Instructional Strategies
Choice: Due to the number of the volunteers typically in the classroom, the number of students and their limited attention spans, this lesson will include quite a few different activities that will feature both teacher-centered and learner-centered strategies.
Teacher-Centered:
Description:
Technology:
Rationale:
In order for them to be able to identify and explain the terminology of the life cycle, they need to have extensive interaction with. The students will be able to learn vocabulary and identify them with images through presentations, demonstrations, games, and discovery. These activities will give students numerous opportunities to practice identifying and explaining the terminology of the life cycle. Through these interactions, they should also be able to identify and explain the life cycle through their own drawings. From the practice of rearranging, organizing, and sorting the parts of the life cycle, they should be able to put it together on their own with 100% accuracy.
I feel that because my students have very short attention spans, having the multiple activities available for them to do will help them stay on task while learning the objective material. It is a large group with varying strengths and skills, so having the variety will help them absorb the information in a way that works best for them. If I was a solo teacher I would not do this as stations but as a large group, especially the color and cut activity. Because there are volunteers and assistants in the classroom, I thought that having multiple strategies for my students to weave throughout will help them accumulate the knowledge that is to be gained from the lesson.
Teacher-Centered:
- Presentations: Using "I Am a Butterfly," video clips, and closing lecture.
- Demonstration: The instructor will demonstrate how to color and cut the worksheet and glue the pieces on to a piece of construction paper.
- Games: The Butterfly Life Cycle games on the iPad.
- Discovery Learning: Sorting and rearranging actual images of the stages of a butterfly life cycle.
Description:
- Students will be drawn into the lesson by reading "I Am a Butterfly" by Stephen Swinburne together as a class. This will be done by echo reading, all students should be following with their finger pointing to the words. This should take about 10 minutes.
- The instructor will then explain the four stations that the students will rotate into. The teacher will split the students up into groups arranged ahead of time that include students from all levels intermingled with each other.
- Students will then split into small groups to rotate through various stations. They will spend 10-15 minutes at each station. Each station will have a paraprofessional, student assistant, volunteer Grandparent, or the teacher at it. If not, the teacher will rotate among each of the groups making sure all students understand what they are to be doing.
- Station 1: Video Clips Station 2: Coloring Craft Station 3: Butterfly Life Cycle Game on iPad & KidPix Station 4: Sorting Images
- The lesson will close with the teacher bringing the students back together at their tables to review the four steps of the butterfly life cycle.
- A summative assessment will be given the following day.
Technology:
- This lesson includes two different videos for students to watch in small groups as a class.
- Students will also get a chance to play Butterfly Life Cycle games and draw the life cycle using KidPix on an iPad.
Rationale:
In order for them to be able to identify and explain the terminology of the life cycle, they need to have extensive interaction with. The students will be able to learn vocabulary and identify them with images through presentations, demonstrations, games, and discovery. These activities will give students numerous opportunities to practice identifying and explaining the terminology of the life cycle. Through these interactions, they should also be able to identify and explain the life cycle through their own drawings. From the practice of rearranging, organizing, and sorting the parts of the life cycle, they should be able to put it together on their own with 100% accuracy.
I feel that because my students have very short attention spans, having the multiple activities available for them to do will help them stay on task while learning the objective material. It is a large group with varying strengths and skills, so having the variety will help them absorb the information in a way that works best for them. If I was a solo teacher I would not do this as stations but as a large group, especially the color and cut activity. Because there are volunteers and assistants in the classroom, I thought that having multiple strategies for my students to weave throughout will help them accumulate the knowledge that is to be gained from the lesson.