Teacher Candidate: Lynna Huynh

Date: 06/03/2016

THE UCI LESSON PLANNER

Part 1: Classroom Information
Grade: Grade 3
School: Taft Elementary
Group Size: 29 students

Content Area: Science Physical Sciences

Mentor Teacher: Annie Kensinger
Lesson Length: 40 minutes

Student Context:
Students with Special
Needs (IEP and/or 504)
Students with Specific
Language Needs (ELL)
Students with Other
Learning Needs
(Behavior, Struggling
Reader, Struggling Math)

Identified Needs
2 IEP Students
- IEP: Student with autism
- IEP: Student with Special
Learning Disability
6 English Language
Learners
8 Struggling readers

Accommodations
- These students will be
pulled for RSP during this
lesson.
- modeling, sentence
frames, close monitoring
- Students will be working
in groups

Part 1: Planning for the Lesson

A: Standards
i.

Key Content Standard:

NGSS - 3-PS2-2 Make observations and/or measurements of an object's
motion to provide evidence that a pattern can be used to predict future
motion. [Clarification Statement: Examples of motion with a predictable
pattern could include a child swinging in a swing, a ball rolling back and
forth in a bowl, and two children on a see-saw.] [Assessment Boundary:
Assessment does not include technical terms such as period and
frequency.]

ii.

Math Practice Standard or ELA Capacity: CCSS-M Standards for

Mathematical Practice, or NGSS Science and Engineering
Practices, CCSS-ELA Capacity of Literate Individuals
N/A

iii.

Related ELD Standard (must be included when using an ELA

Standard):
N/A

B. Objectives

i. Learning Objective/Goal: The students will (DO __) to (LEARN ___).

Students will make observations of an object's motion to provide evidence
that patterns in motion can predict future motion.
ii.

Language Objective (transfer this from "Incorporating Academic

Language"):
Students will identify examples where an object's future motion can be
predicted because of a pattern.

C. Assessments:
i. Informal assessment strategies you will use during class (What evidence
will you see and/or hear and how will you note it?)
During the lesson, I will informally assess students through our class
discussions, for example, their prior knowledge of motion and
patterns in motion. Additionally, I will be walking around as students
work in groups to ensure students understand the task.
ii.

Written assessment you will use to determine, for each individual

student, to what extent they have met your learning objectives. (What
evidence will you collect?)
The written assessment I will be using is handout each student will be
completing. The evidence I will collect will show me to what extent I
have met my learning goals because this handout will ask various
questions based on my lesson objective. Students who have met my
learning objective will be able to answer the questions indicating their
knowledge that future motion of an object can be predicted when there
is a pattern in motion.

D. Lesson Resources/Materials (e.g., handouts, manipulatives, text

pages, special supplies):

Part 2: Instructional Sequence - Engaging Students in the

Learning Process
Optional: Starter and/or Homework Discussion (___ min.)
N/A
Introduction (10_min.): Describe how you will 1) make connections to prior
knowledge, tap into their experiences and interests or use a hook, AND 2) let
students know what the objective of the lesson is.
Show students various pictures where objects in motion follow a pattern. Show
pictures of a swing, a see-saw, and Grandfather's clock pendulum.
- Ask students what each of these pictures are and if they can identify what they
all have in common.
- introduce key vocabulary/have students chorally chant
State the objective to students.

Today you will make observations of an object's motion to prove that it's possible
to predict future motion.

Body of the Lesson (25 minutes): Describe step-by-step what the teacher and
the students will be doing during the lesson.
Engage: (5 min)
Demonstrate with the two pendulums swinging on a string.
Ask students the following questions and record their predictions.
Do you know what this is? What is it called?
What do you think will happen if I swing one of them? What will happen to
each of the strings? How long do you think it will swing for?
Show students by pulling and letting go one string.
Ask students a few more questions:
What actually happened? Were our predictions correct? Do you think the same
thing will happen if I swing the other side instead?
Explore: (15 min)
Show students the following materials: ruler, string, a ping pong ball, and tape.
Ask them to think of a way to use these materials to make their own pendulum.
Describe their activity: They will build their own pendulum in groups of 2 or 3
students. Each group will get a set of materials to work with (a ruler, a ping pong
ball, tape, and two different lengths of string). They will build their own
pendulums and apply different forces on both strings to see how it affects the
ball's motion.
- Students will apply the same forces on both the long and short string to see if
they notice any differences.
- Students will complete a handout individually during the activity.
Arrange students into groups.
Model for students how to build the pendulum.
- Show students how they will blow on the ball, tap the ball gently, and apply zero
force on it.
Allow them time to build their pendulums; once students are done building they
may start on the activity.
Evaluate: (5 min)
Come together as a whole class to discuss results of this activity.

