Analysis of Lesson and Teaching
Context for Lesson and Activities
Since this was the first small group lesson designed, I had the opportunity to give the lesson twice to two completely different sets of students.
1st Time - 40 minutes
Wednesday
2:15pm (during Art)
In the classroom
6 students
2nd Time - 40 minutes
Tuesday
8:45am (during Gym)
In the classroom
5 students
This lesson was designed as science lesson for a selected small group of students (six the first time and five the second time) from my first grade classroom at E.M. Stanton Elementary. Both times the lesson was taught, the students were intentionally selected to provide a diverse cross section of the class including students of both genders as well as a variety in ability level and interest in science. Some of these students are completing above grade level work, while others are struggling to catch up to their peers (including in areas of reading and writing).
1st Time - 40 minutes
Wednesday
2:15pm (during Art)
In the classroom
6 students
2nd Time - 40 minutes
Tuesday
8:45am (during Gym)
In the classroom
5 students
This lesson was designed as science lesson for a selected small group of students (six the first time and five the second time) from my first grade classroom at E.M. Stanton Elementary. Both times the lesson was taught, the students were intentionally selected to provide a diverse cross section of the class including students of both genders as well as a variety in ability level and interest in science. Some of these students are completing above grade level work, while others are struggling to catch up to their peers (including in areas of reading and writing).
Description of Lesson - 1st Time (Observed)
The first attempt at this lesson was observed by my U-Penn mentor (notes are attached on the Observations and Reflections page). Students gathered on the rug and I sat in the chair by the whiteboard. I started the lesson with a review of my expectations for appropriate, respectful behavior. I had students affirm for me that they understood the ground rules of raising their hands to speak or ask a question, and sitting politely on the rug by showing me and re-voicing the rules in their own words. After establishing these expectations for behavior, I began by commending them on all the great work they have been doing on animals and asking them to recall their zoo trip that we took together.
This conversation then seamlessly led to us brainstorming different animals that we can see in Philadelphia. As students suggested animals to be found in the city, I showed them pictures of that animal. Students were not used to this type of open discussion and many were talking out of turn, not listening to each other, repeating information already discussed and sharing lengthy stories about the animals they had seen. After a lot of discussion and review of the pictures of animals, I finally got them back on track thinking about how "scientists are like detectives, looking for clues that animals have left behind.
I shared with them some of the clues or evidence pictures I had brought in, asking them to guess what the type of clue was. Once we hit the picture of rabbit scat (poop) they were a little bit wild as expected. One student took this opportunity to be a class clown and talking about how yummy it would be to eat. Then of course other students proceeded to be emphatically grossed out by this notion and it took a minute to bring them back in to the lesson. In fact, throughout this discussion, I was constantly interrupting myself to deal with behavior management. The students had a very hard time sitting still and not calling out or being disruptive, and it took much more of the allotted time to get through this discussion portion because of losing instructional time to stopping for behavior management.
Finally, I brought out the large scale image and let them know that they would be looking for evidence (clues) of animals in this picture. I handed out the clipboards that were prepared with the student copy of the image, lined paper and blank paper. The tone of the group changed completely at this moment. Students were much quieter, all with pencils to their papers circling clues they found in the image. At one point a boy asked me if he could look at the bigger picture to work on his, and I told the group that was fine with me as long as they gave room for everyone to look. Interestingly, only three students then chose to get up close and reference the larger class image. The other students found a spot elsewhere in the classroom to work independently. Then a girl noticed the lined paper behind the copy of the image and asked "can I write things down?". I was so relieved and excited because I had forgotten completely to suggest that to them. I took that opportunity to address the whole group and exclaimed, "I love what (student's name) just asked me, she asked "can I write things down?" There is paper behind all of your pictures so that you absolutely can write things down!" and I also tried to use this as a teachable moment adding, "scientists are always writing things down, they take notes when they observe things or record information about what they are studying, so you all are really acting like real scientists when you work on this by taking good, careful notes". I had not specified exactly what to write down but that I encouraged them to "take notes".
The majority of the students at this point had found much of the evidence I had included and were now writing on the paper provided. Unfortunately because of having to take so much time at the beginning of the lesson to introduce the ideas and pictures, the students had to pack up and hand in their papers after only about 10 minutes of work on this part of the activity. There was no time for me to wrap up with them except for me saying as they put their coats on that I hoped they kept being scientists at home by looking for evidence of animals around their own neighborhood!
