home

Shapes in Our Environment The class for which this lesson is designed consists of 8 multiply disabled Kindergarten age students. They benefit from hands-on activities in order to understand concepts. STANDARD 4.2 (GEOMETRY AND MEASUREMENT) ALL STUDENTS WILL DEVELOP SPATIAL SENSE AND THE ABILITY TO USE GEOMETRIC PROPERTIES, RELATIONSHIPS, AND MEASUREMENT TO MODEL, DESCRIBE, AND ANALYZE PHENOMENA. Objectives: -2.1 Students will identify basic shapes in the environment (e.g., circle, square, triangle, cube, sphere). -2.2 Students will use concrete objects, drawings, and computer graphics to identify, classify, and describe standard three-dimensional and two-dimensional shapes. Objective: 8.1.P.C.1 Students will operate frequently used, high-quality, interactive games or activities in either screen or toy-based formats.
 * NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards for Mathematics-**
 * Technology Standard: 8.1 Educational Technology**-All students will use digital tools to access, manage, evaluate, and synthesize information in order to solve problems indvidually and collaboratively and to create and communicate knowledge.

=Description of lesson on shapes:= =Assessment of Learning:= =Assessment using Technology:= Students will complete a quiz created using the website Quia.com that assesses their understanding of finding shapes in the environment. The results of the assessment will provide the teacher with individual and class performances.
 * 1) The teacher will begin the lesson by asking students what they know about shapes. She will provide two dimensional attribute blocks of the basic shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle) for students to hold and to feel while the teacher describes each shape. They will examine the shapes while the teacher points out how many sides each has along with the length of the sides. The teacher will sing "The Shape Song" which describes and names each shape. Students will compare and contrast the shapes.
 * 2) The teacher will display an activity on the SMART board that shows how shapes are found in objects all around us. Students will participate in a hands-on activity on the SMART board by locating shapes in pictures on the board (ex. a triangle roof on a house).
 * 3) Students will participate in a Scavenger Hunt through the classroom and then in the hallway to find objects that are circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles. The teacher will assist students in using a digital camera to take pictures of all the objects students find. After about 20 minutes, students will come together to share their findings from the Scavenger Hunt. The teacher will upload pictures from the digital camera to display on a SMART board.
 * 1) The teacher will assess knowledge of shapes by first asking students to identify the shapes when given a choice of three shapes. Then she will ask students to name the shapes as she holds them up individually.
 * 2) A more formal assessment will be displayed on the SMART board with students finding examples of the shapes in the environment.

=Administering the Lesson:= The students were given the quiz as a pre-test and a post-test. The quiz can be viewed at: [|Shapes All Around Us] As can be seen in the chart below, students made significant progress from the pretest to the post test. =Effectiveness of Using Technology:= The students who participated in this lesson required individual assistance with accessing the quiz due to moderate physical disabilities. However, they found the presentation of a quiz on the computer to be engaging. This group of students is familiar with many types of technology. They use a SMART board, SMART table, and iPad daily for lessons and entertainment. Therefore, completing the quiz on a PC with a touch screen was a familiar presentation for them. For this class, completing the quiz was a bit more time consuming than a less formal assessment would have been. However, since technology will continue to be a part of their school experience and then throughout life, it is important that they learn to use an online quiz. With more exposure to online quizzes this class will develop their independence with using a computer for assessments. The use of technology was an effective way to assess the skill of identifying shapes. By using real photographs for the shapes in the environment, students were able to recognize the objects and then identify what shape they were. The results may have been different if the quiz did not portray real objects due to the developmental level of these students. The quiz used objects that were similar to the objects they found in the scavenger hunt activity which also made it more familiar.
 * || Shapes in the Environment ||  ||
 * Students || Pretest || Post test ||
 * Alice T. || 5 || 8 ||
 * David F. || 1 || 8 ||
 * George T. || 3 || 9 ||
 * Jane H. || 6 || 8 ||
 * Lidia B. || 2 || 10 ||
 * Mary Z. || 2 || 9 ||
 * Tom B. || 4 || 7 ||
 * Zak M. || 2 || 7 ||
 * Average || 3.125 || 8.25 ||

For these students and students at this level, a technologically based quiz cannot be the only assessment tool if one wants to get a complete idea of how well the students learned this concept. They also need to use informal assessment and a hands-on assessment to determine if the students were able to generalize the concept to their everyday lives. This class benefits from frequent exposure to real-life experiences and interaction with the teacher to see if the students truly learned to find shapes in everyday objects.