What happens when you blow on the ball on the longer string? When you tap it
gently? Apply no force?
Does the same thing happen on the shorter string?

Did you notice any differences between what happened to the objects on the long
and short string?
What can we conclude about the lengths of the strings?
Can we predict future motion of objects?

Homework (if you are assigning homework, what will it be?):

N/A
Closure (5_minutes):
Think, pair, share:
Can you think of real-life examples where you can predict future motion? What
are some examples?
- Create a class list as students name examples

Part 3: Incorporating Academic Language

1. Describe the rich learning task(s) related to the content learning objective.
Students will investigate future motion through an exploration activity. They
will make their own pendulums and attach two strings with different lengths to
the ruler. Then, they will attach a ping pong ball to it and exert various forces
on the ball. The students will make observations about what happens. Based
on their observations, students should be able to say they can predict future
motions when objects are moving in a pattern.
2. Language Function: How will students be communicating in relation to the
content in the learning task(s)? Identify the specific function (purpose or
genre) you want to systematically address in your lesson plan that will scaffold
students to stronger disciplinary discourse. The language function will always
be a verb. Some examples are: describe, identify, explain, justify, analyze,
construct, compare, or argue.
Identify.
3. Language Demands: Looking at the specific function (purpose or genre) your
students will be using, what are the language demands that you will
systematically address in this lesson?
Vocabulary:
Key to this lesson: motion, pendulum, length, predictable pattern
Syntax1:
I can predict future motion because __________
Since there is a pattern in motion, I can predict future motion because
______.
A pendulum or ______ is an example of an object's motion that moves in a
pattern.

1Use of a variety of sentence types to clarify a message, condense information, and combine ideas, phrases, and clauses.

Discourse2:
Students can identify what a pattern in motion is.
Students can identify verbally and in writing how they can predict an
object's future motion.
Students will be able to provide examples of when object's motions are
moving in a pattern
4. Language Objective: What is/are the language objective(s) for your
lesson?
Students will identify examples where an object's future motion can be
predicted because of a pattern.
5. What does your language objective sound like/look like for different levels of
language learners? Ask yourself, What would the students say/write when
using the language function. Remember to consider the language demands
while creating sample language that the students might use.
Emerging

Expanding

Bridging

Students at this stage will

be able to answer
questions with yes/no
responses using sentence
frames and questioning.

Students at this stage will

be able to verbally
identify examples.
Students may write with
prompts and sentence
frames.

Students at this stage will

be able identify examples
verbally and in writing
with little to no prompts.

6. Language Support: What instructional strategies will you use during your
lesson to teach the specific language skill and provide support and
opportunities for guided and independent practice?
Instruction
- Modeling
- Sentence frames
- Choral chants

Guided Practice
- Sentence frames
- Modeling
- Questioning

Independent Practice
- Questioning

Part 4: Lesson Analysis

In addition to answering the questions below, annotate (make notes on) the
actual lesson plan to indicate what worked, what didnt, missed opportunities you
had, where you collected evidence of student learning, how you monitored
students, and other anecdotes.
LEARNING GOAL

2 Discourse includes the structures of written and oral language, as well as how member of the
discipline talk, write, and participate in knowledge construction.

1 What was your content learning objective/goal?

My learning objective for the students is to investigate a pattern of motion to
understand that it is possible to predict future motion. For this lesson, students
will be making their own pendulums in small groups and investigating their
motions.
EVIDENCE
2 a) What specific examples of student learning do you have that showed
students met or made progress toward the content learning objective? Please
complete the chart below.
Teacher Actions &/or Strategies
Can you give me examples of
pendulums?

Evidence of Student Learning

Students' answers: The hanging
pennants above our desks, the
table signs above our desks, the
swinging thing in a clock.

If I push the ping pong ball, what

do you think will happen to it?