This conversation then seamlessly led to us brainstorming different animals that we can see in Philadelphia. As students suggested animals to be found in the city, I showed them pictures of that animal. Students were not used to this type of open discussion and many were talking out of turn, not listening to each other, repeating information already discussed and sharing lengthy stories about the animals they had seen. After a lot of discussion and review of the pictures of animals, I finally got them back on track thinking about how "scientists are like detectives, looking for clues that animals have left behind.
I shared with them some of the clues or evidence pictures I had brought in, asking them to guess what the type of clue was. Once we hit the picture of rabbit scat (poop) they were a little bit wild as expected. One student took this opportunity to be a class clown and talking about how yummy it would be to eat. Then of course other students proceeded to be emphatically grossed out by this notion and it took a minute to bring them back in to the lesson. In fact, throughout this discussion, I was constantly interrupting myself to deal with behavior management. The students had a very hard time sitting still and not calling out or being disruptive, and it took much more of the allotted time to get through this discussion portion because of losing instructional time to stopping for behavior management.
Finally, I brought out the large scale image and let them know that they would be looking for evidence (clues) of animals in this picture. I handed out the clipboards that were prepared with the student copy of the image, lined paper and blank paper. The tone of the group changed completely at this moment. Students were much quieter, all with pencils to their papers circling clues they found in the image. At one point a boy asked me if he could look at the bigger picture to work on his, and I told the group that was fine with me as long as they gave room for everyone to look. Interestingly, only three students then chose to get up close and reference the larger class image. The other students found a spot elsewhere in the classroom to work independently. Then a girl noticed the lined paper behind the copy of the image and asked "can I write things down?". I was so relieved and excited because I had forgotten completely to suggest that to them. I took that opportunity to address the whole group and exclaimed, "I love what (student's name) just asked me, she asked "can I write things down?" There is paper behind all of your pictures so that you absolutely can write things down!" and I also tried to use this as a teachable moment adding, "scientists are always writing things down, they take notes when they observe things or record information about what they are studying, so you all are really acting like real scientists when you work on this by taking good, careful notes". I had not specified exactly what to write down but that I encouraged them to "take notes".
The majority of the students at this point had found much of the evidence I had included and were now writing on the paper provided. Unfortunately because of having to take so much time at the beginning of the lesson to introduce the ideas and pictures, the students had to pack up and hand in their papers after only about 10 minutes of work on this part of the activity. There was no time for me to wrap up with them except for me saying as they put their coats on that I hoped they kept being scientists at home by looking for evidence of animals around their own neighborhood!
Description of Lesson - 2nd Time (Videotaped, see clips below)
As before students gathered on the rug with me at the chair by the whiteboard. After listening to the morning announcements, we discussed what we had seen at the zoo and which of those animals we would/wouldn't see around Philadelphia. We listed on the whiteboard the animals/living things that students have seen around where they live. Then I attempted to introduce the idea that sometimes we do not always see the animals around us but find evidence that they have been there. I was drawn back in by the students to add a few more animals to the list of what we see if Philadelphia because they were engaged in thinking about this and I could tell they still had more ideas about that they wanted to share. After listing a few more examples, I suggested we be like detectives and try to figure out if "maybe we could figure out if there was an animal there before that just isn't there now?". After getting a couple responses that continued to be suggestions of types of animals, I rephrased the question, "what clues could animals leave behind to tell us they have been there?" and started getting some good responses that I listed on the whiteboard in a different color than the listed animals we could find.
After only a few examples, I could tell they now understood what was meant by clues/evidence and chose to move on and give examples of animals leaving clues/evidence by showing a picture of evidence and asking the students to guess what type of clue it was and what animal they thought had left it behind? When we discussed the scat this time, I introduced it with the term "scat" first so that we could practice using the "scientific term" for it and it helped students to think about it as scientific evidence instead of something gross. Throughout the rest of the lesson we were able to come back and use the term when discussing the evidence in the group image they were all working with. I showed 3 examples of evidence and the animals that left it before then bringing out the large scale group image. I explained that they were looking for evidence or clues that animals had been there and handed them each a clipboard with a copy of the image, lined paper and blank paper.
