Table of Contents
Standards/TEKs
The main focus of this lesson plan is to apply the critical-thinking skill set to organize and use the information that has been acquired through various research methodologies from the valid sources. The main target of this lesson includes –
- Differentiate, locate and use various primary and secondary sources such as biographies, news and media sources, artifacts and interviews related to Texas history.
- Analyzing the gathered information with its sequencing, categorization, and identification of the cause-and-effect relationships, comparing, contrasting, finding the main idea, summarizing it. Further, the student should also be able to make generalizations and predictions, draw the right inferences and the conclusion.
- The student should also be able to organize as well as interpret information from reports, outlines, databases and various visual data collection such as charts, graphs, maps and timelines.
- The student should also be able to transfer given information from one medium to another such as from visual to written and vice versa.
- Creation of oral, written and visual presentation from given information
Lesson Objectives
In this grade, the students are expected to study the history of Texas from the beginning to the present time-period in an in-depth manner than they studied during the Grade 4. For example, they study this history in a comprehensive manner that includes a wide range of topics such as Natural Texas and its people during that time period, the age of contact, the conquest of Spain and the colonial era, Mexican National movement, the revolution and the republic and the times of the early statehood. Some other topics include Texas during the Civil war and the reconstruction, the time period dubbed as cattle, cotton and railroad, and the age of oil. Further, the topics also include Texas during Great Depression and World War II, Conservatism and Civil War and Contemporary Texas eras.
Materials/ Resources/Equipment
The teacher uses various resources such as books, timeline, maps, and blackboard, laptops and power point presentations for the lesson (Burden & Byrd, 2003).
Duration
The teacher requires 45 minutes to complete the lesson
Anticipatory Sets
The teacher uses many strategies for focusing the student attention on the lesson and they are as follows –
- The first measure would be to conduct a quiz on the key events, information about individuals, the issues that were arisen and their impact on the contemporary society and the history.
- Ask students to identify various regions of Texas, its demographics, and the reasons why Texas changed from an agrarian to an urban society.
- Ask students to describe the functions and the structure of the local, municipal, county and state governments.
- Explain and discuss the influence of US constitution over the Texas Constitution
- The teacher should encourage students to use primary and secondary sources related to Texas.
- The teacher should encourage the student to analyze the impact of technological innovations and scientific discoveries on the development of the Texas in various sectors.
- The teacher should ask students to make timelines related to Texas histories such as key individuals, time periods and the events.
- The teacher should encourage students to study the significance of various dates such as mapping of the Texas coast, and the founding of San Antonio among the others.
Instructional Input
The teacher would use various types of instructional strategies not only to retain the interest of the students but also to disseminate new information as well as activities for achieving the stated objectives (Bowen & McPherson, 2016). –
- Give a lecture about the Texas history that includes the outlines and the main events of the history.
- Moderate an interactive discussion about any key event of the Texas history that includes its causes and the consequences.
- Use various resources such as the internet and books to create lecture notes
- Ask students to create a timeline of the key people, events or the incidents that can be traced back to the earliest stages of Texas history.
- Write a paper about a key event, an individual or the incident in the Texas history
- Create a power Point presentation about the shortlisted topics
- Make flashcards about the topic
- Arrange a quiz related to this topic
Modeling
Create different types of handouts for the students such as pamphlets, flashcards, computer files that include relevant notes about various time-periods in Texas History. These resources can be stored and distributed through e-mails and intranet.
Checking for Understanding
- Moderate an interactive discussion about any key event of the Texas history that includes its causes and the consequences.
- Ask students to write a paper about a key event, an individual or the incident in the Texas history
- Ask students to create a timeline of the key people, events or the incidents that can be traced back to the earliest stages of Texas history
- Conduct a quiz about the important points of the history
- Divide students into various groups and ask them to do a collaborative project related to the topic.
The teacher should observe and monitor all these activities closely and identify students who are lagging behind and who are taking leadership (Brown et al, 1994). This assessment enables them to identify students who require special attention and reinforcement study for mastering the topic.
We can do it today.
Questioning Strategies
One of the most widely used teaching strategies, there are many motives behind using the questioning techniques such as involve the student in an active manner in the lesson, increase the interest in the topic or evaluate the preparation of the students and check the completion of the given assignment. Further, it is used for the development of the critical thinking skills and nurture insight of the students among the others. The teachers use this strategy for stimulating an independent learning or assess the mastery or achievement of the objectives and the goals of the learning. For example, in this lesson plan, the objective is to master key landmarks in Texas history. As per Bloom’s Taxonomy, the questions that are asked during this time include recall of information or data, understand the meaning, application of the concept in any new situation, and encourage the synthesis of the information, analysis of different concepts and evaluation of the knowledge.
Guided Practice
There is a very good saying that Practice makes perfect, and it is true in every sense. Throughout the lesson, the teacher needs to make sure that the student gets a lot of opportunities to practice the concepts and apply them for analyzing various topics. Guided practice refers to the set of teacher behavior based on the existing knowledge of the students and what he or she needs to know. During this step, the teacher divides the selected students in a small group and re-teaches a concept by modifying it as per the student’s requirements. For example, in social studies, when the teacher teaches the Texas History with the flashcards, provide a prompt and encourage them to explain a concept as per their understanding.
