LESSON PLAN: “Show Me” Missouri’s Temperatures

Teacher: Sally Camden School: Perryville Elementary City/State: Perryville, Missouri  Curriculum Area: Mathematics  Grade Level: 4th Grade Resource Room Video Number: 031moue

BRIEF DESCRIPTION: 
Students will integrate their knowledge of mathematics, reading, writing, social studies, and science to create graphs displaying Missouri’s seasonal temperatures. Students begin by working with a partner to plot locations of cities and geographical regions on a map. They then use electronic resources to collect data, determine seasonal averages, and create graphs. Finally, students combine their maps and graphs into a final product so as to analyze the causes of temperature differences as a result of seasonal and/or geographical variations. The lesson culminates with students reflecting upon their learning through a written commentary.

TOOLS & RESOURCES:
Hardware:
SmartBoard. Smart Tech. Available: http://www.smarttech.com/smartboard
LCD Projector. Available: http://www.1stlcdprojectors.com
Computers
Calculators
3-½” floppy disks

Software:
Microsoft Excel [Computer software]. (1997). Microsoft Corporation. Available: http://www.microsoft.com

Netscape [Computer software]. Netscape Communications Corporation. Available: http://www.netscape.com

Internet sites:
World Climate. Available: http://www.worldclimate.com

Multimedia:
Encarta Encyclopedia 2000 - “Seasons” animation. Available: http://encarta.msn.com

Literature:
Behrmann, M.M. (1994). Assistive technology for students with mild disabilities. [On-line]. Available: http://ldonline.org

Missouri: Adventures in time and place. (1998). Macmillan/McGraw-Hill: New York. Available: http://www.mmhschool.com

Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities Act, 29 U.S.C. § 2201, 2202 (1988).

Wessels, J.D., & Birkholz, C. (1998). A guidebook for developing performance assessments. North Mankato, MN: Ten Sigma. Available: http://www.tensigma.org

Miscellaneous:
Large construction paper cutouts of Missouri - 1 per group
Calculators
Clipboards
Pencils
Scissors
Glue
Colored pencils or crayons
Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” compact disc
Standard size poster board - 1 per group
“Seasons” web graphic organizer
Teacher -Created Resources:

Data Collection #1
Data Collection #2
Project Analysis and Reflection

ASSESSMENT:
Students will be assessed through the use of a teacher-created scoring guide that evaluates their final product according to the following criteria: specific grading criteria, general grading criteria, productivity skills, and “goes beyond” criteria. The specific grading criteria refer to those tasks taken from the activity description, standards, and performance indicators. General grading criteria refers to such skills as format and organization, neatness and orderliness, mechanics (punctuation, grammar, spelling, capitalization, usage), completeness and accuracy, and the following of directions for the activity. The productivity criteria refer to such process skills as works well with others, positive work habits, productive thinker and worker, use of technology, and production of quality work. Finally, the “goes beyond” criteria take into account a student’s level of creativity, extra effort, depth, higher thinking, and understanding.

A score of 12 or 4 indicated “outstanding”, 9 or 3 represented “skilled”, 6 or 2 signified “acceptable”, 3 or 1 meant a student had made an attempt, and a score of 0 meant no observable attempt to complete the project. Productivity was given a simple “yes” or “no” rating for having achieved each criterion. Total points were then calculated.

CREDITS:
Sally Camden, Resource Teacher
Perryville Elementary
Perryville, MO
scamden@midwest.net 

TIMELINE & COURSE OUTLINE:
This activity took approximately two weeks to complete in a resource room setting. Given that students are scheduled for services only on average of 1 to 1-½ hours per day, a general education teacher could conceivably complete the project in lesser time.

In Missouri, 4^th grade students are required to take the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests in the areas of mathematics and social studies. Therefore, as much as possible, lessons are taught that integrate, at the very least, these two subjects throughout the school year. For my students, this lesson was started in October near the date that Daylight Savings Time ended. Such an event seemed a natural springboard into an activity about temperature variations and the impact of different seasons. The video clips represent a reenactment of the different steps in the activity, as it was not feasible to conduct the lesson in its entirety due to time constraints.

