Planning 5E Questioning Strategies
Jason Duesler
Grade level: Middle school (8)
Date: 3-29-19
Unit/ Subject: Earth Sciences
The Weather and Climate Instructional Plan
1. PLANNING
Lesson Summary and Focus
In these lesson we particularly familiarize with weather patterns to enable learners build their capabilities of identifying and describing weather patterns. This lesson is vital in the understanding of Earth Sciences.
Instructional material , Equipment and technology
Instructional materials engaged in the process include; weather journal, LCD projector, Online mapping tool (Mindmeister), a weather and climate KWL chart and Computer.
Classroom and Student factors
Besides the normal trend in student characteristics, there are various students exhibiting various shortcomings particularly in terms of learning and emotional control abilities. These needs alter the instructional procedure to activities that enable the affected students learn cohesively.
National/ State learning Standards
Ask and answer content questions to illustrate the understanding of concepts and referring to the text as a basis for conclusion.(3-ESS-2)
Compare and contrast various concepts from two sources on the same topic.(3 ESS- 2)
Specific learning Objectives; After the end of the lesson, learners should be able to understand various concepts like weather and Climate. Furthermore, the learners should be able to identify and observe various weather conditions.
Lesson Focus question: What are weather conditions and what are the examples and description of these conditions?
Academic Language
Key Vocabulary;
Weather- Atmospheric conditions of a particular place studied over a short time
Climate- Refers to the average weather conditions or patterns of a particular geographical area usually observed over a long period of time.
Weather conditions- Are the atmospheric conditions that make up the state of the atmosphere. They include; temperature, precipitation and wind.
Instruction and development
Using the weather journal, we can learn important details about weather. Notably, the various weather conditions.
Besides incorporation of the above instructional materials to define and understand concepts, an outdoor sky observational activity will also enhance the understanding of these terms.
Summative Assessment
In groups of Six learners, students are asked to make observations and vividly come up with explanations regarding the possible scenarios in weather and climatic conditions. An oral presentation of the respective conclusions is presented in class to evaluate students understanding and share different ideas and concepts learnt by students.
Differentiation Strategies
Instruction
Activities
Assessment
Allowing individual reading for some students especially who comprehend concepts slowly.
Making the whole learning procedure meaningful to enhance the students enthusiasm
Issuing simplified material especially in case of learning challenges.
Involvement of the learners to establish the best assessment framework convenient for the entire class.
I. INSTRUCTION
The 5Es
Probing Questions
Engage
We first begin the lesson with a question asking activity to stimulate the learners knowledge about the topic. Further understanding of the topic is activated by the use of KWL chart.
Groups of five are created to form a platform for sharing of ideas about the various weather elements familiar to the students.
Identify your experiences with weather.
What is your basic knowledge about weather?
What are your unfamiliar concepts about weather
What would you like to learn more about weather?
Explore
A group activity is initiated to enable students have their own understanding about weather through the observation of the outdoor weather conditions.
A weather journal for each of the six groups to enable learners access more information on weather and climatic conditions.
What weather conditions did you notice?
What might be the cause for various weather conditions?
Is there any unexplored information about weather and climate to be sought?
Explain
In this step, we use direct instructions to explain students observations with the teacher only taking control of the conversation.
Secondly, completion of the KHWL and the concept map initiated in the engagement step.
Use of a computer and projector to enhance students understanding of the concept and clearing of misconceptions amongst students.
Students are also expected to form a group presentation of their findings to exchange ideologies.
What patterns did you notice in weather and climatic conditions?
How can you explain the various changes in the conditions?
Elaborate
The activities in this phase include; an expressive investigation activity on weather conditions to enable the application of the learnt ideas.
Conclusions are expected to be extracted from this activity by the students to highlight on weather and climatic conditions.
Further real life activity on identification of weather conditions and there causes for real life application of the concept.
What are the similarities between your prior and learned concepts on weather and climatic conditions?
How can you explain the phenomenal changes in weather conditions?
Identify a real life application of weather and climate concepts? What is the difference between weather and climate?
Evaluate
The evaluation activity for the lesson involves a random class test on the concepts
There is also a Group oral task to create an oral weather and climatic conditions report.
Define weather and climate conditions?
What could be the reason behind the continuous variance in the weather conditions?
How would your knowledge help in solving real-life weather issues?
The main aim of the 5E Instructional model is to enhance a clear inquiry-based learning framework for learners (Redman, 2013). Furthermore, in the engagement phase of the instructional model, we mainly focus on ensuring all the students despite their disparity in learning and emotional capabilities can participate in the learning process. In our case, we begin with a special prominence on the individual progress rather than collective comparison to enhance mastery orientation. Secondly, the use of the weather KWL chart further enables track learners with previous knowledge about the topic. Further engagement activities like asking questions on various aspects of the problem by students to enhance the transition between the prior experience and the concepts expected to be learned by learners (Lenz and Kolis, 2014).
After a prior introduction of the concept using the KWL chart and the weather journal, students are therefore expected to investigate, question and think critically about the ideas being exposed to them. This phase involves a group work activity for the learners to collaboratively observe the current weather conditions outside from which, to advocate their ideas and make corrections regarding their understanding of the concepts. A copy of the students KWL chart and weather journal is made available for learners to explore more information and relate to the outdoor observations in the groups.
Thirdly, the explanation phase seeks to concretely explain and interpret the various observations identified by the learners. In this phase, learners form their conclusions through a collective discussion with group members and the facilitator. Through the one-on-one time with the students and welcoming of opinions from the class, this process maximally involves joint activities to enable views from all members of the class.
The elaboration activities revolved around the group idea to enable students personally think about the possible application methods of the learned concepts. The use of students opinions was an elaborative activity to allow collective class participation (Heller, 2015).
Lastly, to enable an all-inclusive assessment framework, the students were given a partial say on the most effective evaluation activity. Personal attention to students to allow the success of the evaluation process was also implemented in the evaluation activity to enable each students personal best and understanding.
References
Redman, C. (2013). Successful science education practices: Exploring what, why, and how they worked. New York: Nova Publishers.
Lenz, T., & Kolis, B. H. (2014). Brainball: Teaching inquiry science as a team sport.
Heller, A. P. (2015). The impact of inquiry learning on students’ ability to analyze data and draw conclusions.
