Date:

2/27/17
Teaching Plan for Inquiry
Unit: Sedimentary Rocks
Teachers: Ms. Pearlstein, Ms. Bush, Ms. Nall
Students: All three classes.
Plan: Ms. Pearlstein, Ms. Bush, Ms. Nall

Reflecting Into Practice:

I am interested to see how it goes teaching this lesson with the experiment aspect. I will
mostly be focusing on how to give instructions, proper order, organizing for the students,
etc. I want to create science lessons with experiments and making them both informative
and fun. It is a tougher balance than I thought originally How do I prepare for/design the
experiment or stations to allow students to have autonomy with creating the experiment,
while also keeping the room from getting incredibly messy and it getting chaotic. After this
lesson, I want students to further understand how sedimentary rocks form, where fossils
intersect and aging.
TEKS:

3(A): (A) in all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by
using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing,
including examining all sides of scientific evidence of those scientific explanations, so as to
encourage critical thinking by the student;
3(D) : connect grade-level appropriate science concepts with the history of science
7(A) : explore the processes that led to the formation of sedimentary rocks and fossil fuels;
7(D): identify fossils as evidence of past living organisms and the nature of the
environments at the time using models.

Compone Description Lead (L); Reflecting In Practice
nt Co-
Teachers
(C);
Observer
(O)
Intro Today, we are going to Lead Ended up adding vocabulary
learn about sedimentary teacher review at the last minute with a
rocks! I know we have for entire Who Has, I Have game. It was
been talking about lesson. tough when the words magma
classifying rocks and the and lava were mixed up, but we
different types, looking at decided to try again and the
specific rocks, observing students got it!
them and drawing their
properties, but this lesson
is specifically about
sedimentary rocks.

Group We will read Sediments There were three students that
reading to Sedimentary Rocks volunteered, so I decided to split
together, highlighting. I the reading into three parts,
will call on a student to instead of two. I wanted students
read each paragraph. We to be able to highlight what they
will pause together to found important, but there were
discuss bold/definitions. certain words that needed to be
highlighted/underlined. I made
We will also look at the the decision to underline and
types of sedimentary highlight those words to
rocks: limestone, emphasize and verbally tell
sandstone, conglomerate, students that they could
shale. Please glue these underline/highlight whatever
down in your spirals. they felt was important.
Sometimes, I have found it is
crucial to compromise!
Building We will be building our In order to keep it relevant,
our own own sedimentary rocks at informative, clean and organized,
sediment our desks. This is exciting, I directed the students through
ary rocks I know! But each step this process. Coming away from it,
represents a crucial part I felt it was necessary to do that,
of the sedimentary rock but at the same time, I thought
formation process. So there was a lot of teacher talk. I
please follow along and wanted to prompt them to
dont eat the food until the continue the conversations, but it
end :) was tough for them to pay
attention with so much yummy
(See powerpoint for these food around. I thought they
steps.) retained a great deal of
information, considering. It
seemed to work well for them!
Discussio What does each step We decided to ask this at the
n represent in terms of beginning, so they would know
weathering & erosion, what to look for, then also at the
end to see what they gained from
deposition, compaction &
it all. Students were creative with
cementation? their responses and thought
deeply and critically!
What do you think the I wanted this to lead into
timeframe would be? How somewhat of an inquiry, which is
long does this process why I didnt want to say specifics.
take? Sometimes, it doesnt work out
that way. I will use it as my own

inquiry and come in tomorrow

 Where would the oldest with the answer.
parts of rock be? Newest? This, they knew beforehand. I
wanted to try to bring in relative
Students will glue the next dating, but I completely forgot.
sheet into this spiral. We Sometimes, that happens when I
will read it together and have so much going on in my
talk more about how each brain!
of the steps relates.
Spiral Students will add to their I decided to refrain from using
output Lets Go Rock Collecting these notes. It seemed repetitive
notes. This will be in after so much note drilling at the
guided note format. We beginning and they are already
will be leading it. familiar with these terms. I chose
to let them draw the model and
compare it to a true sedimentary
rock, labeling it and talking about
the processes. This seemed more
well-received than another
worksheet.
Reflectio Any final questions? Does I went around as they wrote their
n this make sense? Next, we spiral outputs and asked students
will learn more about if they had questions. Most did
fossils! not. They seem excited to make
sedimentary rocks and even more
excited to learn about fossils!
Reflecting on Practice:

When reflecting, it was interesting for me to see how someone elses plans and way
they teach affect the way you teach. I felt like it was far more teacher talk than most of
the things I have done before, but it needed the additional direction since there was
food around them. Coming into the lesson, I was flexible, saying whatever works for the
students and Ms. Nall works for me, but as we planned more and as I was actually
teaching, I began to tweak it and make it more of my own. For example, with the spiral
output. It seemed that the students understood the process and got a lot out of making
the sedimentary rocks. That being said, was it still their process if we were giving them
every single step? I wonder if I had simply given them all the materials, if they would
have been as thorough and thoughtful. I feel like there needs to be some order, but
there should be a better balance and I look forward to working on that through the rest
of my time teaching science.