Lesson Plan for

Implementing NETS•S
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s) Name Jasmine Randall
Position Second Grade General Education Teacher
School/District Nickajack Elementary School
Grade Level(s) Second Grade
Content Area Writing & Science
This project will span 28-30 consecutive school calendar days during a
35-minute instructional writing block daily.
Timeline
Standards
• What do you want students to know and be able to do?
• What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you expect students to gain?
• Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks?
• Please put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers
that indicate which standards were addressed.

❖ S2L1. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the life cycles of
different living organisms.
❖ ELAGSE2W2: Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a
topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding
statement or section.
❖ ELAGSE2W3 Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or
short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and
feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of
closure.
❖ ELAGSE2W1 Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they
are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use
linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and
provide a concluding statement or section.
❖ ELAGSE2W6: With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of tools to
produce and publish writing, including digital tools and collaboration with peers.
❖ ELAGSE2W7: Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a
number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science
Content Standards observations).

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 Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative
products and processes using technology.
NETS*S Standards:

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)
The second graders at Nickajack Elementary School will engage in a writing cumulative unit that integrates science
and writing standards. This task allows students to actively plan and produce a digital video/ display and a unique
writing piece that supports the Georgia standards of excellence and ITES. Students will create and publish a digital
display that illustrates the selected animal or plant life cycle.
Students will create and attach their writing sample using PowerPoint/ Microsoft Word (if applicable). and
applications such as PowToons and Screencastify. The video contents will compliment the second grade science
components for life cycles. Students will produce narratives, opinion pieces, and informational pieces. Upon
completion students will present their findings at a grade level writing festival. The festival will take place in the
computer lab area at Nickajack Elementary. This space allows students to showcase their videos and share their
experiences with a parent-community- peer audience. Upon completion, all writing submissions and digital displays
will be uploaded online to the grade level website. The website was created using Weebly. Here students can share
their products to a wider audience. The teacher and parent role in this project is to facilitate and assist in the
execution of this task. Teacher’s will actively provide resources, technology, explicit instruction prior to the project
to build background knowledge. Prior instruction provided by the teacher will strictly align with the Georgia
Standards of Excellence for writing and science.

Essential Questions

• What essential question or learning are you addressing?

• What would students care or want to know about the topic?
• What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate interest about the
topic?
• What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring to this topic and build on?
Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry. They should not be answered
with a simple “yes” or “no” and should have many acceptable answers.

Who is your audience? What is your purpose for writing? Did the informational details I included remain on
topic? Did I include meaningful graphic features? Does my text flow with logical organization? Did I include a
strong conclusion?

Assessment

• What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning?

• What can students do to generate new knowledge?
• How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)?
• How will you assess what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?
You must attach copies of your assessment and/or rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

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 Students will be able to use skills to:
• write an informative-explanatory piece that includes a topic sentence (introduces a topic).
• use temporal words to signal event order.
• Use facts and definitions to develop points.
• write a closing statement.
• use research strategies to locate information.
• Obtain and share information about the life cycles of different living organisms.
The product of this project challenges students to build a portfolio that consist of a narrative,
informational, and opinion paragraph with a digital display (video) to illustrate the theme of their writing
Technology will be used to store, create, and provide feedback with the finished product. Students will use
school issued devices and the internet. To show mastery, students will be scored using the state/ school
standards-based writing rubric to score each writing. Students will create and upload a video representation
that aligns with their writing. After completion, students will publish their portfolio online (weebly) and
present their submission during the grade level’s writing festival. The writing prompts for the narrative,
opinion, and informational will be posted by the teachers and posted throughout the work time for students
to reference
High indicators: Students use technology to pursue monitored, assessed, and required, standards-based
learning activities in the classroom. Higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy are addressed (Evaluating and/or
Creating)
Low indicators: There is strong emphasis on real-world applications. Students assume adult/professional
roles and produce/share products that are interesting/meaningful to themselves and others in their
school/classroom.

Resources

• How does technology support student learning?

• What digital tools, and resources—online student tools, research sites, student handouts, tools,
tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or explain the content or allow students to
interact with the content?
• What opportunities did you have to collaborate with your students to discover and use new digital
resources to meet their learning goals? (Note: This meets part of ISTE standard 4.2)
• What previous technology skills should students have to complete this project?