Closure
To impress the students, a teacher not only has to make a great start for engaging the students, he or she also has to make a good closure for ending the class or the lesson. There are many strategies used by a teacher to close the lesson, for example, he or she can review the key points of the lesson. For example, while teaching Texas history, the teacher can ask students to count the key incidents in the Texas history from the earliest stages to the contemporary times. After that, he can ask students about their impressions related to the topic and then he can offer information about the home works, and other tasks he is going to give them or the information about the quiz in near future. Some other creative strategies include snowstorm, High-five hustle, parent hotline, two-dollar summary, paper slide, DJ summary, gallery walk, low-stake quizzes, question stems, and beat the clock among the others. These closures of the lesson provide the fun as well as enable the students to remember the pertinent points.
Independent Practice
As part of learning, the teacher can also reinforce the topic by giving different types of homework such as writing essays, making timelines or making power presentations on any given topic, for example, for social studies class, the teacher may ask to write essay on a prominent personality, incident or effects of a particular policy (Grant & Sleeter, 2006). This can be also applied to the group or individual classes as they may enable the students to reinforce and apply these concepts in some way.
Differentiation Strategies
It is a fact that needs of the students are not homogeneous in any classroom and the due to this fact the teacher needs to adapt the needs of all students such as at-risk learners, English language learners, special education learners, speech learners, 504 learners or gifted learners. As part of the teaching tools and techniques the teacher can use various strategies such as user inquiry, interest surveys, cross-training, giving encouraging feedbacks, peer-to-peer reviews, and asking them open-ended questions during the class sessions, the teacher can also give special attention to the students who need it such as gifted learners by giving them extra credit for extra assignments.
Assessment of Mastery
The teaching itself is not the end when it comes to the teaching objectives of any class. The students need to demonstrate that they have mastered the topic and the subject before going further. For that purpose, the teacher uses many tools and techniques to assess the knowledge of the students on various topics throughout the lesson as well as at the end of the lesson. This knowledge is also tested during various term exams. Some tools and techniques that are used for this purpose include graded discussions, quizzes, tests, open-book exam and multiple-choice tests among the others. Through the grade achieved in these exams and assessments, the students demonstrate their mastery of the objectives.
Assessment of the Lesson Plan
This is a lesson plan for the K-7 grade, and the subject is the social studies. The teacher has to teach early Texas history for a 45-minutes class session. The main focus of this class was to apply critical-thinking to organize and offer information to the students that have been collected through various authorized primary and secondary resources such as news and media sources, biographies, interview and artifacts related to Texas History. Further, the teacher needs to analyze the gathered information by identifying the cause-and-effect relationships, finding the main idea and summarizing as well as the sequencing, and the categorization of the topics that should be mastered by the students. Not only that, the main objective of this lesson is to enable the students to organize and interpret required information from various types of databases, outlines, and visual data such as graphs, charts, timelines and maps among the others. Not only that, the students should be able to create various types of presentation from given information.
For the students, the main objective of this lesson plan is to master the early Texas history from beginning to the present time-period through its key landmarks from the natural Texas to the present Texas eras. To engage the students from the start, the teacher throws a question related to this topic and initiates a comprehensive discussion. During that time, the teacher also encourages them to ask questions and clarifies any point that arises during the discussion. Not only that, the teacher also uses other teaching tools and techniques such as the use of the internet and the books for the creation of the lectures notes (Chang & Lo, 2014). As part of the study, the teacher divided students into various groups and announced different types of assignments such as the creation of the timelines and power point presentation for the shortlisted topics during the class session. In addition to them, the teacher also assigned individual papers about some key events, an individual or the incident in the Texas history. After completion of the work, these papers would be reviewed by their peers in the class. As the session started winding up, the teacher announced quiz after next two class session and started implementing closure strategy by reviewing the topics that were studied and continued to clarify the doubts of the students. In the end, he threw a surprise question and asked the students to answer it in 500 words and submit it before the quiz. After that, he finished the class after giving a list of reading resources for this topic. After completion of given assignments, the teacher was able to assess the requirement of the students who stayed behind the class in learning and has earmarked their names for remedial classes.
- Burden, P. R., & Byrd, D. M. (2003). Methods for effective teaching. Boston, MA.
- Bowen, W. G., & McPherson, M. S. (2016). Lesson plan: An agenda for change in American higher education. Princeton University Press.
- Brown, L. K., Angus, D. C., Marin, M. G., Balmes, J. R., Barker, A. F., Ewart, G., & Nathanson, I. T. (1994). Teaching by principles.
- Chang, C. Y., & Lo, T. Y. (2014). The Strategy to Promote the Teacher Teaching Ability: The Writing Method about Lesson Plan and Teaching Assessment in the Learning Areas of Integrated Activities Curriculum Practicing. Jiaoyu Yanjiu Yuekan= Journal of Education Research, (247), 37.
- Grant, C. A., & Sleeter, C. E. (2006). Turning on learning: Five approaches for multicultural teaching plans for race, class, gender, and disability. Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley. 10475 Crosspoint Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46256.