Mahreen Yahya
PSY 205
Professor Mueller
“Famous Americans” Lesson Plan Analysis
Constructivism is a useful teaching technique that connects prior knowledge to existing schemas in a student’s mind. While both Piaget and Vygotsky valued social aspects of constructivism, Vygotsky placed special importance on the role of peer interaction to aid in the acquisition of new knowledge. This lesson plan places less importance on the role of peer interaction, and more on the concept of paraphrasing new knowledge in a creative way. It is an individual project that takes place over an extended period of time. Little to no group work is involved in the completion of this project, rather each student is to pick a person to research and present on. The lack of social constructivism in this lesson limits the various ways in which students can make associations with new information, thus possibly limiting their ability to remember their research.
In this lesson plan, paraphrasing as a specific form of constructivism is used in order to test students’ knowledge on their chosen subject. By paraphrasing—explaining a concept in a new way—associations are made between what a student has learned, and things they already know. Students in this lesson are to research a specific person of historical importance and create a brochure to outline their research. They are to use the knowledge they acquire about their chosen person and explain how this person is important to history by making a visual aide. In order to gather information about their person, the teacher plans to take the class to the school library and choose a biography to read. After a given amount of time, students should finish reading their chosen book, and, using that information, create a brochure that highlights what the teacher outlined are some significant facts about their historical figure.
This is a use of constructivism because it forces students to take all the information they learned in their biographies and condense it into a one-page brochure that contains the most significant information. By putting the information into their own words and organizing it in the form of a brochure, they are adopting the new information into an existing schema that includes important concepts from modern U.S history.
Students in this project are responsible for their own education regarding their chosen subject. Because they are required to read a book and paraphrase the material while making connections to prior knowledge, they will be engaged in various forms of elaborative rehearsal. As referenced to previously, paraphrasing biographical information they read about in the form of a brochure causes them to make associations between prior knowledge and new information about their historical person. The brochure they create must relate to concepts they learned in class specific to the time period that they are studying in class at the time. Associating facts about the person they are studying with what they learned about the time period that person lived in will help students retrieve that information later.
The lesson plan provides a specific format students have to follow for their brochure. In this way, students are to organize the information from the book they read into a specific format that provides visual cues for them to retrieve knowledge better. From the book they choose to read, they are to draw out specific bits of information that they feel is important, organize it in a clear way, and include images. This part of the project allows for more creative freedom, which helps students make stronger visual and personal associations in order to better retrieve the information.
Information processing takes place throughout the length of this project. Students read a 200+ page biography about a person of their choosing. In order to complete the brochure and quiz at the end of the project, they have to encode important information from the biography. They are encouraged to take notes, which helps encode information because it organizes and provides visual cues. Because the project takes place over a length of time, the information they learn must be stored into long-term memory, so they can retrieve it during the quiz.
The teacher will provide an example of a brochure for students to look at before they begin the project. This is a form of peer modeling, because it provides an example for students to look at that was made by another student in the past. Whether the teacher was going to provide both positive and negative examples was unclear, but both types would be more effective because they clarify to students what they should and should not do. Peer modeling might also increase students’ self-efficacy because it illustrates the work of another student who was successful at completing the project.
Using one specific source of information for their brochures sets a limit on the amount of research students conduct, which provides a more structured method of instruction. Before students are left on their own to complete the project, the teacher provides guidelines for what kind of information the biography they choose should contain about the historical figure. The teacher also provides examples of completed projects and background information in previous lessons about the time period and possible important people students could research. A combination of these things is scaffolding, which gives students the specific skills and knowledge they need to complete their project.
This lesson calls for a quiz at the end of the project in addition to a brochure. The lesson plan explains that the quiz questions will be broad enough to apply to each of the books that the students read, and will include one specific question tailored to each student’s chosen subject. The questions on the quiz include general facts about the person a student studied, such as: Where were they born? When were they born? What were they well-known for? Students will be allowed to use notes and their brochure on this quiz, however, which likely reduces the effect of forced retrieval. Having notes with all of this information with them will not effectively prompt students to recall information from their memory, but will make them dependent on those notes. For forced retrieval to be effective, a concept has to be recalled from memory, not simply read from a notes page.