COMMENTS:
I have taught this lesson to my students prior to the videotaping and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the students learned to independently and efficiently use the Microsoft Excel program. They, in turn, appeared to greatly enjoy all aspects of the lesson, most notable of course, the use of technology. Students who, in the past, had been considered to possess exceptionally challenging needs suddenly achieved “star status” as those who most quickly and easily grasped the basic concepts of spreadsheet application. It was a good reminder to me that many individuals have an intelligence not easily revealed or recognized in a more traditional “paper-and-pencil” lesson.

Technology Resources:
These particular technology resources were chosen as a result of suitability and availability for my students. First, I considered what assistive technology (AT) would be most appropriate for students with predominantly mild disabilities, taking into account both low- and high-tech devices, as defined by the Tech Act of 1988. I selected AT for application in 6 different areas of instruction: organization, note-taking, writing assistance, productivity, access to reference materials, and modification of instructional materials.

With regard to organization, a low-tech approach was employed that involved the class organizing their thoughts and ideas with graphic organizers. To assist my students with note taking I provided each group with Data Collection Forms specifically created for this lesson. Writing assistance was given to those students who needed it in the form of pencil grips. Productivity was enhanced with hand-held calculators and Microsoft Excel software. Students were given the opportunity to access reference materials and information via the Encarta Encyclopedia CD. Finally, it was necessary to modify the instructional materials used in this lesson, specifically the step involving the Excel program. I created a template for the students so that when they opened the spreadsheet from their disk they had only to type in the name of the city and the averages for each season before creating their graphs with the “Chart Wizard” feature.

In addition to all of these considerations, I took into account the availability of the technology both within my own district and society in general. I tried to incorporate electronic devices that students might encounter in a variety of other learning situations.

School Background Information:
Our school system is a countywide district. The county’s population is recorded at 18,132 .  The majority of the parents are employed in the following industries: health care/social assistance, retail trade, manufacturing, and construction.  The school district’s total enrollment for grades kindergarten through 12^th grade is 2,296 students.  Of that total, only 1.3% are identified as having limited English fluency.  A closer examination of the district’s enrollment by ethnicity reveals the following distributions: Caucasian - 99.04% (2,274 students), African-American - less than 1%, Asian/Other 0.7% (16 students), and Hispanic 0.2% (5 students).

Teaching Strategy:
I chose to have students work in groups of two for several reasons. First, working in cooperative groups provides students with many opportunities to discuss each aspect of the activity. This interactive communication increases student learning and retention of important concepts. Second, when children work together, they strengthen key social skills, which will be needed all their lives. Given that many of my students exhibit challenging behaviors, it is also vital to teach such skills within the context of a task or project, thereby offering them many opportunities to practice these positive behaviors. In addition, cooperative groupings provide a more authentic context for learning. Few, if any, adults work in isolation and it is unrealistic to expect children to acquire important social skills in an academic vacuum. Finally, by working as a team, students with more severe disabilities can make contributions and experience success and a sense of accomplishment from their own efforts.

• Active Involvement - Meaningful learning occurs when students are actively engaged in constructing their own knowledge. The activity described here, which requires students to create a product rather than fill in a worksheet, allows for greater student participation. Active Involvement also occurs when students are working in cooperative groups to create graphs based on the data they collected.
• Patterns and Connections - When students complete the graphic organizers at the beginning of the lesson they are establishing Connections with their prior knowledge. This provides a solid foundation for linking what students already know with the new knowledge that will be acquired through the other principles of learning, such as Active Involvement, Direct Experience, and others.
• Informal Learning - This type of learning occurs within the cooperative groups themselves as students engage in interactive communication throughout all steps of the lesson about their final product. Students informally provide feedback to each other within the more relaxed partner setting more readily than a more formal class discussion. Also, this informal conversation further increases student learning and retention of concepts.
• Direct Experience - This principle of learning occurs when students are collecting their data from the website, calculating the average temperature for each season, entering their figures into the spreadsheet program, creating graphs, and putting it all together to make a final display. By creating these learning experiences themselves, as opposed to watching someone else model the desired behavior, students gain greater understanding.
• Reflection - This learning principle is best demonstrated when students, within their cooperative groups, use the Analysis and Reflection Paper to think about what they have learned and consider how they could improve upon it. These answers could be discussed in the class when preparing to begin the next activity as students consider ways they could become more actively involved in the learning process. In addition, students analyze their final product to draw conclusions about temperature variations within the state and how the changing seasons affects the climate. As one of my students so aptly stated, “It’s like a study guide!”
• Frequent Feedback - When working within their cooperative groups, students have the opportunity to provide each other with corrective Feedback. For instance, when one student was checking his partner’s calculations for accuracy he discovered a mistake. He was able to show his partner the mistake and they refigured the average again, this time accurately.
• Enjoyable Setting - This principle of learning is best exemplified by the group-oriented work that is carried out by the cooperative teams of students. In addition, the students were very willing to try something new (using technology), especially given the existence of a supportive peer and a teacher who could be called upon for assistance if needed. Students were also engaged in personal interaction throughout the activity as they worked with their partners to create the final product and solve any problems that occurred during the lesson.