They immediately started to crowd around the large scale image and needed to be told that they could show they had found something by circling the evidence in their copy of the picture. After a minute, I asked that as they finished finding clues the next step was to write down or draw which animals that they thought had left those clues, or what animals they could tell were there before. I was careful to keep this direction open to interpretation (some students would write sentences, other a list, some prefer to draw). Some students were becoming frustrated with not knowing the name of the animal they were thinking of or how to spell it. So they took it upon themselves to reference the bin labeled "animals" in the library corner. I celebrated their initiative to reference something to check their thinking and ideas. I saw this as on task as long as the books they were referencing were related to the evidence they had found in the picture, at one point I noticed one boy off task looking at a dinosaur book and I asked him if he thought there were dinosaurs in our picture, "he replied no because the footprints aren't big enough" and I knew that he was making the right connections to the activity we were working on.
We came back together on the rug to discuss what they had found and what animals they thought had left all this evidence in the picture. After discussing a few examples, I reminded them that they could continue to be scientists looking for evidence and clues at home. To which one girl responded "I'm going search every morning". I had a few minutes left, not enough time to complete the extension activity so I used that time to show a couple more pictures of clues and have students share what type of clue it was and what animal they thought left it behind, reinforcing the connection between animals and evidence of animals in our surroundings.
After only a few examples, I could tell they now understood what was meant by clues/evidence and chose to move on and give examples of animals leaving clues/evidence by showing a picture of evidence and asking the students to guess what type of clue it was and what animal they thought had left it behind? When we discussed the scat this time, I introduced it with the term "scat" first so that we could practice using the "scientific term" for it and it helped students to think about it as scientific evidence instead of something gross. Throughout the rest of the lesson we were able to come back and use the term when discussing the evidence in the group image they were all working with. I showed 3 examples of evidence and the animals that left it before then bringing out the large scale group image. I explained that they were looking for evidence or clues that animals had been there and handed them each a clipboard with a copy of the image, lined paper and blank paper.
They immediately started to crowd around the large scale image and needed to be told that they could show they had found something by circling the evidence in their copy of the picture. After a minute, I asked that as they finished finding clues the next step was to write down or draw which animals that they thought had left those clues, or what animals they could tell were there before. I was careful to keep this direction open to interpretation (some students would write sentences, other a list, some prefer to draw). Some students were becoming frustrated with not knowing the name of the animal they were thinking of or how to spell it. So they took it upon themselves to reference the bin labeled "animals" in the library corner. I celebrated their initiative to reference something to check their thinking and ideas. I saw this as on task as long as the books they were referencing were related to the evidence they had found in the picture, at one point I noticed one boy off task looking at a dinosaur book and I asked him if he thought there were dinosaurs in our picture, "he replied no because the footprints aren't big enough" and I knew that he was making the right connections to the activity we were working on.
We came back together on the rug to discuss what they had found and what animals they thought had left all this evidence in the picture. After discussing a few examples, I reminded them that they could continue to be scientists looking for evidence and clues at home. To which one girl responded "I'm going search every morning". I had a few minutes left, not enough time to complete the extension activity so I used that time to show a couple more pictures of clues and have students share what type of clue it was and what animal they thought left it behind, reinforcing the connection between animals and evidence of animals in our surroundings.
My Personal Reaction - What was unexpected, went differently and was learned?
Discussion vs. Doing
Both times I implemented the lesson, many things did not go as planned. One of the most irritating things that I hadn't thought about was that my lesson would be interrupted by over 2 minutes of announcements over the loud speaker. It happened both times. This was frustrating because I had trouble maintaining a good flow and energy to the lesson with this break where students were just listening to the announcements and then had to get back engaged in what we were doing. I also didn't expect the first time around to have to spend that much of my instructional time staying consistent with behavior management. I realized after seeing the same rowdy students focused and engaged during the "doing" activity with the clipboards that perhaps starting the lesson with discussion wasn't the best tactic. They weren't invested in the conversation in the same way that they would have been if they had a chance to engage with the act of looking for evidence and experiencing that first and then talking about it together. This striking difference between their behavior during the discussion and during the clipboard independent work also showed me how these students understand what's expected of them when it comes to independent work (they know they need to be on task, follow directions, and produce something to show their work), however they seem to not be as confident with the expectations for discussions. It became clear that they didn't know how to engage in the discussion or weren't clear what the expectations were. One of the things I credit for the success of the independent work was the use of the clipboards. Students seemed to really take pride over using the clipboard, perhaps it made them feel more like a real scientist taking notes. Also the clipboards allowed them the freedom to work on the activity where it was productive for them, whether that was referencing the large scale class image, checking the animal books in the library corner or finding a quiet spot on the rug to think about what they were noticing. In addition, the clipboard set up with the image copy, the lined paper and the blank paper worked well to set students up with three different entry points for the task at hand. Some students loved circling the clues, others wanted to write down what they saw, and although few students chose to do this, the option to draw was also available. It seemed that students were happy to have choice over which strategy/tools they wanted to use to engage in the activity with. I think without this choice of tools and different entry points I may have lost some of them. This lesson also made me realize how unfortunate it is that we do not have a smart-board or a computer projector in the classroom (we only have a overhead projector). The pictures I had copies of and even the large scale scene were almost too small for the small group and would have been even more challenging as a whole class. It made me wonder what better ways I could share these visuals so that there wasn't this constant battle to be able to "see" them.