It will move like this (student

demonstrate correct movement).

So, does mean we can predict the

motion?
"Is there a difference between the
long and short pendulums?"

Yes.
S: Yes, the shorter one swings way
faster.

b) Write a narrative that explains the decisions and strategies you used that
led to successful student learning of your content learning objective.
In the beginning of the lesson, I provided pictures for students to look at.
These pictures connect to their prior knowledge and interest in the topic
because they are of things students are familiar with. For example, they all
know what swings are because there are swings at our school. I built a sense
of confidence for them to then explore a topic they are unfamiliar with:
predictable motion. Also, I think it was helpful students built their own
pendulums because them they know the components that go into a pendulum,
such as the focal point from which the object hangs and swings from.
c) What evidence is missing? What would you do to capture this evidence in
the future?
Evidence that is missing is what individual students learned from the
beginning part of the lesson versus the pendulum activity. Through informal
assessments, I noticed students learned throughout the lesson, but I am
unsure which part is more effective because I did not have a formal
assessment for the first part of the lesson. At the end of the lesson, I have
students complete questions about predicable motion and the majority of the
students answered correctly; however, they answered some of the activity
questions incorrectly. Thus, I am unsure whether students learned better from

the first part of my lesson. In the future, I would do a quick check for each
student before moving on to the activity.
3.

a) What specific examples of student learning do you have that showed

students struggled to meet or make progress toward this goal? Please
complete the chart below.
Teacher Actions &/or Strategies
Can motion move in a pattern?

Evidence of Student Learning

No.

Why not?

Because sometimes it moves

back and forth.

Is that pattern or not?

"Is there a difference between the
long and short pendulums?"
"Can we predict future motion?

Oh. Yeah it is.

No
No. because we cannot predict
the future.

b) Write a narrative that explains the decisions and strategies that may have
interfered or created missed opportunities in terms of student learning.
During the lesson, I front loaded the students with a lot of instructions for the
activity. I think in doing this, students were not completely clear on how to do
every single step. The students had a sense of what they needed to do and
attempted to do it. One of the task is for students to apply zero force and sees
what happens. Students wrote that there 14 swings in 10 seconds, but this
cannot be true because no force was applied on the ball for it to swing. From
evidence, I know students struggled to understand this task. Next time, I will
repeat my instructions and make them clearer for them to understand.
c) What evidence is missing? What would you do to capture this evidence in
the future?
After looking through my students' written assessment, there is a discrepancy
between their answers. For example, on the front page, they would answer
that they can predict the motion of the ball in the activity. However, on the
back, a few students reported that they cannot predict motion of a ball. The
evidence that is missing is whether or not the students are making a
connection between this activity and this scientific topic.
ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES and NEXT STEPS
4 Considering student learning, if you were to teach this lesson again, what
decisions and strategies would you change (in planning, instruction, and/or
assessment) to teach an upcoming lesson? How do you expect these
strategies to impact students achievement of the lesson learning goal(s)?

To improve how I monitor and assess the students, I think I need to provide more
structure during the lesson. At the beginning of the lesson, students were fully

engaged because I started off the lesson very structured. I led the discussion and
asked the questions. After I demonstrated the activity to the students, I let the
students work in groups at their own pace. Students knew what to do, but I do not
think they fully understood why they did what they did. To structure this better, I
might have completed part of the activity with them, step-by-step and then gradually
release the last part of the activity for them to complete in their own groups. Another
option is to ensure that every student understands what they need to do for this
entire activity. For example, many students were confused on what to do for the no
force part of the activity. They were not sure how to do this part, so I should have
clarified this. For each step, I could choose students randomly to tell me in their own
words what they need to do for that part. I could choose 2-3 students to repeat the
process in their own words. This way, I am making sure all the students received the
instructions multiple times and they are accountable for knowing what to do.

5 Using the evidence of student learning described and observed, what will be
your next steps in future instruction with the class, small groups, and/or
individual students?
Based on the evidence I have observed and collected, I will continue on to
the next lesson. Except for a handful of students, the students can identify
examples of patterns of motion and provide the reason for how we can
predict future motion. I plan to wrap of this topic with a smaller lesson as a
whole class to give students repeated exposure of the topic. After this
lesson, if I see that the small handful of students are still not getting it, I will
pull them as a small group to present the material in a different way.