Category: Uncategorized

Whole Class Teaching.

Small Groups.

Individual Work.

Looks like

• The teacher ‘Tuning in’ and sharing ideas and resources with the whole class. This may include using various graphic organisers e.g. what I know, what I would like to know etc.
• Opportunities for students to take risks in sharing their learning with their teacher and class.

• Work spaces arranged so that students can be in close proximity to their teacher.

• The teacher giving time and encouragement to students in order to demonstrate their learning across curriculum areas.

• Adequate work spaces for students.

• Curriculum relevant to student needs and interests.

• Classroom program arranged to allow students to find space and resources.

•  Relevant and up to date resources.

• Learning program developed so that students can enter at their level and be extended and challenged.

• Teacher and student created rubrics for assessment.

• Students displaying their learning in a number of ways, e.g talking, writing, art, drama etc.

–

Sounds like

• Students being able to discuss their understandings and to make connections

• Students explaining, discussing their learning with peers, teacher and parents.

• Students discussing and helping each other.
• The teacher interacting with groups.

• Students sharing their learning with the class through speaking, writing, drama, music, art.

• Teacher making learning objectives clear.

•  The sound of discussion between students and between students and teacher.

•  Students sharing their learning with peers, parents and teacher.

• The teacher interacting with individuals.

Feels like

• Warm and safe to share

• To ask questions and give opinions.

• Inviting and feeling part of the group.

• Warm and safe to share.

• To ask questions and give opinions.

• Inviting and feeling part of the group.

• Students feeling encouraged  to share their understandings with others.

• Supportive environment so students feel comfortable to give thoughts and opinions.

TOPIC

Feel good, feel great.

The human body.

SHARED VALUES

Self, family and others. Maintaining wellbeing, a healthy lifestyle, nutrition, fitness.

PRINCIPLES

Identity and culture.

Inclusivity, preparing for life (through change), relevance.

KEY COMPETENCIES

Thinking and creativity. Relating to people. Making meaning. Living a healthy life. Learning sustainable practices. Using technology and media.

Goals for Learning

• Helping students to develop an understanding that behaviours, attitudes and choices affect identity and relationships.
• Students will be able to use these understandings to make good/informed choices about their health.
• Students will consider how these choices affect themselves and others.

Overarching Goals.

• What factors contribute to physical health and well-being?
• In what ways can we make positive and informed choices about our wellbeing?
• How do these choices impact on others?

Students will understand that:

• Key features about their physical body and how it works, grows and develops and ways of caring for it.
• How to make informed choices about the nutrition we need in order to keep our bodies healthy.
• That our choices impact on well-being.

Learning Experiences that lead to Understanding

• Creating a positive learning environment.
• Connecting to prior learning.
• Making learning meaningful – references to what the students know, what they want to find out, how, rubrics:

teachers’ and students’.

• Recognising individual differences.

Demonstrations of Successful Learning

Measure learning across all dimensions; multiple methods; use feedback; reflect on learning; express thought

through writing, concept maps, rubrics, pictorial representations, oral presentations.

Tuning In

Brainstorm with the class the following question:

What do you know about wellbeing and good health?

• Conduct an activity in groups of three to assess the students’ knowledge of their wellbeing and good health.
• Have three students simultaneously write individually in three different colours on a large sheet of paper about their understanding of well-being.
• Students share their answers with other members of their group. Ask the listeners to decide the most important piece on information given.
• Students report to the class three of the most important pieces of information from their group.
• Working as a whole class have students sort the information into categories of food and drink, drugs, hygiene/ keeping clean, germs/ diseases and feelings.

Read Dr Dog story as Tuning In activity (Author Babette Cole. 1996)

Brainstorm with class what messages they think the author is giving in relation to well-being.

Ongoing Assessment

• Record students’ thoughts as written notes.
• Keep students’ written work as a record of current understanding to compare with their understanding after the unit.

Focus on students’ ability to:

• Express and generalise information about implied health issues.
• Express thoughts in written form.

Ask the students to try not to just re-tell the story of Dr Dog

Finding Out, Sorting Out

How can we find out about how our bodies work?

Guiding questions:

• What do we already know?
• What do we need to find out?
• What happens when…..?
• What does the ……do?
• Why?
• How do we find out?

What is inside my body?

Teacher directed: Lead a discussion on ways to look after our bodies related to what is inside our body and how it works.

• Working in groups, have students draw a life size body for the group.
• Have students create the inside of the body. They may do this in any form they wish, eg draw, paint, collage etc.
• Ask them to label the parts they have identified.

• Have the class undertake group research tasks on body systems.

Teacher directed: Explain the complex nature of how all the body parts work together. Tell students that to help us understand this complexity, we can look at ‘systems’ in the body.

Examples of body systems:

• Path of food through the body relates to the digestive system.
• Parts related to breathing form the respiratory system.
• Continue to make a list of major systems of the body giving a brief description of their functions.

• Advise the groups to list the information already known and to list questions to direct their inquiry.
• Discuss the use of internet sites, reference books and asking an expert.
• More able students can seek extra information.

