I believe that it is important for 21st-century educators to use technology in the classroom and encourage students to develop their hands-on skills. Nowadays, learners not only need to learn subjects knowledge, but also need to have teamwork skills, resilience, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking. The process of discovering and solving problems presents a new challenge to our students. Over the past two weeks, I have written a lesson plan for making a windmill using LEGO® Education SPIKE™Prime Set. In this project, first grade students will learn about how electricity is generated, and then work together with other members of their group to build a windmill. Here is my lesson plan.

During the process of writing the lesson plan, I also explored Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and intersectionality. UDL provides flexibility and reduces learning barriers to meet the needs of all students. It divides learning into three parts – representation (the diversity of ways information is presented), action and expression (allow students to present their learning outcomes using different methods), and engagement (using different activities to increase student interests and participation). Intersectionality means recognizing and addressing the complex and overlapping identities of students and creating a classroom that is inclusive, equitable, and responsive to their needs (Open AI, 2023). 

 When I look at my own and peers' lesson plans from these three perspectives, I can clearly see the strengths and weaknesses, also provide suggestions for improvement. I would consider:

• Whether the teacher provided different materials for different types of learners (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, reading/writing, etc.) for them to participate in class and group activities?

• Whether the way of presenting learning outcomes is diverse? 

• What assessment could motivate students and be relatively objective?

• Whether class activities are diverse enough to enable ALL students to participate actively? 

When I reviewed my peers' lesson plans and actively thought about these questions, I believe that the strengths of the lesson plan are that students can use VR glasses to choose their own museum theme of interest and show their learning outcomes in their own way. However, the weakness is that if I am not a visual learner or have poor eyesight, I may not be able to participate effectively. An improvement idea is that students can choose to browse museum information on their laptop to complete the task. Alternatively, if students are willing, they can also take on the role of a recorder or supporter. 

When reflecting on my own lesson plan, I believe that hands-on activities can effectively stimulate students' enthusiasm. Every student has corresponding responsibilities, which makes teamwork more effective. The weakness is that only group evaluation is provided, which is not objective. One way to improve is that students first self-evaluate, then evaluate other members of the group, and the final score is the average score. This is more fair.

In addition to changing the assessment method, I also made changes to the details of team collaboration. My previous idea was to ensure that every student could actively participate instead of just a few students leading the group. Therefore, I came up with the idea of assigning tasks to each student and having students collaborate to complete the project. My peers raised two questions that deepened my thinking: first, how can first-graders understand and fulfill their responsibilities? Second, is there a job that fits best for the learner? What if he/she/they really want to be in a different role? Based on these questions, I came up with this duty chart:

  I also really enjoy having students record their work using iPads. My students often use iPads to scan QR codes for class activities, and they are very familiar with how to record videos using the iPad. The purpose of the recording is for sharing in the presentation, so it is not included in the assessment score. Other than assessment and roles description, the rest of my lesson plan maintains the same.  

Since I have only one set of Lego Spike, I may not able to make it come true now, but I believe this lesson plan can be used for other similar projects! 

References:

About Universal Design for Learning - CAST. (2022, February 8). CAST. https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl#.XFBpZi2ZOL9

LEGO® Education SPIKETM Essential Afterschool & Camp Bundle with STEMfinity. (n.d.). STEMfinity. https://stemfinity.com/products/lego%C2%AE-education-spike%E2%84%A2-essential-afterschool-camp-bundle-with-stemfinity

OpenAI. (2021). GPT-3 Language Model [Chrome]. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/api/