Brittany
Arnold
Dr.
Mueller
Psychology
205
February
14, 2011
Evaluation
of Percents and Whole Lesson
There are various lesson plans created every day by instructors and various
lesson plans posted as templates for other instructors to view and use as a
structure in their classrooms. Not every lesson plan is structured in a
manner for effective learning and teaching. Both Piaget and Vygotsky would recommend having a plan that promotes active
learning and not just lecturing on the material the entire time.
This
website called Teacher's Network offers lesson plans for new instructors.
I read one lesson plan for teaching percents and wholes. The lesson plan,
as a whole, I believe to be very effective for learning and teaching.
However, there are many different components that are used in creating a lesson
plan. These components act as an outline for the lesson plan. These
components also need to be effective when creating a lesson plan.
For the first part of the lesson plan the instructor conducts a
mini-lesson. With this mini-lesson the teacher is supposed to have a grid
on chart paper. The students then answer questions about squares on the
grid. This grid is acting as a visual for the students. Allowing
them to see a visual will help them to connect the concept of percents and
wholes to other situations and will allow for better storage and
retrieval. The instructor is also going through each step to make sure the
students understand each step and guiding them toward the correct fraction.
The students have learned fractions before so they are going back and
reviewing this information. Since they have already learned fractions the
instructor is successfully teaching just beyond the student's zone of proximal
development. They are capable of learning about percents because they
have learned about similar topics but have yet to learn about the
percents. Teaching just beyond their zone of proximal development is good
in this instance because if the instructor were to try and teach fractions,
decimals, and percents all at once the students would not be able to process
the information because it would be beyond their present level of capacity.
The instructor then has the students prepare a paper chart with four columns on
it. Each column represents a different step to take in order to find percentages.
Each step is something they already know how to do. This allows the
students to elaborate by connecting how to find a percentage to other information
they have already learned (like fractions and decimals). Creating this
association will help the students to properly store the information by
connecting it to existing schemas they have for math concepts. This chart
is also acting as scaffolding for the students. Instead of just telling
them right away how to figure out a percentage the instructor is giving them
steps as a guideline on how to figure out percentages. Organizing the way
to find a percentage will help the students when they approach these problems
later on their own. They will be able to go through the checklist of
steps on how to find a percentage. Once they become comfortable with the
concept they will take away this scaffolding. They then will have
internalized the steps to finding a percentage, and when it has been
internalized they have successfully stored it in their long term memory.
We know it is stored there because they no longer need a set of steps to
remember what to do; they can self-regulate how to find a percentage.
Following creating the charts the instructor asks the students a second
question. This time the instructor allows the students to use the
scaffolding taught to answer the question on their own. This allows them
a chance to actively attempt the problem and take more independence in the
steps to solving the problem. The instructor is allowing them to do the
task on their own. Doing the task on their own provides rehearsal of the
steps and information. This will then lead to better transferring of
information in the memory.
After they have attempted another question the instructor has the students
create their own question about the squares and percentages. They then
have to answer their own question. This is good because the students are
creating their own examples. By creating their own examples they are
making the connections with the concepts stronger in their brain. This will
allow for better retrieval of the information at a later time. It allows
for better retrieval because the brain likes examples of information to help
better elaborate on what it is trying to store.
The class then goes through more examples, which as mentioned before allows for
rehearsal of the information. After the class goes through the extra
examples the instructor has the class break up into pairs. Having the
students break up into different pairs does take away some of the control from
the instructor, but I believe if the instructor is walking around and keeping
an eye out on each of the pairs the lesson is worth the slight loss of
control. The students then have to create different examples and then
share them with their partner and have their partner try and figure out the
answers. Having the students break off into pairs is a beneficial
activity to have in the classroom. This allows for peer modeling to occur. The children are able to observe how their 
peer
performs the task and how they may figure out the answers. This allows
the students to create new and different ways of seeing the information, which
will help prevent not being able to retrieve the information at a later
time. Observing each other is also a good thing in the classroom because
the children will be able to help each other out and will be able to build off
of each other. If one student in the partnership is struggling the other
will be able to help them to better understand the problem. This raises
the self-efficacy of the student having the problems because their peer is
similar to them and they can better relate. Also, this will help raise
the self-efficacy of the student who is helping because they realize they understand
the information much better than they had originally assumed. Not only is
this partner work good for modeling but it is also good because the students
are creating their own examples and having to figure out each other's
examples. This, once again, is helping them to attach associations by
creating examples. Having them do so in a partner setting, however, makes
the examples more fun. By making them more fun they are more likely to
create stronger associations. These stronger associations create stronger
elaboration for storage in their memory.
After the partner work has been finished the class as a whole goes through a
summary of what they have learned that day. This will allow the students
to review the key concepts of the topic. Maintenance of the key concepts
allows again for the students to help connect them to schemas in the student's
long term memory. By repeating what they have learned they are allowing
the information to be consolidated in the brain. If the instructor were
not to do this maintenance and just move onto a new topic right after teaching
this topic the student would not have time to fully and permanently plant the
information into their memory and they would not be able to retrieve the
information later because it would have never been stored.
Following the summary the instructor has the students write out a journal
prompt relating to what they just learned. This allows the students to
analyze a problem and put the answer into their own words. By putting the
information they have just learned into their own words they are organizing the
information into a way that makes sense for them. The brain likes when
you put information into your own words. Therefore, when you put information
into your own words the brain will be more likely to store the
information. Organizing this information into their own words allows them
to know they understand the information and can raise their self-efficacy on
this topic. They also are seeing the information they just learned put
into a real life example. By doing so they are able to create connections
to real world examples. The students may be able to think of the example
as being personal because of how they performed on a test before. This
once again creates a deep elaboration for the information. They are
giving a meaning to the information they learned. Putting it into their
own words also will help when they try and retrieve the information later
because the connections to the different schemas for the different concepts
will be much stronger.
At the end of the lesson the instructor then assigns homework for the
students. Instead of giving a bunch of boring problems the instructor is
giving the students a fun problem to connect the information they learned to
the real world. The students are to think of a problem where they would
use the information they learned that day in the real world. This is a
very good practice. They are connecting the information they learned to
the real world and seeing its importance. By doing so there is an
intrinsic motivation to learn the material and practice it because the students
see how it is important to everyday life. This also creates a relevant
example which is the best way to elaborate and store the information.
Creating a real world example will also allow the student to attach meaning to
the information.
Overall the lesson plan I analyzed is an extremely well planned lesson.
The plan is very consistent with what research has shown to be effective with
human development and learning. The instructor allows throughout the
lesson many different ways and styles to learning. They also allow for
many different types of examples and ways at looking at the information which
will help to create the strongest connections with existing schemas.
There is one thing I would, however, recommend adding to the lesson plan.
I would recommend adding some operant conditioning ideas into the lesson.
This could be important to ensure all of the students are staying
involved. The instructor can incorporate positive reinforcement when
students participate to encourage participation in the class as a whole.
By providing positive reinforcement the other students will want to get
involved because they would want to receive the consequence as well. The
instructor does not need to implement operant conditioning into this lesson
plan if they would rather not, 
because
I think overall it is very well planned, however, I think it would add even
more to the plan's success.