• Have students design a rubric to assess each group’s as well as their own presentations with reference to the criteria discussed. (see sample rubric)

Ongoing Assessment

·         Display the students’ ‘bodies’ and use these representations as references for ongoing reflection.

·         Encourage oral presentations, technology (models etc.), visual artwork, graphs, maps, collage.

·         Have each group present their information about their specific body system to the class in the form of an oral presentation supported by a life-sized labelled poster/diagram, Power Point.

·         Explain to the groups the criteria that will be used to assess each group’s oral presentation.  Suitable criteria include: using strong, clear voices, facing the audience, ensuring each person has equal turn to speak, agreeing on a time frame, making it interesting for the audience, referring to the poster/diagram to assist understanding, explaining how the system works.

·         Assess students’ oral presentations to the class of their research task, including their diagram/ body poster.

·         Assess how effectively the group explains the body system and how its parts work together.

·         Score 1-4 on each criterion. At the completion of each presentation, have the whole class assess the presentation using a rubric.

Investigate factors contributing to well being

Food

Do we need more of some foods than others?

Teacher directed, ask the students:

• Are there some foods we should eat more of than others?

• What are they?
• Refer to the way certain foods are better for our bodies.

• Discuss food groups and with the help of the students brainstorm to categorise individual foods into food groups.
• Using a large class pyramid, have students sort pictures into a Healthy Diet Pyramid – Eat Most, Eat Least, Eat Moderately.
• Clarify their choices through a class discussion and ask why they placed particular foods in particular places on the pyramid.
• Using the computer program WORD, have students design a Healthy Diet Pyramid on the computer importing

Illustrative pictures.

Ongoing Assessment

Assess students’ ability to:

• Categorise foods into the Eat Most, Eat least, Eat Moderately sections of the Healthy Diet Pyramid
• Justify their choices.
• Replicate their learning to a computerised format.

How do we know what is in particular foods?

Teacher directed: Ask and discuss with students questions such as:

• How do we find out what ingredients are in food products?
• What information is given on the packaging?
• What claims do manufacturers make on the packaging to try to sell their product?

Investigate breakfast foods

• Working in groups, ask students to compare different breakfast foods for sugar, fibre, fat, energy and salt content.
• Have each group record information about four different breakfast foods.
• Have each group produce a graph to depict the nutritional data collected on the foods.
• Ask students to identify which food is the healthiest.

Ensure students justify their choices when showing their graph to the class.

Ongoing Assessment

Assess students’ ability to:

• Analyse nutritional information,
• Depict their data in graphical form.
• Analyse their graphs.
• Make conclusions.
• Make considered choices.
• Justify their choices.

Describe the components of a balanced diet.

• Have students write down all the food they eat in two days.
• Have students work with a partner to analyse each other’s diet and then to justify their decision as to whether it is balanced or not.

Teacher note: Ask students to refer to the Healthy Diet Pyramid and the information on the recommended number of serves per day in order to initiate a class discussion.

Pose these further questions:

• What changes could you make to your diet?

• What can we do to help put our understandings of what constitutes a balanced diet into practice?

Ongoing Assessment

Assess students’ ability to:

• Assess their own diet.
• Make considered choices about what they might change.
• Devise a plan for adjusting their diet.
• Incorporate elements of healthy, balanced diet into a breakfast menu.

Plan a healthy breakfast or lunch for the class.

• In groups ask students to use their knowledge of a balanced diet to design a breakfast menu.
• Have them consider cost, practical aspects of preparing food at school, individual tastes, health benefits etc.
• Have students share their plans and reach a class consensus.
• Have students assist in the preparation and serving of breakfast, with help of parents and or other adults.

Culmination

• Ask students to organise their information and make choices about how best to present their research. e.g. flow chart, series of models, timeline depicting particular events etc.
• Make a board game to play with their friends to demonstrate the knowledge they have gained.
• Read all about it… (make a class newspaper.)
• Make a book to share with younger children or for the school library.
• Ask students to share and present their work between classes.

TOPIC

Extinction,

Animals, Birds, Fish etc.

SHARED VALUES

Caring for our environment including all living creatures.

Responsibility for the environment.

PRINCIPLES

Sustainability of land, sea and air.

Learning to create purposeful futures.

Learning to act ethically.

KEY COMPETENCIES

Thinking and creativity.

Making meaning.

Living a sustainable life. Learning sustainable practices. Using technology and media.

Goals for Learning

• Helping students to develop an understanding that behaviours, attitudes and choices affect their environment.
• Students will be able to use these understandings to make good/informed choices about their habits and the impact it has on living creatures.
• Students will consider how these choices affect themselves and others.
• Students will understand that all living things need a sustaining habitat. (What sustains a habitat)
• Students will understand that ecosystems are fragile. When 1 species is at risk, others may also become at risk.
• Students will understand that various factors contribute to a species becoming endangered, vulnerable, and extinct and how human factors have increased this.
• Students will understand that there are ways that people can help bring about change.