• Appreciation - Students in this activity are afforded many opportunities to Appreciate through listening to music, viewing the multimedia animation entitled “Seasons,” creating their own graphs using a spreadsheet program, discussing with their partners, and evaluating themselves through the Analysis and Reflection Paper.
• Presearch - Students engage in Presearch when they participate together in creating a web of words describing the seasons and completing a K-W-L graphic organizer. Engaging in these activities helps students build background knowledge and relate it to what they already know about a topic or concept.
• Search - As students worked together to record temperature information from the Internet website, they were engaged in the Search stage of information processing. In addition, when students were calculating averages as a means of double-checking their partner’s accuracy, students were participating in seeking relevant information.
• Interpretation - Upon the completion of their final product, students continued to work together to analyze and Interpret that data represented in the graphs they created. They also were asked to reflect on their work by answering such questions as, “This project made me feel…” and “The next time I do this activity I will…” Finally, students were encouraged to examine the cause-and-effect relationship that exists between the different seasons, geographical regions, and temperature variations within the state.
• Communication - Students were actively engaged in Communicating their learning to others as they organized their map and graphs into a poster for display. This stage allowed students to share their knowledge with students outside of their immediate cooperative group as well as to compare their findings with that of other groups.
• Evaluation - This stage is best exemplified when students are engaged in Self-Evaluation of their final product through the Analysis and Reflection Paper. Students will never become fully self-directed learners until they get into the habit of Evaluating their own work rather than relying on an outside authority figure to determine their products’ worth.

• Language Arts - Students acquire and strengthen their abilities in language arts when they use their reading and writing skills to read and comprehend information from their textbook while creating their map of Missouri. Writing skills are used to answer the Analysis and Reflection Paper at the end of the lesson. Students increase their vocabulary skills while generating descriptive words to express how the music played at the beginning of the lesson evokes thoughts, images, and feelings about each of the four seasons.
• Math - This content area is integrated into the lesson when students calculate each season’s average for five different cities located in Missouri. This step of the activity not only helps students learn about the concept of averages, but also provides them with an opportunity to strengthen their calculator skills. Data interpretation and communication through their graphs is another way that mathematics is incorporated into this lesson. Students learn to see mathematics as a tool that can be used in contexts outside of traditional math environments.
• Science - This content is addressed indirectly during the lesson as students try to make connections between temperature variations and the changes in the environment, such as the earth and sky. Students are also given access to information about the impact the four seasons have on our weather through a multimedia animation.
• Social Studies - Map-making skills are emphasized in this activity when students create their own maps of Missouri by reading different maps found in their textbooks. Analyzing and interpreting the cause-and-effect relationship between changing seasons and temperature variations accesses the Time, Continuity, and Change standard within this content area. Within the People, Places, and Environments standard, the students learned to interpret, use, and distinguish various representations of the Earth with maps; to use appropriate resources such as maps and graphs; to locate and distinguish among geographic features; and to describe and draw conclusions about physical system changes, such as seasons, climate, and weather. Finally, within the Individual Development and Identity standard, students worked cooperatively with a peer to accomplish their goals of creating a final product displaying their map and data.
• Information Literacy - Students apply standards from this content area when they access information via the Internet, textbook, graphs, and multimedia efficiently and effectively. Students were also required to use the information they collected accurately, especially as they were calculating their averages for each season.