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 Teachers could use the attached powerpoint to explicitly teach writing components. Students will need to use
specific graphic organizer templates when collecting research from the life cycles and when planning the
drafted samples for their writing.
To conduct research online, students should use the kid-friendly search engine (HERE). To research,
students could also use the National Geographic website for kids (HERE) National Geographic for Kids-
National Geographic for kids is an instructional software that engages learners in game and simulations!
Students can discover games that will test their skill set while providing them with valuable information. This
online magazine hosts fact-filled topics created specifically for ages 6 and up.
Prior knowledge:
Teacher will begin lesson segment by reviewing and showing the class exemplar for writing informational
paragraph (previously taught with the students). Teacher and students will review all writing components
that should be included based on the shared rubric. To begin task, teacher will display this video to the
students followed by the following the prompt. As the clip is playing, the teacher is pausing throughout the
scenes to build on the students’ observations or draw their attention to the needed prior knowledge for this
lesson.
The video is a student friendly overview about life cycles (Students should have already learned or are
currently engaging in topic during science). Students should collect various ideas of examples for organisms
and notes characteristics of a life cycle. This short video gives elementary students an overview of the
important life cycles they need to familiar with and grasp the concept of changes over time.
Prompt:
Select and research an organism. Learn about the stages of its life cycle. Write to describe its life cycle.
Be sure to include an opening, topic sentence, temporal words, facts, and a closing.
Following the prompt, the teacher will introduce students to the software and how to quickly navigate and
find their organism. Have the class think of an animal to search for modeling purposes to get the students
actively involved. Review the learning goals for this lesson and distribute devices needed.

Instructional Plan and Preparation

• What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson?
• How can you find out if students have this foundation?
• What difficulties might students have?

Students will need to be familiar with navigating online platforms and the designated devices (ipad, tablets,
computer). Students will need opportunities to explore online to find the animal/plant life cycle of their liking
to assist with motivation. Prior to this unit, the teacher and students should have a solid foundation of what
the different writing expectations are for various genres of writing (see rubrics). Students should be
independently writers and thinkers to produce quality writing samples that express complete thoughts.

Management-- Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the
use of digital tools and resources.

• How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals, classroom, lab, etc.)
• What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this lesson?
• Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson.
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 • Explain how you worked with students to resolve or trouble-shoot them? (This meets part of ISTE
standard 4.2.)
• Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as throughout the
process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.
• This lesson compliments a workshop style learning environment. The teacher will begin and end each
lesson with all students gathered at a meeting area. In this segment of the lesson, the teacher will
review the expectations and learning objectives. At the end of the lesson, students should reflect on
the learning experience.
• During the work session, students may work independently most of the time depending on where
they are in the segment. Partner tasks may be during brainstorming and peer conferencing.
•
Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities – Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson.

• How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson?
• How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or creativity levels of Bloom’s
Taxonomy?
• How can the technology support your teaching?
• What authentic, relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete?
• How will they build knowledge and skills?
• How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other and
others?
• How will you facilitate the collaboration?

Th teacher will actively facilitate during the work session. This product is to demonstrate students’
independent ability on writing and science. Bloom’s taxonomy is in place because the students are
continuously having to create and produce a product that does not necessarily have ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
answer. Multiple submissions could meet the exemplar requirements. The product of this project challenges
students to build a portfolio that consist of a narrative, informational, and opinion paragraph with a digital
display (video) to illustrate the theme of their writing Technology will be used to store, create, and provide
feedback with the finished product. Students will use school issued devices and the internet. To show
mastery, students will be scored using the state/ school standards-based writing rubric to score each
writing. Students will create and upload a video representation that aligns with their writing.

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Differentiation

• How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and abilities?
• How will you help students learn independently and with others?
• How will you provide extensions and opportunities for enrichment?
• What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)

This lesson compliments a workshop style learning environment. The teacher will begin and end each lesson
with all students gathered at a meeting area. In this segment of the lesson, the teacher will review the
expectations and learning objectives. At the end of the lesson, students should reflect on the learning
experience.
During the work session, students may work independently most of the time depending on where they are in
the segment. Partner tasks may be during brainstorming and peer conferencing.

Reflection
• Will there be a closing event?
• Will students be asked to reflect upon their work?
• Will students be asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself?

Also answer the following questions:

• How will you know if the students found the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
• In what ways do you think this lesson will be effective?
• Why do you think this?
• What problems do you anticipate and why?
• How would you design and/or teach this lesson differently if you had more time?
Students should meet the daily learning objectives as they work on their tasks.
This lesson will build student content knowledge and grade level writing expectations. Problems may include
students determining relevant vs. irrelevant information.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
Including a component or outlet for students to work at home with their parents may be a pivotal addition
to this project. This allows the parents to fulfill a level of partnership to support student learning. I would
also reconsider methods for sharing the final products to increase the bandwidth and audience.

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