Overarching Goals.

 Concepts: sustainability, extinction, eco-systems, biodiversity

• What factors contribute to a sustainable environment and the welfare of all living creatures?
• In what ways can we make positive and informed choices about caring for our environment?
• How do these choices impact on others?

Students will understand about:

• Key features about sustainability and how it impacts on animals, birds etc
• How to make informed choices about how we protect our environment.
• Sustainable land use and protecting the sea and air.
• How our choices impact on our well-being.

Learning Experiences that lead to Understanding

• Creating a positive learning environment.
• Connecting to prior learning.
• Making learning meaningful – references to what the students know, what they want to find out, how,

Rubrics: teachers’ and students’.

• Recognising individual differences.

Demonstrations of Successful Learning

Measure learning across all dimensions; multiple methods; use feedback; reflect on learning; express thought

through writing, concept maps, rubrics, pictorial representations, oral presentations.

Tuning In

Find and write the dictionary definitions for extinct, endangered and vulnerable.

Brainstorm with the class the following question:

Does it matter if some animals become extinct?

*(within the animal category we are including animals, birds, reptiles and fish)

Conduct an activity in groups of three to assess the students’ knowledge about extinction and sustainability.

• Have three students simultaneously write individually in three different colours on a large sheet of paper about their understanding of extinction and sustainability.
• Students share their answers with other members of their group. Ask the listeners to decide the most important piece on information given.
• Students report to the class three of the most important pieces of information from their group.
• Working as a whole class have students sort the information into categories of threatened, endangered and extinct.

• Many kinds of animals have become extinct. Choose one, and think up five questions that you would like to ask it if you had the opportunity.

Ongoing Assessment

• Record students’ thoughts as written notes. (larger classes could allocate someone to scribe or a tape recorder could be used to tape thoughts)
• Keep students’ written work as a record of current understanding to compare with their understanding after the unit.

       Focus on students’ ability to:

• Express and generalise their understandings of threatened, endangered and extinct.
• How to care for the land, the sea and the air. (Create and maintain a sustainable environment)
• Express thoughts in written form.

Finding Out, Sorting Out

       How can we find out about the animals which are endangered of becoming extinct?

       Guiding questions:

• What do we already know?
• What do we need to find out?
• What happens when…..?
• What does the ……do?
• Why?
• How do we find out?

What do animals need to survive?

Teacher directed: Lead a discussion about what animals need to survive: (Whole class activity)

Individual and group activities.

• Advise the groups to list the information already known and to list questions to direct their inquiry.
• Discuss the use of internet sites, reference books and asking an expert.
• More able students can seek extra information.
• Working in groups, have students list all the animals they can find out about that are in danger of becoming extinct.
• What do animals need to survive?
• Develop a plan that would ensure that an endangered animal could survive.
• Draw a flow chart of a food chain for an animal in your habitat.
• Describe the animals that would be supported by your habitat?
• What is an eco-system? What are some of the consequences of disturbing them?
• Compare a bird and a fish. List all the ways that they are: alike, different.
• Select an animal and make a list of its food and shelter. Students may do this in any form they wish, eg write, draw, paint, collage etc.

Ongoing Assessment

• Have students design a rubric to assess each group’s as well as their own presentations with reference to the criteria discussed. (see sample rubric)
• Display the students’ work and use these as references for on-going reflection.
• Encourage oral presentations, technology (models etc.), visual artwork, graphs, maps, collage.
• Have each group present their information about their specific research topic to the class in the form of an oral presentation supported by a labelled poster/diagram, Power Point.
• Explain to the groups the criteria that will be used to assess each group’s oral presentation.  Suitable criteria include: using strong, clear voices, facing the audience, ensuring each person has equal turn to speak, agreeing on a time frame, making it interesting for the audience, referring to the poster/diagram to assist understanding.
• Assess students’ oral presentations to the class of their research task.
• Assess how effectively the group explains the flow chart and ecosystem and how it works together.
• Score 1-4 on each criterion. At the completion of each presentation, have the whole class assess the presentation using a rubric.

Assess students’ ability to:

• Make conclusions.
• Make considered choices.
• Justify their choices.
• Make conclusions.
• Make considered choices about what they might change.
• Have students share their plans and reach a class consensus.

• Ask students to organise their information and make choices about how best to present their research. e.g. flow chart, series of models, timeline depicting particular events etc.

Culmination

• Does it matter if some animals become extinct? Why? Give your reasons.
• Select the environmental issue that interests you the most. Explain what it is and your suggestions for solving it.
• Make a board game to play with their friends to demonstrate the knowledge they have gained.
• Read all about it… (make a class newspaper.)
• Make a book to share with younger children or for the school library.
• Ask students to share and present their work between classes.

2

1

What have I learned

about extinction and habitats?

I would like to continue learning about extinction.

How well did I participate in group work?

Was I able to answer the questions that were asked at the beginning of the unit?

Did I complete all the work of the unit?

Have I used a number of ways to demonstrate my learning?