Both times I implemented the lesson, many things did not go as planned. One of the most irritating things that I hadn't thought about was that my lesson would be interrupted by over 2 minutes of announcements over the loud speaker. It happened both times. This was frustrating because I had trouble maintaining a good flow and energy to the lesson with this break where students were just listening to the announcements and then had to get back engaged in what we were doing. I also didn't expect the first time around to have to spend that much of my instructional time staying consistent with behavior management. I realized after seeing the same rowdy students focused and engaged during the "doing" activity with the clipboards that perhaps starting the lesson with discussion wasn't the best tactic. They weren't invested in the conversation in the same way that they would have been if they had a chance to engage with the act of looking for evidence and experiencing that first and then talking about it together. This striking difference between their behavior during the discussion and during the clipboard independent work also showed me how these students understand what's expected of them when it comes to independent work (they know they need to be on task, follow directions, and produce something to show their work), however they seem to not be as confident with the expectations for discussions. It became clear that they didn't know how to engage in the discussion or weren't clear what the expectations were. One of the things I credit for the success of the independent work was the use of the clipboards. Students seemed to really take pride over using the clipboard, perhaps it made them feel more like a real scientist taking notes. Also the clipboards allowed them the freedom to work on the activity where it was productive for them, whether that was referencing the large scale class image, checking the animal books in the library corner or finding a quiet spot on the rug to think about what they were noticing. In addition, the clipboard set up with the image copy, the lined paper and the blank paper worked well to set students up with three different entry points for the task at hand. Some students loved circling the clues, others wanted to write down what they saw, and although few students chose to do this, the option to draw was also available. It seemed that students were happy to have choice over which strategy/tools they wanted to use to engage in the activity with. I think without this choice of tools and different entry points I may have lost some of them. This lesson also made me realize how unfortunate it is that we do not have a smart-board or a computer projector in the classroom (we only have a overhead projector). The pictures I had copies of and even the large scale scene were almost too small for the small group and would have been even more challenging as a whole class. It made me wonder what better ways I could share these visuals so that there wasn't this constant battle to be able to "see" them.
Making Critical Connections
They made many connections while discussing these ideas that I did not foresee and saw as very productive and fruitful connections for them to make. In my mind it showed that they were really engaging not just with the task at hand but also with the kid of critical thinking that I wanted them to start engaging in. For example, when thinking about the animals we saw at the zoo and in the city one student mentioned horses as an animal we don't see in the city and then other students chimed in to respond that we do see them sometimes pulling the carriages. This then got some students thinking about the differences then between wild animals and domestic animals that are in the city because they are owned by humans, which is not necessarily a direction I had intended to go in. It worked out because I was able to leave it open to interpretation. Another connection that was made was when one boy who loves dinosaurs was talking about them and when we related that back to the image full of evidence we could then talk about how we know dinosaurs were not in this scene before. Some students could make the connection that they aren't alive anymore while others noted that none of the footprints were big enough to be evidence of a dinosaur. One other student shared the connection that when there are animals around our homes or in our neighborhoods, sometimes people come and pick them up and put them in cages or take them away. So this lead some students to think about the relationship between wild animals and humans and if it is possible for us to share the same space and both live in the city together. All of these connections were not exactly on topic in terms of helping us meet our objective but I saw this as a way to assess student engagement. These well thought out and critical connections to the activities were evidence of how engaged the students were in critical thinking about urban animals as a topic. I wanted to acknowledge these connections and not shut them down to encourage other students to also engage their minds and see the connections to their own experiences and lives past just the activity we were doing in class together. In fact that could be assessment that students are meeting/working towards my overarching enduring understanding that we can be like scientists to observe and think critically about the animals in our own surroundings.