• Tolerance - Students demonstrated Tolerance for one another as they worked together to accomplish a common goal. As they worked in cooperative groups, students had to listen to their partner, make eye contact, and make comments that were not harshly negative or mean to the other person.
• Thinking Together and Making Meaning - As students worked in cooperative groups they engaged in two-way dialogue throughout the activity while they worked with their partners to gather data and create the final product. Students outside of their group also provided support by sharing their information about the spreadsheet program and what steps to take to enter data and make a graph.
• Power Sharing and Empowerment - While working with their partners, students had to engage in positive communicating to accomplish their common goal. Both partners had to have some sense of the reliability of the other to contribute equally to the final product, or to accept that there was a good reason the other person could not contribute fully (such as illness or prolonged absence). Students also had to be accepting of one another as they took turns completing smaller tasks within the lesson and sharing materials, both with their partner and with others outside their group.
• Individual Responsibility and Civil Involvement with Others - This tenet is demonstrated in a variety of ways as students worked in cooperative groups. Students in my room especially were called on to display sensitivity to their group’s needs and problems as defined by the members’ varying exceptionalities. For example, those students who were more proficient with writing helped their partners who may have been less proficient in writing, but perhaps stronger in note taking or use of technology.

• Knowledge of Student Characteristics - Students are able to access several different multiple intelligences through this lesson: verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic skills.
• Teacher’s In-Depth Content Knowledge - Transformation is demonstrated through my adaptation of instructional materials according to the characteristics of my students as well as tailoring the adaptation to the specific students in my resource room. For example, by providing students with a template I allowed them to focus on entering their data and working with the software rather than acquiring more difficult spreadsheet skills.

• Classroom Management - When students are actively involved in constructing their own knowledge and working within cooperative groups to achieve a common goal, there are few if any behavior disruptions. I believe it’s important for teacher’s to demonstrate flexibility, especially when working with students of varying exceptionalities, and take into consideration the impact that a student’s disabling condition may impact their cognitive, academic, social, and emotional skills.

• Equipment Operation - This lesson provides students with an authentic context in which to utilize a variety of equipment. The teacher should be familiar with how to operate such equipment as an LCD projector, computer, spreadsheet software, the Internet, and a SmartBoard.
• Adaptive Assistive Technology - My lesson demonstrates how varied low- and high-tech Assistive Technology can be used for students with mild to moderate disabilities. The term “Assistive Technology” can be misleading to many, as it does not always mean an electronic device. Indeed, the legal definition of Assistive Technology is very board and general. Teachers should incorporate a combination of both low- and high-tech devices according to an individual student’s needs. Students in my class used pencil grips, note taking data collection forms, multimedia encyclopedia animation, instructional modification, calculators, and computer software programs.
• WWW Information Sources - Students access the Internet to collect data regarding average temperatures from various Missouri cities.
• Electronic Information Sources - Students acquire information by accessing and viewing an animation from the Encarta Encyclopedia CD.
•  A/V Information Sources - Students acquire information by viewing animation, accessing the Internet, and learning how to use a calculator via a SmartBoard.
• Spreadsheet - Working in cooperative groups, students will enter data in a popular Spreadsheet program and then create graphs from their information.

Student Characteristics:
I designed this activity to be used with 4th grade students in a resource room setting. Most of my students have mild to moderate disabilities that interfere with their ability to acquire and apply knowledge, interact appropriately with both peers and adults, complete tasks in a timely manner, and stay organized. I attempted to provide a variety of low- and high-tech assistive technology to my students according to their unique needs. By allowing the students to work in cooperative groups, all students had opportunities to experience success first-hand. The students featured in the video clips were selected by me because of their varying exceptionalities.

Evolution of the Activity:
I have only taught this lesson one time, but even during that brief moment I have managed to make some minor changes to the activity. Originally, I taught the students to use their hand-held calculators by modeling the steps with my own calculator. This proved inadequate as not all students could clearly and easily see the digits displayed on the screen. I took advantage of our school’s new SmartBoard and now teach the students how to calculate averages using the built-in touch-screen on the screen. We are able to go through the steps together and everyone is participating as we learn, not just passively absorbing information. I also now require partners to check each other’s calculations for accuracy before entering the data into the spreadsheet template. Originally the students and I encountered many computational errors when entering the data, so much so that it slowed our productivity time considerably and made for some unnecessary confusion. Double-checking for accuracy eliminates most of these problems and provides good practice for both partners when figuring averages.

(Learning activity format adapted from National Educational Technology Standards for Students Connecting Curriculum & Technology http://cnets.iste.org/students)

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Last updated: 03/18/08