
*invisible magnifying glass to eye*
IS GOING TO HAPPEN
*walking in place movement*
I. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Difficulty Multitasking. Students may have a hard time multitasking engaging in the investigation and
also writing down their results. If this is the case, I may decide to have students complete the
investigation without writing in their lab books. Even though I think this is a good reinforcer of the
lesson, the students will still be accountable for showing what they learned through the cut and paste
activity at the end of the lesson.
Complete Chaos. I am hoping that my students will be good about sharing the magnets and working
together. However, I can absolutely see some students hogging the materials and their group members
either getting upset that they have not had a turn OR just sitting back and letting their peers do all the
investigating. If the students are unable to handle working in small groups fairly, I could always take a
step back and do the investigation as a whole group. In this way, I would have the students sit at their
desks with their lab books and call on volunteers to come pick one object and see if the magnet was
attracted. Then, the whole class would record the data on their lab books.
At the conclusion of the lesson, I would like to ask students why they think some of the metallic
materials were magnetic and some were not. We will discuss the idea that there are different kinds of
metals and only a select few of them are magnetic (iron, nickel, and cobalt). All other types of metals
will not be magnetic.
K. DIFFERENTIATION:
The differentiation provided below is not based on students in my current practicum classroom, because I
have no students that need my lesson to be differentiated. My examples below are simply theoretical and
were used to practice planning how I could differentiate for these types of learners (ELLs and students
with disabilities) in the future.
English Language
Content Process Product
Learners
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018
Allow students to
choose whether or not
Let students choose how Students should show
they work in small
they access the what they know about
groups or individually.
information. Have magnetic attraction.
Provide students with a
materials and magnets They can do so through
variety of materials to
out, books about the provided
assist them in
Interest magnets, and online sorting/chart worksheet,
completing the task (i.e.
resources pulled up and verbally showing me
complete their magnet
allow students to choose their sort during the
exploration with hands
how they are introduced experiment, or
on materials, complete
to magnets during drawing/creating their
their magnet exploration
morning work time. own chart with pictures.
using an online
resource, etc.)
Based on the child’s prior
knowledge of the
essential vocabulary
words in English, I will
scaffold their worksheets
Readiness
and discussions by
providing the essential
vocabulary terms in both
English and the
designated language.
Students with a
Content Process Product
Learning Disability
Allow students to
choose whether or not
Students should show
Let students choose how they work in small
what they know about
they access the groups or individually.
magnetic attraction.
information. Have Provide students with a
They can do so through
materials and magnets variety of materials to
the provided
out, books about assist them in
Interest sorting/chart worksheet,
magnets, and online completing the task (i.e.
verbally showing me
resources pulled up and complete their magnet
their sort during the
allow students to choose exploration with hands
experiment, or
how they are introduced on materials, complete
drawing/creating their
to magnets during their magnet exploration
own chart with pictures.
morning work time. using an online
resource, etc.)
Jennifer L. Mollen (Jenny)
Mrs. Tonya Garber – Hugh K. Cassell Elementary School
Lesson Date: November 29th, 2018
Submitted: November 15th, 2018