LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Kayla Morrissey
Mrs. Lam, Clymore Elementary
Wednesday, March 22nd during rotations
3-18-17

A. TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON: Field Day!/Comprehension Lesson

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON
What pre-assessment did you do that tells you the students readiness, interests, and/or learning
preferences?
The majority of students love to go out for recess, and this story that they will be reading is
about a field day. Field day is when students participate in fun activities outside and work on team
building, cooperation, and having fun. I think the students will enjoy reading this short article because
it is about kids in school like themselves, so they can relate to the characters. If a student isnt
interested in what they are reading, they might not want to read it and therefore struggle a bit with
comprehension. However, it is still important for them to read things that they arent exactly interested
in, as passages will appear on their SOL that they might not enjoy. For the purpose of this lesson, I
found something that I think they could enjoy reading about. I also think that the students will enjoy
using plickers as a form of assessment, because I dont think they have used them before.

Why is this an appropriate activity for these students at this time?

This is an appropriate activity for these students at this time because the students are currently
reviewing summarizing, authors purpose, audience, main idea, and supporting details, which are
aspects of comprehension and understanding what they are reading. Students are reviewing for the
SOL test, and a comprehension lesson at this time attributes to the SOL review and practice. Students
are familiar with using technology in the classroom as they use chrome books a lot, especially for
reading comprehension, so this lesson incorporates those two aspects together.

How does this lesson fit in the curriculum sequence?

As stated above, the students have finished the curriculum for their reading and are reviewing
for their SOL testing. They are currently reviewing what they struggled with most throughout the year.
One of those topics is summarizing, and comprehension has a summarizing aspect to it.

How does this lesson fit with what you know about child development?
This lesson fits with what I know about child development because technology is an engaging
way to get students interested in learning, especially when it comes to literacy. This might keep them
engaged and excited in the lesson.

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand what are the broad Know what are the facts, rules, Do what are the specific thinking
generalizations the students should specific data the students will gain behaviors students will be able to do
begin to develop? (These are through this lesson? (These knows through this lesson? (These will also
typically difficult to assess in one must be assessed in your lesson.) be assessed in your lesson.)
lesson.)
Students will understand that Students will know that Students will determine the main
summarizing is a part of comprehending is the ability to ideas of the passage
comprehending. read text, process the text, and Students will retell a summary of
Students will understand that understand the meaning of the the passage in their own words
comprehension requires the use of text. Students will determine the events
other skills, such as inferencing, of the story and demonstrate
re-reading, and summarizing. understanding of the passage by
answering questions using the
digital literacy application Plickers

D. ASSESSING LEARNING
For assessing the learning of these students for these objectives, I will be using a digital application for
literacy called Plickers. With this app, I give out the students Plicker Cards (attached at the end of the
lesson) for them to demonstrate their answers. I have the questions printed out for each student since I
will not be showing them on my computer. The questions are 10 multiple choice, which is similar to
what they will have on SOL testing. The questions are:
1. What day of the week was field day on?
2. How did Carlys friend help her feel better?
3. What game at field day was Carly good at?
4. Do you think Carly will want to play at field day next year?
5. Which is the correct order of events in the story?
6. How did Carly feel at the beginning of the story?
7. How did Carly feel at the end of the story?
8. What did Carly win for playing horseshoes and water balloon catch
9. What is the name of Carlys friend?
10. What was Carly afraid of at the beginning of the passage?
I will record the results in the Assessing Learning Chart at the end of the lesson plan in the reflection
section.

Each student will have their own individual Plicker card that they will use throughout all of the
questions. All they have to do is rotate the card in an upright position for their answer. For example, if
they want to select the multiple-choice answer C, then they rotate their card so C is at the top. I will
then use my cell phone to scan their answers so I can see who got the answers right and wrong, and
this data will be recorded onto my computer through my plicker account. I am also giving students a
paper copy with the questions and multiple choice answers and they are allowed to use their pencil to
circle answers or eliminate answers on the paper because this is how they are accustomed to doing
questions like this, and they are able to see the answers and think through the question and all answer
possibilities before answering. If my computer works, I will bring it and have the Plickers website up.
This way, the students can see in graph form (and no names) if they answer they selected was right
and what kinds of answers other students are selecting. If this doesnt work, then I will just record the
data from scanning their answers, have them select their answers on the paper copy, and mark the
correct answers and their scores on the paper copy.

E. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL STANDARDS if required)

4.5 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of fictional texts, narrative nonfiction
texts, and poetry. h) Draw conclusions/make inferences about text.
c) Identify the main idea.

F. MATERIALS NEEDED
a. Plicker cards (supplied by me)
b. Scanning the cards (my phone, supplied by me)
c. My laptop (supplied by me)
d. Paper with questions for assessment (supplied by me)
e. Pencil (supplied by students)
f. Reading Passage (supplied by me)
 G. PROCEDURE
(Include a DETAILED description of each step. Write what you will SAY and DO.)
i. Preparation of the learning environment: For this, I will have plicker cards, assessment paper,
the reading passage and my laptop set up for the lesson. I will take the selected group of
children (I will be doing a rotation station so it will be only a selected group of students) to
come to the table with me.
ii. Engage -Introduction of the lesson
1. For the introduction of this lesson, I will take the students (6 students. 2 higher level, 2
grade level, 2 lower level) to the back table. I will talk to them about what we have
been reviewing in reading, which includes authors purpose, main point, and
summarizing. I will tell them that we will be focusing on summarizing and doing
activities similar to their read theory activities, which they are familiar with. I will
introduce the term comprehension, which they should be familiar with from CAF
and their reading lessons throughout the year. We will talk about what it means to
comprehend reading by talking about to understand the text and what they read, the
authors purpose, the main idea, the supporting details.
iii. Implementation of the lesson
1. For the lesson, I have a one-page passage for the students to read. This passage is
entitled Field Day by Judie Eberhardt. The students will read this passage quietly to
themselves. They will be allowed to take their passage to a quiet spot in the classroom
and read to self, and to return to my table when they are finished. Other students may
need monitoring and to read aloud or use whisper phones, and they will be allowed to
do so. I will sit with the students that need to read out loud. After all of the students
have finished reading the passage, we will all meet at the back table to start the
assessment using the Plickers. I will give each student his or her own plicker card. The
number on the card corresponds with their name so I will see which students are
getting the answers right or wrong. For example, I have the students listed by class
number. So, for example if John Smith is student #5, he will get the plicker card
marked 5. I will explain to the students how to use the plicker cards. I will then give
out the question sheets to all the students, so they can see the questions they will be
answering and the possible answer choices. I will then tell the students how to use
their plicker cards. I will tell them that if they want to select answer choice A, they
will rotate their card so that A is at the top. I will physically demonstrate this using a
card. I will then take my phone out and access the plickers app in order to scan the
answers then choose on their card. If my computer works, I will pull up my plickers
account on their website so I can show the students how many people are selecting
certain answers. However, this will NOT show the students names so that no student
feels embarrassed or upset if they didnt get the answer right. This will record all the
data from the students answers so I can go back to it to review how each student did
on the assessment and how they did as a whole. If my computer does not work, I will
have the students circle the answer they choose on their paper questions sheet, and
use that to see how the students did. After we go over all of the questions, I will have
a short discussion with the students about what comprehension means and ask them
their thoughts on using plickers.
iv. Closure
1. For the closing of this lesson, I will ask the students what they found to be the main
idea with supporting details for the passage, the audience, and the authors purpose.
We will discuss these ideas as a whole group to wrap up the lesson.
v. Clean-up (if required)
1. I will collect all passages, question sheets, and plicker cards from the students and put
my computer and phone away.
b. DIFFERENTIATION
I will be using 6 students from different ability levels for this lesson. I know that some students will
need to read the passage out loud using their fingers or read aloud to me in order to be successful in
the assessment portion and understanding the reading. I will gladly have the students that need to read
aloud read aloud to me. I will also let the students go read to self in a quiet spot they chose to do so in
the room so that they dont all feel pressured to finish at the same time. I will make sure that I tell
them that it is not a race to see who finishes reading first. I am giving the students a hard copy of the
question and answer choices which is similar to what their SOL test will be like, so they will be able to
use slash and trash strategies to select their answer using their plicker card. Since these students will
be of all different abilities, it will be important for me to pay equal attention to ALL students, not just
the ones that need the extra help reading. For students who need further enrichment, I will have them
talk me through what they think would happen in a sequel of this story. For students who are
struggling with my objectives, I will go back and talk about what authors purpose means, how we can
find the main idea of the story and the supporting details of that main idea, and walk through retelling
the story and giving them guidance such as what happened first? How did the story begin? Then what
happened after _______? If there are students who finish early and I am reading with a student, I will
have the early finishers come up with their sequel ideas then, and I will also have them try to relate
this to their own experience.

c. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
Think about this! It may help you avoid an embarrassing situation.
I think the biggest things that could go wrong with the lesson would be with technology, and
the plicker cards not working properly or with some students becoming frustrated and not reading the
passage properly. I will have to let them know that they are to fully READ the passage and not just
skim through it to answer the questions. Luckily if my plicker cards dont work, I will have the hard
copy for them to use for assessment purposes, but then my lesson is less engaging for the students. I
will have to make sure that I am enthusiastic and demonstrate an excited approach to this lesson so
they will be too. I also have to make sure that for the students who finish reading the passage early
have the opportunity to further their understanding by asking them questions about the passage that
will not be on the assessment so that they arent just sitting around waiting.
Lesson Implementation Reflection
As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, think about the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to
guide your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why
you made them.
a. My actual teaching of this lesson didnt really differ from my plans, which was great. Instead of
using 6 students, I only used 5. I had to make this change because the other sixth student was
absent. We also ended up talking a lot about technology, which was awesome because we talk a
lot about digital literacy applications and using technology in our future classroom. For my
assessment, I had the students use plickers, which incorporates the technology of my phone to
scan their cards and my computer for the results. The students loved this! Two students had used
these before and even helped me explain it to the other students in our group. I much rather have
the students share their experiences and give directions than myself, especially when they are
confident in the material. I was able to be a support the students giving the directions and be more
of a guide on the side during this time. The actual lesson didnt differ from any of what I had
planned. The students were all very on task and motivated, which made my job very easy. One
thing I did a little bit differently was after each question we talked about how we knew the answer
was correct by looking for evidence back in the passage and talking about how it demonstrated
their understanding of the passage. It helped me to better understand their thinking and make sure
I knew how they knew the answer. After we had finished the lesson, we talked about technology
and ways we could use technology in the classroom. They really liked the plickers and were
curious about how to use them with the rest of the class. We talked about doing exercises like this
reading comprehension one we did, as well as other subjects in which plickers could be used.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student learning? Did
they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that your conclusions are
valid?
NAME Objective 1: Determine Objective 2: Retell the Objective 3: Participated in
main idea of passage passage in their own words plicker assessment
comprehension questions
and their score
London YES YES YES, SCORE: 9/10
Brynna YES YES YES, SCORE: 9/10
Nicholas YES Struggled, but used a lot of YES, SCORE: 9/10
supporting details to
describe what the story was
about
Carson YES YES YES, SCORE: 10/10
Isaac YES YES YES, SCORE 10/10
a. Based on my assessment, I can conclude that my students understood and comprehended the
passage, as well as understand the main idea, supporting details, and retell the story. They students
demonstrated their knowledge of the passage through the assessment questions, as well as through
our discussion, which I talked about in the previous section. The students knew what it meant to
comprehend and understand a story, something that I talked about before we started the actual
lesson. They were able to understand exactly what this passage was about. I would say that all the
students learned during this lesson. Even though they werent learning a specific fact or specific
information, they were practicing using their comprehension skills and gearing up for their SOL
testing. They were able to stay focused and actually read the passage, something that students can
struggle with. This group of students was a mixed bag but they are mostly all on grade level (4 th)
for reading, so I was hoping that they would all be able to comprehend the reading. With Nicholas,
I was happy that he did a great job answering the assessment questions but he had a difficult time
identifying the main idea of the passage. He describe the story and did a great job of retelling, and
he demonstrated to me that he understood what he read, but he had a hard time narrowing his
 thoughts down to a main idea. There was only one question that more than one student got wrong,
and it was a question that looking back now, I could have done a better job wording it. I could
totally understand how the students would pick the other answers. We talked about this one for a
while after going over all of the answers.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more
thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again.
 a. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would incorporate DAP in a better way by making my lesson
a whole class lesson and using plickers with the whole class instead of a group, and adding a more
engaging start of my lesson. To have a more engaging hook, I would show a brain pop or other
YouTube video about reading comprehension. I have seen my teacher use this before and the
students really enjoyed it. It would be a bit difficult to do this during the daily 5 rotations since
each groups of students are working on other stations, but if I were to teach this lesson again I
would make it whole group so I could do this. I also think I would have my students use other
digital literacy applications like Storybird or Biteable to show their understanding of the story in
their own way. These digital literacy applications are engaging for students and allows them share
their ideas in a creative way. While using plickers was fun, I think it would be more engaging for
the students to use these types of applications to demonstrate their learning. These are also
independent activities or could be done in partners, which is appropriate for 4th graders.

