Josh Winder

PSY 205

Professor Mueller Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan, constructed by Laura Byers from http://www.lessonplans.ws/grades-k-2-visual-arts/butterfly-metamorphosis, the teacher exemplifies a great way to break down a topic day by day, to help the first through second graders understand the subjects being explained. In this case, the lesson plan is going over the metamorphosis of butterflies.

When dealing with younger kids it is important that they can understand and come up with examples or make associations with other correlating subjects. The activities presented in this lesson plan seem to lay out the material in a way that will be easy to obtain while keeping them actively involved in learning the different stages a caterpillar goes through during metamorphosis.

To begin, day one’s activities encourages teaching the kids new material and helping them understand it by first reading a book about it, then going over the stages step by step and talking it over aloud. Throughout most of the activities done throughout this lesson plan, the teacher provides many ways to build these associations through examples, review, and explanations. For instance, the teacher provides a series of plastic models of each stage which evokes a visual image for the kids to look at and process. Using models to exemplify each stage allows the kids to develop his or her own schemas, or associations, towards those different stages, making it easier to understand them at a later time.

Both Vygotsiki and Piaget believed a conflict between the schemas will force the child to change or adapt to the lesson. Therefore, the teacher provided the kids with a lot of new information about the butterfly stages, and I believe she was trying to teach the kids into their Zone of Proximal Development. The reason for doing this was most likely to help the kids to further understand the subject matter and get a taste of what it is they were going to be going over later in the lesson.

On day two, the class begins with a review of day one’s lesson on the different stages of metamorphosis. This helps the kids to once again make connections to the previous day’s lessons, helping to pull on the strings of the related topics remembered. Then the teacher provides a mastery model when she showed them the construction and finished product of the four stage plate project they were going to be constructing in class. I believe a master model would be the best use of a model in this situation because a coping model, such as a classmate, may become confusing for the student if they are unsure whether they model is reliable or not. As the teacher represents a mastery model of the project, it could help to boost the student’s confidence and understanding of the stages being taught. After providing the example, the students then participate in a series of active learning activities which allowed the kids to make their own four step models with paper plates of the different stages of metamorphosis. Active Learning is working on activities or learning in an environment that keeps the students physically and mentally engaged in the lesson. In this case, being able to make your own model is a way your mind is actively engage in an activity allowing you to visually see what it is each stage is doing and why it is doing this. The teacher is not just telling the kids the different stages over and over again. Rather, she is helping the kids to be able to understand these stages hands on, through arts and crafts, while also allowing the kids to have fun and reflect off of each other. Additionally, everyone is a visual learner, therefore, making visual connections to the material will allow it to be more effectively stored, and easier retrieved.

On day three, the teacher has several of the students present their plates to the class orally and explain each of the stages. The fact that only several students have to present is not appropriate. If some of them have to present, all of them should have to. It portrays a more equal environment. Plus, presentations are very beneficial to the students in obtaining and relearning the information. Presentations also allow the students to get more comfortable in front of the class. By presenting the plates, it allows the students to retrieve information relevant to the concepts associated with the topic. The information the student is presented would all be a part of the Network Model they would have constructed when learning the information on days one and two. In a Network Model, the brain links information together that is associated with other information. In this case, a student could be thinking of stage one where the egg is presented. He or she could be trying to remember the second stage of metamorphosis. The student may only remember that there is an egg, a pupa, and a butterfly, but by pulling on the strings associated with those stages, he or she could retrieve the larva stage and the correct order. The organization of these ideas in the brain is key to being able to properly retrieve the information.

On day four, the teacher goes over things to look for when editing. She also teaches them a variety of editing symbols that they can reflect on to further edit their own and their partner’s papers. When doing this, the teacher is providing scaffolding towards the students through providing the outline of editing symbols, and the correct way to edit a paper. Scaffolding provides adequate support to promote learning through examples and a basic framework. In this case, the teacher provided symbols, and editing techniques to allow the kids to reflect on when editing papers. This allows the students to have an idea of how to make these corrections and can slowly get better at making them once they get further into the editing. Over time, the framework can be slowly slipped away the kids will no longer need to check with the teacher about these symbols or mistakes. After a review of editing techniques, they then get in to pairs and edit each other’s paragraphs.

By working in pairs or groups it builds social construction. Being in a constructed environment allows psychological developments to take place actively rather than passively. It will allow the kids to actively learn and reflect the material and participate in a verbal interaction with other classmates. Along with that, this is a perfect example of Cooperative Learning. Cooperative Learning is when the students work with each other in partners or in a group as a part of the learning process. This allows the students to reflect off of each other in a way that will build social interactions, and allow the kids to feel more comfortable in this environment. The similar task keeps the kids focused on their jobs of proofreading and allows them to feel confident in their editing job. This is also a way the students can connect through a Coping Model. If one student sees another student with the correct steps, they can not only help each other, but they can think to themselves, “If they can do it, then why can’t I?” As long as they are comfortable, they will begin to make the appropriate developments needed to understand what it is they are trying to learn. This will allow the students to boost their Self- efficacy and be more confident and comfortable with the learning environment. Self- efficacy is the way a student thinks of themselves. It is the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain task or activity. As long as the students can connect with one another on a personal level, it will help them achieve the task overall. At the end of day four, you are allowed to go to the teacher for further editing, which will allow the kids to get their papers corrected and understand where they made their mistakes. This provides the kids with the last bit of corrections to secure a good feeling about their papers.

Lastly, on day five, the students rewrote the paragraphs, once again reviewing the information obtained over the last four days of class. They then get to hang up their projects and show them off to the class. This Lesson plan and its activities reflected ideas from the Information Processing Model. By making distinctive examples through consistent review and the making of the plates, it allowed for effective storage of the information. When the students constructed the plate themselves, it allowed them to make personal relevance to those stages which also aided in effective storage of the material. Also, by presenting it in front of class, it helped to students retrieve the information present it verbally, relearning the information.

Through this lesson, there are many great steps the teacher used to actively engage the students into learning the different stages of metamorphosis. The lesson promoted an active, collaborative learning environment in a meaningful content that helped the students understand each step to this system. The lesson provided connections to schemas, zone of proximal development, mastery models, coping models, active learning, cooperative learning, network models, scaffolding, self-efficacy, information processing model and much more. On the whole, it provided a very active and appropriate setting for first and second graders learning the stages of metamorphosis.