The benefits of incorporating maker education in my future classroom:
Incorporating maker education into the classroom is a great way to encourage STEM in our classrooms, which in 2018 was a career field that was expected to grow by 17%. Maker education is a great way to incorporate hands-on learning into the classroom that could meet certain students learning preference. The collaboration aspect of making is another benefit to the students as it will help them work on communication skills and many other skills.
The maker-inspired lesson you have designed, including the learning objectives, materials needed, and step-by-step activities:
Learning objective: Students will be able to explore the similarities and differences in the life cycle of organisms and will be introduced to the process of metamorphosis (Iowa Core (3-LS1)).
Materials needed: Paper plates (each student), construction paper (each student), markers, crayons, scissors, brass fasteners.
The teacher will start by introducing the topic to the class. The class will listen to the book From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman, before watching a video on the lifecycle of Frogs, Dragonflies, and Butterflies. Once the students have listened to the book and watched the video, they will be broken up into groups of three. In the groups the students will create their own lifecycle on the paper plate of one of the animals and insects that were just shown in the video.
Each member of the group will choose one of the three animals. They will then be given one paper plate that they will divide into five or six sections (the frogs will need six sections) with a marker.
Once they have divided the paper plate into sections, the students will work together to draw and articulate the cycles of their animals on the plates.
After the groups have finished drawing their lifecycles, they will each pick out one piece of construction paper that they will cut a section (that matches the size of their lifecycle sections) out of the construction paper. The students will also pick up one brass fastener to fasten the construction paper in the middle of their paper plate. The construction paper will be able to move freely from section to section of their individual lifecycles.
How the lesson will engage students and support their development of critical skills:
This lesson will engage the students in learning about the different stages of a lifecycle and how each of them can be very different. Once the students are finished making the wheels they will be able to use their critical thinking skills by discussing the similarities and differences that they see in the lifecycles they completed. Since the students are drawing the cycles of each animal they will be able to incorporate their own creative skills.
Challenges to anticipate in implementing maker education and how to address them:
The lesson was designed for 3rd Grade, so a challenge that could be anticipated is the safety concern. It will be important for the students to be instructed prior the lesson that they are to only put the brass fasteners in the plates and not use it for anything else.
Since the project is a collaborative one, a challenge could be disruptions with the students getting off tasks while working in a group. It will be important that the teacher is consistently announcing positive behaviors that are shown throughout the project to make sure that the students stay on task.
Comments
Post a Comment