This lesson is a form of deductive learning, because students are given the instructions and examples of what they are supposed to do for the project. After this, they are asked to pick a specific person as an example of what the teacher defines as an “important historical figure”, and gather facts that the teacher specifies. It is a straightforward lesson that requires students to do structured research to find specific information that has already been defined for them.
Students are given the defining attributes of what an important historical figure is, and asked to find one example of such a person by doing research in the library. This lesson does not hone in on a specific problem that needs to be solved or concept for the students to understand, but rather asks students whether they can identify and remember facts about a person they think is important.
According to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, students between 9th and 11th grade—the grades this lesson is tailored toward—have reached the formal operation stage. This means that they can think abstractly about the world; they have the ability to make analogies and synthesize information. This lesson does not test students’ ability to synthesize information, rather it asks students to gather facts about a person and organize them into a visual aide. While they are paraphrasing new information and organizing it in a way to help them store and retrieve it, they are not using that information to solve a problem or think about a concept in a new way.
Vygotsky would likely argue that this lesson is not within the students’ zone of proximal development, because it is not necessarily challenging them. Students in these grades are very capable of reading a book and rephrasing basic facts from it. While they may be making connections between the biography they read for the lesson and the time period they learn about in class, the lesson does not seem to stress the need to construct those connections. The brochure and quiz both require only basic knowledge of the person each student researches, something that is not difficult for students in this stage of cognitive development.
Even though this lesson plan demonstrates basic concepts of constructivism, and requires students to create their own visual cues to remember a subject, it does not necessarily challenge them to think about a concept in a new way. Students rewrite facts gathered about a specific person that they read about, but are not necessarily challenged to remember those facts because they are allowed notes on the quiz, nor are they using those facts to make deeper connections with other class material. The teacher creates a structured environment for this extended lesson, however could do better to make the lesson more engaging and challenging.
PSY 205
Professor Mueller
“Famous Americans” Lesson Plan Analysis
Constructivism is a useful teaching technique that connects prior knowledge to existing schemas in a student’s mind. While both Piaget and Vygotsky valued social aspects of constructivism, Vygotsky placed special importance on the role of peer interaction to aid in the acquisition of new knowledge. This lesson plan places less importance on the role of peer interaction, and more on the concept of paraphrasing new knowledge in a creative way. It is an individual project that takes place over an extended period of time. Little to no group work is involved in the completion of this project, rather each student is to pick a person to research and present on. The lack of social constructivism in this lesson limits the various ways in which students can make associations with new information, thus possibly limiting their ability to remember their research.
In this lesson plan, paraphrasing as a specific form of constructivism is used in order to test students’ knowledge on their chosen subject. By paraphrasing—explaining a concept in a new way—associations are made between what a student has learned, and things they already know. Students in this lesson are to research a specific person of historical importance and create a brochure to outline their research. They are to use the knowledge they acquire about their chosen person and explain how this person is important to history by making a visual aide. In order to gather information about their person, the teacher plans to take the class to the school library and choose a biography to read. After a given amount of time, students should finish reading their chosen book, and, using that information, create a brochure that highlights what the teacher outlined are some significant facts about their historical figure.
This is a use of constructivism because it forces students to take all the information they learned in their biographies and condense it into a one-page brochure that contains the most significant information. By putting the information into their own words and organizing it in the form of a brochure, they are adopting the new information into an existing schema that includes important concepts from modern U.S history.
Students in this project are responsible for their own education regarding their chosen subject. Because they are required to read a book and paraphrase the material while making connections to prior knowledge, they will be engaged in various forms of elaborative rehearsal. As referenced to previously, paraphrasing biographical information they read about in the form of a brochure causes them to make associations between prior knowledge and new information about their historical person. The brochure they create must relate to concepts they learned in class specific to the time period that they are studying in class at the time. Associating facts about the person they are studying with what they learned about the time period that person lived in will help students retrieve that information later.
