Tiffany Cecere

EDUC 359
Fall 2016
Jack Lesson Reflection
Preparing a SIOP lesson was something I had never done before and it definitely
put lesson planning into a different perspective for my group and I. Our lesson plan was
for Jack, a third grade student. The lesson topic was social studies, learning about the
three branches of government. The PDESAS standard we followed was 5.3.3.A.;
identify the roles of the three branches of government.
The SIOP process consists of two sets of objectives; language and content. For
our language objectives we stated that the student will be able to correctly identify the
appropriate branches of government based on listening to examples of its function. A
second standard for language objectives was that the student will be able to accurately
recite the characteristics of each branch of government. For the content standard we
wrote that the student will be able to compare and contrast the three branches of
government in order to distinguish the similarities and differences. After teaching the
lesson plan, I do feel that we met the given objectives. In order to engage Jack in a
listening and identification, we had him watch a video that was based on the three
branches of government. While watching the video he filled out a chart that had a
column for each branch of government, every time he heard a new fact of job of a
branch he wrote it down on the chart. After the video was finished we had him read off
his chart to us.
We also had Jack participate in an activity where he had to recall information
from the lesson. We did this by saying different facts about each branch of government,

after each fact was said he had to hold up a card which had the correct branch of
government written on it. This also served as a compare and contrast method. Another
activity we did was an online quiz that correlated with the video. This was a multiple
choice quiz which involved recalling the taught information and comparing it with the
options provided. As an exit slip, we had Jack fill out a matching sheet. The sheet
consisted of 6 facts/jobs about a branch of government, he had to match each fact to
the correct branch.
Introducing the branches of government to Jack was a core part of the
vocabulary portion of this lesson plan. However, along with the titles of each branch of
government there were other terms we have to go over. Such as congress, president,
supreme court, democracy, and vote. In order to go over these terms and check for
understanding we first asked the student what he already knew about each term. We
then continued to define and use the terms throughout the lesson. We wrote each term
on the board to serve as a visual aid. I did feel that this lesson was a bit of a challenging
because there was a lot of vocabulary, but I do feel that the student had enough prior
knowledge of the topic which helped him truly understand the lesson.
Overall, I do think that the lesson was slightly challenging since government can
be a confusing topic. There are many different terms and rules within the government
and it is impossible to teach every single aspect of the branches of government in one
lesson. But I do feel that this was a great lesson to get an overall understanding of the
three branches of government. Jack scored a 6/10 on the online quiz which I feel is a
good score for just learning about the topic. He also seemed to understand what we

were teaching and we could see this by the way he was participating and responding to
our questions.
If I were to teach this lesson to an ELL student, I would include a lot more visual
aids. Almost all facts or jobs about the three branches of government can be
representing in a photo. I would write each branch of government on the board and
underneath I would have different pictures that correlate with the specific branch. For a
matching activity I would have the student match photos to the correct branch of
government. I would keep the video in the lesson plan to activate the listening/visual
portion of the lesson.