=Lesson on Living and Non-Living Things= This lesson was designed for the same class of students as seen above. Objectives: Procedure and Materials: The teacher will display a variety of living things such as a plant, fish in a bowl, and a student volunteer. She will ask students what makes these items living. All student responses will be accepted. The teacher will explain that living things need food, air and water and that they can produce offspring. She will ask students to give personal experiences as evidence such as they get hungry and need food. Then an explanation of plant needs will be provided. An example of a healthy plant that was given all the things it needs will be compared to a plant that is not thriving due to not getting its needs met. The teacher will explain that non-living things do not need these things. The students will be provided with tangible non-living items to examine and compare with the living things. The students will be given practice sorting real objects into categories of living and non-living.
 * Students will differentiate between living and non-living things based upon whether they have basic needs and produce offspring.
 * Student will examine evidence that living organisms have basic needs such as food, water, and shelter for animals and air, water, nutrients, sunlight, and space for plants.

For independent practice, students will engage in interactive games on the computer and SMART board to practice skills. The websites for these activities are: http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/games/game9.htm and []. As an assessment, the teacher will have students go on a scavenger hunt around the classroom to find four things that are living and four things that are non-living. They will work in pairs to find the objects then complete the chart independently.They will complete the chart provided: []

The students completed charts will be evaluated using the following rubric: Or, student did not allow partner to participate fully. || Student shared the work in the activity but needed prompting by the teacher. || Student worked with his partner to find and talk about objects for the activity. ||  || =Results from Student Activity= Results of Student 1: 18/20=90%
 * Criteria ||||||||  Achievement Level  ||  Score  ||
 * || 1  ||  2  ||  3  ||  4  ||   ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Finding objects in the scavenger hunt || 2 or 3 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 4 or 5 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 6 or 7 objects were located and filled in on the chart || All 8 objects were located and filled in on the chart ||  ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Filling in chart || Student filled in less than half of the categories on the chart || Student filled in half the categories on the chart || Student filled in more than half the categories on the chart || Student completed all categories on the chart ||  ||
 * Cooperation with partner || Student did not share in the gathering of objects. He relied on partner. || Student did some gathering of objects but let his partner do most of the work.
 * Demonstration of understanding of needs of living objects || 25% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || 50% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || More than 50% of chart was filled in correctly || All or most of chart was filled in correctly ||  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of living versus non-living || 25% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or more of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || All or most of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living ||  ||
 * Criteria ||||||||  Achievement Level  ||  Score  ||
 * || 1  ||  2  ||  3  ||  4  ||   ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Finding objects in the scavenger hunt || 2 or 3 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 4 or 5 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 6 or 7 objects were located and filled in on the chart || All 8 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 4  ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Filling in chart || Student filled in less than half of the categories on the chart || Student filled in half the categories on the chart || Student filled in more than half the categories on the chart || Student completed all categories on the chart || 4  ||
 * Cooperation with partner || Student did not share in the gathering of objects. He relied on partner. || Student did some gathering of objects but let his partner do most of the work. Or, student did not allow partner to participate fully. || Student shared the work in the activity but needed prompting by the teacher. || Student worked with his partner to find and talk about objects for the activity. || 2  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of needs of living objects || 25% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || 50% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || More than 50% of chart was filled in correctly || All or most of chart was filled in correctly || 4  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of living versus non-living || 25% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or more of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || All or most of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 4  ||

