Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan

1.Content: What is the content you are teaching and what are the big ideas? What are the challenging concepts that students struggle with or are difficult to teach? Consider your state standards (GLCEs or HSCEs) as you develop the essential questions you are trying to address.

OBJ06CCMA07: Find the least common multiple of two whole numbers less than or equal to 12

2.Pedagogy: What pedagogical strategies are you using and why? What theories of learning inform your strategies? What learner characteristics did you take into consideration?

When teaching fractions, I like to use as many visuals and examples as possible. Students respond to be able to see a real life example of what they are suppose to do. It can be very challenging for them to understand the concept of fractions and finding the least common multiple to add and subtract. Cognitive constructivism and social constructivism play a part in my strategies. I want to utilize their prior knowledge, but it is more than just acquiring the knowledge. They are able to construct their knowledge through modeling with the different manipulatives. Students are also able to use each other to create and move objects to form the correct fractions.

  3.Content & Pedagogy: How do these particular strategies help you teach the content mentioned above? Why choose these strategies over other approaches? Are there any technical or physical constraints that figured significantly into your choices?

  I think by using these strategies students are more likely to learn the concept. The group of students I work with are very concrete thinkers. They struggle when they are having to learn an abstract concept. By using manipulatives and visuals I am able to provide my students with the concrete. They can manipulate and make meaning from the different visuals I am giving them. They are also able to use each other to form and reform fractions to add and subtract.

4.Technology: What technology will you be using and why? Is the use of this technology absolutely necessary to achieve your objective? That is, would be impossible to teach the lesson without it? Remember that content specific technology (e.g., probes, graphing calculators, Geometer’s Sketchpad, United Streaming videos) are used to teach a content-specific concepts, whereas content-general technologies (e.g., Flash animation, Web 2.0 technologies) may facilitate deeper understanding by allowing students to manipulate information, explore a “network of ideas,” and investigate multiple representations of material.

I will be using Adobe Presenter. This technology allows me the chance to give students the instruction, assess, and re-teach if necessary. This program operates through PowerPoint allowing me to provide visuals for my students, videos and other verbal explanations. I can also pre-assess what they know through imbedded quizzes and then assess what they have gained after the instruction. I will also use voice thread for students to create examples of how to change and manipulate fractions. They are able to comment on each other’s projects to help them improve the information.


5. Technology & Pedagogy: How does the technology you have chosen fit with your pedagogical strategies and theories about learning? What types of learning strategies are employed by the technology?

This technology provides my students with a chance to see visuals of how to find the least common multiple of fractions. They are also able to collaborate together to show what they know. This technology provides for my visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners. It is also helpful for my special education students who need visuals to help them understand the concepts. They need something to tie their knowledge to. My students will be able to review the material as many times as necessary.

6. Technology & Content: How does your choice of technology help you teach the "big ideas" and address the essential questions underlying the concept your lesson addresses?

  I am able to provide the answer to how to solve fractions with the least common multiple using visuals and having students recreate and post examples of their problems. The underlying questions of how to identify fractions and how to subtract or add fractions will also be addressed. This way I can see if there are concepts that my students did not get that will impact their ability to master finding common multiples.

7. Assessment: What do you want your students to know, and how will you know when they know it? How will you assess what students have learned? What role does technology play in these assessments?

  I want my students to be able to find the least common multiple. I will know that they know it through the embedded quizzes in the Adobe Presenter technology as well as the VoiceThread assignment. I can see the progress throughout as my students create a visual to explain to me how to find the least common multiple and solve the addition or subtraction problems. The assessment is through VoiceThread and Adobe Presenter. The technology is the assessment.