Model Lesson Plan

I taught the 24 Hour model Lesson Plan with two of my fourth grade classes. I know that it was recommended to teacher the 24 Hour Lesson Plan to fifth grade, but I didn’t think that my fifth grade classes could handle the lesson so I took it upon myself to teach it to my fourth graders. I modified the lesson plan by having a pre-printed worksheet that I handed out to my students that I got from http://edutech.msu.edu/pd/24hourtemp/student.htm. I used this work sheet so that my students knew exactly what I expected of them. However, that did not pan out very well with one of my classes ( I teach two fourth grade classes). For my second class I used the same worksheet in which we completed together as a class. We took the information that was gathered and discussed and created an Excel bar graph and showed my students in more detail the temperature changes within a twenty-four hour period.

My students did not completely understand their tasks, in the first class I taught this lesson. Even with a pre-printed worksheet, my students seemed lost and confused. Due to time constraints, the metaphors that Dr. Bell gave were not introduced to this class. However, the second class grasped the heating and cooling of the Earth a bit better when I did introduce the metaphorical concepts. The following week, when I again met with the first class, I actually demonstrated the metaphor concepts of the lights turning on and off and the boiling water. I believe this allowed them to better visualize what was being asked of them. I also believe that the bar graph that I had the classes create also helped them to better understand everything.

Using the web site that was provided in this lesson really intrigued my students. My students thoroughly enjoy going online and I feel that they have more fun when they are able to utilize web sites that get them involved with solving problems that are asked of them.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I would definitely have my students complete a lab assignment comparing the metaphors of the lights and the boiling water. I would then educate my students a bit more on weather and temperature in our area. Even though this is targeted towards a fifth grade class, I would continue to utilize this lesson plan in the fourth grade as my students are required to track the high and low temperatures each month (in both Celsius and Fahrenheit) and chart them within an Excel graph. This would be a great culminating lesson to bring together everything they charted throughout the school year. This lesson would show my fourth graders the reasons the temperatures they graphed each month were the temperatures they were. This would then tie everything together as opposed to me teaching this lesson when students have three months of temperatures left to graph.