Results of Student 2: 16/20=80%
 * Criteria ||||||||  Achievement Level  ||  Score  ||
 * || 1  ||  2  ||  3  ||  4  ||   ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Finding objects in the scavenger hunt || 2 or 3 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 4 or 5 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 6 or 7 objects were located and filled in on the chart || All 8 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 2  ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Filling in chart || Student filled in less than half of the categories on the chart || Student filled in half the categories on the chart || Student filled in more than half the categories on the chart || Student completed all categories on the chart || 3  ||
 * Cooperation with partner || Student did not share in the gathering of objects. He relied on partner. || Student did some gathering of objects but let his partner do most of the work. Or, student did not allow partner to participate fully. || Student shared the work in the activity but needed prompting by the teacher. || Student worked with his partner to find and talk about objects for the activity. || 3  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of needs of living objects || 25% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || 50% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || More than 50% of chart was filled in correctly || All or most of chart was filled in correctly || 4  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of living versus non-living || 25% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or more of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || All or most of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 4  ||

Results of Student 3: 18/20=90%
 * Criteria ||||||||  Achievement Level  ||  Score  ||
 * || 1  ||  2  ||  3  ||  4  ||   ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Finding objects in the scavenger hunt || 2 or 3 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 4 or 5 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 6 or 7 objects were located and filled in on the chart || All 8 objects were located and filled in on the chart || 3  ||
 * Completeness of Activity-Filling in chart || Student filled in less than half of the categories on the chart || Student filled in half the categories on the chart || Student filled in more than half the categories on the chart || Student completed all categories on the chart || 3  ||
 * Cooperation with partner || Student did not share in the gathering of objects. He relied on partner. || Student did some gathering of objects but let his partner do most of the work. Or, student did not allow partner to participate fully. || Student shared the work in the activity but needed prompting by the teacher. || Student worked with his partner to find and talk about objects for the activity. || 4  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of needs of living objects || 25% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || 50% or less of the chart was filled in correctly || More than 50% of chart was filled in correctly || All or most of chart was filled in correctly || 4  ||
 * Demonstration of understanding of living versus non-living || 25% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or less of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 50% or more of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || All or most of objects were categorized correctly as living or non-living || 4  ||

=Discussion of Using Rubric for Assessing Student Achievement= By using the rubric to assess the students' learning, I was able to evaluate the areas of the activity with more depth than by just marking the chart each student filled out. I would have normally made anecdotal notes about the process of how well students shared in the cooperative activity, but I would not have actually analyzed their performance with the specific mark that I used on the rubric. The rubric allowed for assessment of the performance of students on a variety of levels rather than just a single score on the chart. The overall scores on the rubrics were accurate indicators of how well students understood the concept taught in the lesson.

Using the students scores shown above, it can be seen that Student 1 was very capable of collecting objects and then completing the chart accurately, however, he did not score well on the cooperative part of the rubric because he did not share the task with his partner. One very important part of the directions for the students was to work with the partner to find the objects and the low score on the rubric is evidence that he did not do well with that part of the task. Student 2 demonstrated high understanding of the concept of living versus non-living but she had difficulty with the process of the activity. The rubric shows evidence of this with low scores for the first three categories and high scores on the last two categories. Student 3 demonstrated good understanding of the concept but did not have the attention of detail to get a perfect score on the rubric. She tends to work impulsively and to try to finish work quickly without checking her work. The rubric was a good measure of her work habits and where she needs to improve in the future.

Developing the rubric was challenging. The entire project needed to be analyzed in order to develop categories that represented all the parts of the activity. Several attempts were made to add the correct levels that truly represented how students were performing on the task and that demonstrated student understanding of the concept. The final rubric seemed to give a clear picture of the steps in the process of the activity and a final score that represented student learning. Overall, the use of using a rubric to assess student understanding provided a deeper evaluation process than simply using scores on the chart. It took more effort on the part of the teacher, but was well worth it.

= =