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom
teacher?
a. Based on my assessment data, I would review main idea first and then move into teaching about
authors purpose/audience, or vocabulary in a passage such as homophones, synonyms and
antonyms. I would do this because I could see from my assessment that the majority of the
students understood what it meant to comprehend a story, so we can move on to looking into the
specific parts of a passage. I would probably do vocabulary because I feel like authors
purpose/audience may be covered before comprehension/summary. However, I feel like it could
come after too. I would teach vocabulary because after we are able to get a grasp on the entire
story, I feel like it makes sense to dive in deeper to specifics of the story. I would look at things
like homophones, synonyms and antonyms because I know they would be on the SOL and at this
time in reading, students are reviewing for this SOL test.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young
children as learners?
a. As a result of teaching this lesson, I have had the concept of technology and engagement in young
children as learners reinforced. In our READ class, we talk a lot about technology and our future
as teacher change agents. I saw how excited my students were when I pulled out my laptop and
they got to see all the data coming in when I scanned their plicker cards with my phone. The data
of their answers popped right up on the screen, and they loved seeing that. I think they were also
thinking a lot about how that was possible to happen. I think that technology in the classroom
could be a blessing and a curse, but after this lesson I was able to see how engaged the students
were and how much they wanted to participate in the lesson. I think going forward, I would like to
use digital literacy applications in as many lessons as I could.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching?
a. As a result of teaching this lesson, I learned that teaching or reviewing for an SOL can be done in
other ways besides review worksheets. We were able to do an SOL-like review practice, and use
plickers for a fun element of the lesson. While it may be boring, if there is some element of
engagement or technology, the students seem to want to do the lesson. I learned that as a teacher it
is important to make sure that during instructional time, its also okay to talk about other things
that connect to the content area. For example, I think my students really enjoyed learning about the
other technology and how it can be used in the classroom and especially with literacy in terms of
practicing for their SOL. One student started asking me questions about my laptop, and was really
interested in how I used it for college. I said after we finished the meat part of the lesson, and
then we could talk about it. We did, and I think it made him very interested in technology and it
was nice to see him passionate about an interest! When you are a teacher, knowing your students
interests can be a huge help in lesson planning, and that was also something I learned.

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about yourself?
a. As a result of teaching this lesson, I learned that I am able to make SOL review lessons fun and
that I shouldnt be scared to use a digital literacy application! I was really nervous that my plickers
wasnt going to work. I had never used it before. I made sure that I had paper copies of everything
just in case to make sure I had a back up incase it didnt work. It was great to be prepared, but at
the same time I wish I wasnt so concerned with it not working because as a teacher you need to
learn to go with the flow. That is something I need to work on, but am getting better with every
chance I get! I learned that I can have an impact on students learning even if it is something small
or an SOL review.