They made many connections while discussing these ideas that I did not foresee and saw as very productive and fruitful connections for them to make. In my mind it showed that they were really engaging not just with the task at hand but also with the kid of critical thinking that I wanted them to start engaging in. For example, when thinking about the animals we saw at the zoo and in the city one student mentioned horses as an animal we don't see in the city and then other students chimed in to respond that we do see them sometimes pulling the carriages. This then got some students thinking about the differences then between wild animals and domestic animals that are in the city because they are owned by humans, which is not necessarily a direction I had intended to go in. It worked out because I was able to leave it open to interpretation. Another connection that was made was when one boy who loves dinosaurs was talking about them and when we related that back to the image full of evidence we could then talk about how we know dinosaurs were not in this scene before. Some students could make the connection that they aren't alive anymore while others noted that none of the footprints were big enough to be evidence of a dinosaur. One other student shared the connection that when there are animals around our homes or in our neighborhoods, sometimes people come and pick them up and put them in cages or take them away. So this lead some students to think about the relationship between wild animals and humans and if it is possible for us to share the same space and both live in the city together. All of these connections were not exactly on topic in terms of helping us meet our objective but I saw this as a way to assess student engagement. These well thought out and critical connections to the activities were evidence of how engaged the students were in critical thinking about urban animals as a topic. I wanted to acknowledge these connections and not shut them down to encourage other students to also engage their minds and see the connections to their own experiences and lives past just the activity we were doing in class together. In fact that could be assessment that students are meeting/working towards my overarching enduring understanding that we can be like scientists to observe and think critically about the animals in our own surroundings.
Being Explicit with Terms and Tasks
I was struck by how effective it was when I labeled certain actions, tools and thinking as scientific. By highlighting what was truly scientific about what they were doing or commending them when they were behaving like "real" scientists, they seemed to get even more engaged, excited and proud of their work and proceeded to take it more seriously. Also one of my heartbreaks for this lesson is that I missed the mark when it came to my objective of students learning and using the term "evidence". Although I used the term and modeled it's use in conjunction with the concept of clues, I never in either implementation of this lesson made it explicit enough that I wanted them to use the term "evidence". The word "clues" was so accessible for them and they connected to it so much that I found myself caught up in using it instead of emphasizing the important science term that I wanted to introduce. This desire to emphasize scientific terms and engage students in acting like scientists came through in the second implementation of this lesson due to the introduction of the term "scat". I wanted us to use this for discussing animal droppings or "poop" as my students understand it, partially to help students think scientifically about it instead of just getting caught up in how "poop is gross" as students did in the first implementation. The result was rather encouraging. Not only did the insistence on the use of scat help students take a more serious approach to it as evidence but it also seemed to be a great opportunity for them to be introduced to the idea that we learn new words for different contexts/content areas. By the end of the lesson most students were able to recall that there was a scientific name for poop and one student was repeatedly throughout the second half of the lesson attempting to use it instead of the more familiar word. Even though he mistakenly called it "gack" instead of "scat", I was excited and proud of his effort to talk and discuss it like a scientist would. He would likely have had an easier time pronouncing it if I had written it down large for the class to reference throughout the activity. The same goes for the term "evidence". I should have been more explicit about taking out time to really emphasize the term and encourage them to use it during the activity. Better use of the whiteboard would have helped with this, instead of making lists, I should have had a web prepared with "evidence" as the center of the web. Then I could easily reference the term in context for them.
I was struck by how effective it was when I labeled certain actions, tools and thinking as scientific. By highlighting what was truly scientific about what they were doing or commending them when they were behaving like "real" scientists, they seemed to get even more engaged, excited and proud of their work and proceeded to take it more seriously. Also one of my heartbreaks for this lesson is that I missed the mark when it came to my objective of students learning and using the term "evidence". Although I used the term and modeled it's use in conjunction with the concept of clues, I never in either implementation of this lesson made it explicit enough that I wanted them to use the term "evidence". The word "clues" was so accessible for them and they connected to it so much that I found myself caught up in using it instead of emphasizing the important science term that I wanted to introduce. This desire to emphasize scientific terms and engage students in acting like scientists came through in the second implementation of this lesson due to the introduction of the term "scat". I wanted us to use this for discussing animal droppings or "poop" as my students understand it, partially to help students think scientifically about it instead of just getting caught up in how "poop is gross" as students did in the first implementation. The result was rather encouraging. Not only did the insistence on the use of scat help students take a more serious approach to it as evidence but it also seemed to be a great opportunity for them to be introduced to the idea that we learn new words for different contexts/content areas. By the end of the lesson most students were able to recall that there was a scientific name for poop and one student was repeatedly throughout the second half of the lesson attempting to use it instead of the more familiar word. Even though he mistakenly called it "gack" instead of "scat", I was excited and proud of his effort to talk and discuss it like a scientist would. He would likely have had an easier time pronouncing it if I had written it down large for the class to reference throughout the activity. The same goes for the term "evidence". I should have been more explicit about taking out time to really emphasize the term and encourage them to use it during the activity. Better use of the whiteboard would have helped with this, instead of making lists, I should have had a web prepared with "evidence" as the center of the web. Then I could easily reference the term in context for them.
