Danielle Linowes and Amanda Belcher

EDT 473 A
May 12, 2015
Lesson Study
1.

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE OF THE LESSON

Creating an Animal and Habitat by combining two animals.

2.

THE TWO SELECTED CONTENT AREA

Science and English Language Artssub

3.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TOPIC TO BE ADDRESSED

This lesson will focus on animals and the habitats in which they live. The
students will learn about the characteristics of two different animals that they
choose and combine them to create a new animal. They will choose which
characteristics of each animal to incorporate in the new animal and choose a
habitat based on the needs of this new animal. They will write a sentence
explaining why each animal lives in the habitat that it lives in, which
incorporates the writing of informational text. They will also have to illustrate
the new animal and its new habitat and write a similar sentence explaining
why it lives in that habitat.
4. CONTEXT
A. First Grade
B. In our classroom, there are very few meaningful and authentic learning
experiences presented to the students. Much of the work entails recall through
the use of worksheets and simple games at centers. There is not a lot of explicit
science or social studies instruction, with most of it being addressed through
literacy. Textbooks and workbooks are used for math and reading on a daily
basis. The students in the class are lively and excited about learning when they
are given the space to do so. One student, Jaren, is a very small boy with a big
voice. He can get very engaged in the content and gets excited about the topic,
but is stifled by the teacher because he is too loud and it is disruptive to the
rest of the class. He gets in trouble often because of his loud voice and is
labeled as a bad student. Another student in our classroom, Donna, is vastly
different. She is more quiet and compliant and rarely gets in trouble. On the
playground, we can see a different side to her. She is playful and energetic. In
our lesson study, we hope to foster those qualities and utilize them in a
beneficial way.
C. The students have read a passage from their textbook on animals and their
special features. Some of the animals in our lesson study were present in the
text. In addition, our host teacher has planned to have chicken eggs that will
eventually hatch as chicks in the classroom for the students to observe.
5. DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECTIVES OF THE INTEGRATED LESSON

A.
Science: Living things survive only in environments that meet their
needs.
This standard is really about animal and plant adaptations and plants and
animals interactions with their habitat. Students will understand that all living
things have certain habitats that they must live in to survive. In order for people
to live we need food, water, and shelter. Animals have special features to help
them survive in the climate in which they live.
B.
English Language Arts: Write informative/explanatory texts in which
they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some
sense of closure.
This standard covers the idea of understanding how to write and organize
informational texts. Students are able to research facts about their topic to
support their understanding.
6.

QUALITIES OF EXPERIENCE

In our host classroom, we found a lack of enthusiasm for learning,

creativity and critical thinking, and group work. Through our lesson study, we
wanted to allow the students to experience those things that we thought were
important. When developing our lesson, we aimed to address the following
qualities of experience:
In what ways does this lesson promote collaboration and social interaction
among students?
In what ways does this lesson provide opportunities for divergent thinking?
In what ways does this lesson give students the chance for discovery and active
learning?
Collaboration and Social Interaction
When students are given the chance to work collaboratively, they build a
trusting community of learners (Watson, 2003, p. 118). This allows students to
develop important social skills and navigate the difficulties of working in a
group. Collaboration in the classroom allows students to be engaged in
extended interactions and feel a sense of belonging (Katz, 2006, p. 2). These
collaborative partnerships encourage teamwork and allow students to share
their learning with others (Watson, 2003, p. 136-137). Our lesson encourages
interactive discourse which helps to [facilitate] the construction of meaning
and promote social development (NCSS, 1993, p.2).
Independent work is greatly valued in our host classroom. Students are
put into groups during centers, only to be instructed that they cannot talk to
each other. They are rarely given opportunities to work with their peers, and if
they are given that opportunity, it involves short spurts of discussion with a
partner. This prevents the students from developing socially and hinders them
later in life when they have to work with others. Our students love to talk to one
another and we envisioned a lesson in which they could do so freely.
We used groups for our students based on the teachers pre-set reading
groups so that we could complete our lesson during reading centers. In those
groups, they have to collaborate on which two animals they would choose. This
fosters discussion and teamwork- something that they are not used to. They
have to ensure that all members of the group are satisfied with the animals that

they choose and persuasive arguments may be formed.

Divergent thinking
Our lessons aim to stretch students in ways that they have not
previously experienced (Ayers, 2010, p. 99). Divergent thinking involves taking a
problem and finding an array of solutions (Ayers, 2010, p. 105). In this way, it
involves an element of unpredictable productivity in which students come to
their own conclusions that may be off the path of where we believed the lesson
to be going (Jalongo, 1996, p. 69).
In the classroom, our host teacher mainly uses worksheets that require
one right answer. Students are not encouraged to think in different ways and
find real solutions to problems. Instead, they are directed to use rote
memorization and recall in most of their activities. We have a few students in
the classroom who are at much higher levels than the other students and would
benefit greatly from being presented with activities that allow them to think in
different ways. They often finish activities and assignments quickly and do not
seem to get much out of them.
In our lesson, we aim to combat this by giving the students the freedom to
be creative. They are able to configure their own animals and habitats by
combining two animals and creating a new habitat for that animal. They have to
decide which parts of the animals would be used to make up the new animal,
which allowed them to think in different ways. The students have be creative in
their thinking and think outside of the box in order to complete our task. There is
no recall involved; instead students are asked to utilize higher-level thinking.
Discovery and Active Learning
Through our lesson, we hope to allow children to discover their world and
build their reality through interactions with objects and people (WeberSchwartz, 1987, p. 2). This means that they will not be fed information, but they
will find it themselves and construct their own knowledge. Teachers must give
students the space to [feel] powerful and energized enough to go further in
their expectations of the world (Ayers, 2010, p. 104). We want our students to
feel the thrill of making their own decisions and figure out their learning on their
own (NCSS, 1993, p. 2). With that comes the acknowledgement and allowance
of students to struggle in order to learn and grow (Watson, 2003, p. 113).
Our lesson aims to allow students to be actively involved in their own
learning because we have not seen this occur in the classroom. One student in
particular, is often enthusiastic about his learning, but is rarely given the
opportunity to pursue that excitement. He is shut down by the teacher without
given the chance for discovery. The structure of the classroom is very rigid, with
little space for flexibility and surprises in the students learning.
In our lesson, students are given the chance to explore multiple resources
on many different animals. They have to find out details about the animal using
our guides and informational books. They are able to create their own animal
from two animals of their choosing and navigate the challenges they
approached when figuring out which features from each animal to include and
what elements of each habitat to include.
7. DESCRIPTION OF LESSON DESIGN

Day 1: Pre/Post test: On Monday we administered our pre test. We created a

matching worksheet in which students drew a line from an animal to its habitat.
Our first attempt failed miserably. We used our failure to create a different
pre/post test.
Day 2: We administered our new and improved pre test. This was done
individually with each student and was much more successful in measuring the
knowledge of the students. Students still matched animals to their habitat but
this time they physically matched color picture cards. Students were more
excited to move around the cards and to work individually with Danielle and
myself. In this lesson students created a new animal by combining two animals
that they research. We based the research off of the students interests. The
students were able to choose two animals from the provided list of animals, that
they wanted to research. We were not able to do whole group instruction. Since
we did not have the opportunity to do full group we split up the activity into two
centers during Daily 5. One center chose the animals and researched
information about these animals. The other center focused on writing down the
information researched in an organized way. Daily 5 is done towards the end of
the day. This is also when students get pulled for Title services. When first
attempting to introduce our centers we ran into a problem. Some of the Daily 5
groups would go to the writing center (write down researched information)
before the teacher center (animal research). The writing center helped organize
the information and addressed the language arts standard, while the teacher
center focused on animal research and the science standard. The students at
the writing center did not have information to write about yet. While we
attempted to work out this issue the first group of Title students were pulled. We
worked it out for the next rotation for both groups to be doing the research. It
was during this rotation that the rest of the Title students were pulled. This left a
total of 7 students in the room. This completely threw off our organization.
Day 3: Our host teacher allowed us to change the groups, and the order in which
the groups worked with us during Daily 5. By making these changes we were
able to meet with all of the students before they left for Title. Every student by
the end of the day was able to choose and begin to research their two animals.
Once the students left for title we worked with the students that were still in the
classroom.
Day 4: All students were able to meet with us during centers today, as well as
during Daily 5. While students rotated to reading and red words, the students
who were at writing and teacher worked with Danielle and myself. This left Daily
5 centers as a time for all students to finish up their new animal and the
information about their new animal. Students had a difficult time combining
their two animals to create a new animal. A couple of students were able to
create their new animal with little guidance. The majority of the class tried
drawing the two animals separately. Once I drew examples of the different
combined animals students were able to create their new animals. We had to
explain that the animals that they were creating were completely made up and
could have any characteristics from the animals they researched. Once the
students were able to choose the characteristics and draw their new animal they
were able to create a habitat that would best suit the characteristics they chose.
After drawing the animal and the animals habitat, they wrote a sentence stating
why their animal lived in the habitat they chose.
Day 5: Pre/Post test: The reinvented pre/post test was used to assess students

understanding of the content that was presented. Students were assessed

individually.