Relevant Theories of Development
Classroom setting is in a third grade class of eight students of average socioeconomic status.
Erikson characterizes the crisis of ages six to twelve as industry, a period in which children work towards developing competence at useful skills and tasks. The children within this age group have improving cognitive capacities and are more prepared to meet the challenges presented to them by adults and teachers. They enjoy the sense of accomplishment gained by completing new tasks, and at the third grade level they are well on their way towards developing their academic abilities through new methods of learning. Through this lesson the class is able to focus in on information to be researched, and expand their knowledge and use of available resources. Provided with simple guidelines, the students are able to approach resources with careful direction, and develop the all-important skills of both researching topics and using the web on their own. The mastery of this task improves the children's focus and creativity in researching while providing a sense of accomplishment and achievement.
Piaget characterizes the seven to eleven year old range as concrete operational, where children approach problems in a more systematic and rational way. They develop the ability to apply logical schemes to a wider range of tasks, enabling children to approach and integrate new methods of increasing difficulty and greater detail into their cognitive abilities. To successfully research a topic a child must be able to sort the pertinent information from extraneous information. This lesson challenges students' cognitive abilities by using a new resource, and forms a schema for researching important information, which helps develop students researching skills.
Virginia SOLs
Specific Objectives
1. The student will search the Internet using these websites:
- http://www.birdexplorer.com
- http://www.natureexplorer.com
- http://www.animal.discovery.com
- http://www.animalweb.com
to research the following animals:
1. Black bear
2. Goose
3. Ostrich
4. Monkey
5. Chameleon
6. Parrot.
This information will be used to answer specific questions on a provided worksheet within 90% factual accuracy about animal behaviors including:
1. Hibernation
2. Migration
3. Camouflage
4. Mimicry
5. Instinct
6. Learned behavior
In addition, the students will draw a picture in the provided space on the worksheet incorporating all three researched items regarding their chosen animal. This picture must be 100% accurate.
Materials
- http://www.birdexplorer.com
- http://www.natureexplorer.com
- http://www.animal.discovery.com
- http://www.animalweb.com
Lesson Description
1. Building on the previous days lesson, the teacher will review concepts of hibernation, migration, camouflage, mimicry, and instinct, and learned behavior.
2. Teacher should initiate a discussion around different animals that possess some of the same animal behaviors, for example, both parrots and monkeys exhibit mimicry of human behaviors in different ways.
3. Students and teacher move to the computer lab and the teacher distributes the worksheet. The teacher explains that the students should fill out the questions in the computer lab and draw upon returning to the classroom. As the students have previous experience with Explorer, the teacher leads them to the favorites menu where the websites are book-marked.
4. With teacher supervision, students are given three sessions of twenty minutes over the course of three days (a total of sixty minutes) in order to research the websites book-marked and are encouraged to research other animals if they finish early. The teacher should ascertain that students are on-track with locating information and should help with any questions.
5. The teacher collects the worksheets to check for accuracy.
6. The next day, the teacher distributes the worksheets with any corrections to the students, who then return to the computer lab for twenty minutes to conduct additional necessary research.
7. The students return to the room to draw their chosen animal including the pertinent information that they discovered in their website research.
8. The teacher should lead a discussion about what information they found. The teacher should specify that for the discussion, the students can include animals not on the worksheet. The teacher could ask questions such as:
a. What animal eats fish?b. What two animals hide from their enemies? How do their strategies differ?
c. How are the chameleons and parrots the same? How are they different?
d. How are the geese and parrots the same? How are they different?
e. What are some other things that you learned about these animals?
Evaluation
The teacher will collect students worksheets after the third day of computer lab time to evaluate accuracy of answers. Mistakes will be circled but not corrected in order for adjustments to be made. Teacher will collect worksheets after the revision trip to the computer lab to ensure that students have written answers that are now 90% factually accurate. Teacher will also inspect the drawing to make sure that all three pieces of information about the chosen animal are included and are 100% accurate.