The lesson plan provides a specific format students have to follow for their brochure. In this way, students are to organize the information from the book they read into a specific format that provides visual cues for them to retrieve knowledge better. From the book they choose to read, they are to draw out specific bits of information that they feel is important, organize it in a clear way, and include images. This part of the project allows for more creative freedom, which helps students make stronger visual and personal associations in order to better retrieve the information.
Information processing takes place throughout the length of this project. Students read a 200+ page biography about a person of their choosing. In order to complete the brochure and quiz at the end of the project, they have to encode important information from the biography. They are encouraged to take notes, which helps encode information because it organizes and provides visual cues. Because the project takes place over a length of time, the information they learn must be stored into long-term memory, so they can retrieve it during the quiz.
The teacher will provide an example of a brochure for students to look at before they begin the project. This is a form of peer modeling, because it provides an example for students to look at that was made by another student in the past. Whether the teacher was going to provide both positive and negative examples was unclear, but both types would be more effective because they clarify to students what they should and should not do. Peer modeling might also increase students’ self-efficacy because it illustrates the work of another student who was successful at completing the project.
Using one specific source of information for their brochures sets a limit on the amount of research students conduct, which provides a more structured method of instruction. Before students are left on their own to complete the project, the teacher provides guidelines for what kind of information the biography they choose should contain about the historical figure. The teacher also provides examples of completed projects and background information in previous lessons about the time period and possible important people students could research. A combination of these things is scaffolding, which gives students the specific skills and knowledge they need to complete their project.
This lesson calls for a quiz at the end of the project in addition to a brochure. The lesson plan explains that the quiz questions will be broad enough to apply to each of the books that the students read, and will include one specific question tailored to each student’s chosen subject. The questions on the quiz include general facts about the person a student studied, such as: Where were they born? When were they born? What were they well-known for? Students will be allowed to use notes and their brochure on this quiz, however, which likely reduces the effect of forced retrieval. Having notes with all of this information with them will not effectively prompt students to recall information from their memory, but will make them dependent on those notes. For forced retrieval to be effective, a concept has to be recalled from memory, not simply read from a notes page.
This lesson is a form of deductive learning, because students are given the instructions and examples of what they are supposed to do for the project. After this, they are asked to pick a specific person as an example of what the teacher defines as an “important historical figure”, and gather facts that the teacher specifies. It is a straightforward lesson that requires students to do structured research to find specific information that has already been defined for them.
Students are given the defining attributes of what an important historical figure is, and asked to find one example of such a person by doing research in the library. This lesson does not hone in on a specific problem that needs to be solved or concept for the students to understand, but rather asks students whether they can identify and remember facts about a person they think is important.
According to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, students between 9th and 11th grade—the grades this lesson is tailored toward—have reached the formal operation stage. This means that they can think abstractly about the world; they have the ability to make analogies and synthesize information. This lesson does not test students’ ability to synthesize information, rather it asks students to gather facts about a person and organize them into a visual aide. While they are paraphrasing new information and organizing it in a way to help them store and retrieve it, they are not using that information to solve a problem or think about a concept in a new way.
Vygotsky would likely argue that this lesson is not within the students’ zone of proximal development, because it is not necessarily challenging them. Students in these grades are very capable of reading a book and rephrasing basic facts from it. While they may be making connections between the biography they read for the lesson and the time period they learn about in class, the lesson does not seem to stress the need to construct those connections. The brochure and quiz both require only basic knowledge of the person each student researches, something that is not difficult for students in this stage of cognitive development.
Even though this lesson plan demonstrates basic concepts of constructivism, and requires students to create their own visual cues to remember a subject, it does not necessarily challenge them to think about a concept in a new way. Students rewrite facts gathered about a specific person that they read about, but are not necessarily challenged to remember those facts because they are allowed notes on the quiz, nor are they using those facts to make deeper connections with other class material. The teacher creates a structured environment for this extended lesson, however could do better to make the lesson more engaging and challenging.