Learning from Student Artifacts (see slideshow of student work below)
There were two main student artifacts produced. One was the marked up individual student copies of the large scale image full of evidence. I could assess by looking carefully at what they circled if they understood what they were supposed to be looking for. Most students were very successful with this, identifying and carefully marking many examples of evidence left by animals in the drawing. A few students however, did circle somethings that were not evidence such as the stream, the bush, or the entire trashcan. If I had time to conference with these students I may have learned that they circled the trashcan as evidence of humans. I had intentionally included that in the image and wondered if anyone would bring it up. No student did verbally and I regret not having/making the time to discuss that possibility.
The other is the notes they took while looking for the evidence. In the first implementation, I was very open with the notes, just suggesting that they could write their ideas or observations down. In the second implementation, I was more specific asking for students to use the lined/blank paper to record their thinking about what animals could've been in the scene before based on the evidence they found and marked. So the notes from the two groups were understandably different (some are talking more about the evidence, others are noting the animals they think would have been there based on the evidence). I realized that the second set was asking more cognitive demand that the first. In the first set they had already noticed and circled the evidence in the image copy so writing the evidence down was more of a recall or labeling activity for types of clues. The second time where I asked them to note what animals could have left that evidence behind was going beyond the first task of just identifying evidence to critically thinking about what we could learn from that evidence. When reflecting on the two sets of artifacts, I realized that ideally there could've been space for both tasks. I also found myself wondering if perhaps first grade is still a bit too early to encourage them to make choices about how to organize their own thinking. In fact, looking back I would make more of an organized paper for their notes with designated spaces for identifying evidence (where the term could've been reinforced), listing inferences about what animals could've left the evidence and then also space for their own notations, questions and exclamations.
There were two main student artifacts produced. One was the marked up individual student copies of the large scale image full of evidence. I could assess by looking carefully at what they circled if they understood what they were supposed to be looking for. Most students were very successful with this, identifying and carefully marking many examples of evidence left by animals in the drawing. A few students however, did circle somethings that were not evidence such as the stream, the bush, or the entire trashcan. If I had time to conference with these students I may have learned that they circled the trashcan as evidence of humans. I had intentionally included that in the image and wondered if anyone would bring it up. No student did verbally and I regret not having/making the time to discuss that possibility.
The other is the notes they took while looking for the evidence. In the first implementation, I was very open with the notes, just suggesting that they could write their ideas or observations down. In the second implementation, I was more specific asking for students to use the lined/blank paper to record their thinking about what animals could've been in the scene before based on the evidence they found and marked. So the notes from the two groups were understandably different (some are talking more about the evidence, others are noting the animals they think would have been there based on the evidence). I realized that the second set was asking more cognitive demand that the first. In the first set they had already noticed and circled the evidence in the image copy so writing the evidence down was more of a recall or labeling activity for types of clues. The second time where I asked them to note what animals could have left that evidence behind was going beyond the first task of just identifying evidence to critically thinking about what we could learn from that evidence. When reflecting on the two sets of artifacts, I realized that ideally there could've been space for both tasks. I also found myself wondering if perhaps first grade is still a bit too early to encourage them to make choices about how to organize their own thinking. In fact, looking back I would make more of an organized paper for their notes with designated spaces for identifying evidence (where the term could've been reinforced), listing inferences about what animals could've left the evidence and then also space for their own notations, questions and exclamations.
I do wish that I had structured their notes a bit more to be able to accurately assess if they were identifying types of evidence or thinking critically about what they could learn from it. However, I would also make sure to keep some space open for their own interpretation and choice of how they want to organize their thoughts. It was interesting to learn from looking at how they chose to use the note paper, which students preferred to list ideas, who thinks and communicates in full sentences and who prefers to make sense of things by drawing pictures. This was a great way to differentiate the lesson and also a great opportunity for students to practice being autonomous and making choices about how to communicate information on paper.
Check out the student artifacts from both implementation groups:
Check out the student artifacts from both implementation groups: