Lesson Plan for TPACK Integration

Flipped Classroom – Fractions 2^nd Grade

Section 1 – Details regarding learners, learning outcomes, and assessment

            In a regular lesson plan, this activity will be planned 2^nd or 3^rd after students have been introduced to the concept or as a follow-up activity after being taught the material before. To understand this activity, let me briefly explain what would precede it. If the concept has not been taught before, the students would have been introduced to the concept of fractions through watching a video or two. I would use Khan Academy which does a really great job explaining and reaching students. I would also supplement the Khan Academy fractions video by introducing an interactive video, either though YouTube or a program such as Envision Math by Pearson, depending on what is available and which program the school uses. This would give the students more visual aid as well has hands-on experience before the next activity starts.

            Now that I have explained what preceded my planned activity, I can proceed to describe the activity that would follow it for the purpose of this essay. As mentioned before, this is a lesson over fractions and the activity is planned for 2^nd grade students. The students will be using a program called IXL Learning on desktop computers (https://www.ixl.com/math/grade-2). They will be working on 3 sections; equal parts, identifying the fraction, and halves, thirds, and fourths. Each section will last approximately 5 minutes. By the end of this activity, students should be able to identify equal parts, halves, thirds, fourths, and have a relatively good understanding of how fractions work, even if presented with larger numbers. After each section, students will stop and record their score that is located on the right side of the page by the timer. The students will be provided with a score sheet prior to the start of this activity. This will aid in assessment to give me an indication of their understanding of the concept. I will also be monitoring the students as they work and making note of their progress as they work. Furthermore, after all three sections have been completed, the students will log onto our classroom discussion board and under fractions, write which part they felt most confident about and which part they had most difficulty with. This further aids in assessment and gives the teacher a good indication of how to proceed in guided practice or following lessons involving this subject, for example, what to focus on and how to group students based on individual needs.

Section 2 – Planned events and procedures timeline for activity

            The following is a breakdown of this activity into a timeline of planned procedures:

• ·       This activity follows activity 1 in which the students were introduced to fractions through a video by Khan Academy. They will be seated at individual desktop computers.
• ·        The students will open IXL Learning for 2^nd grade which will already be saved on the desktop computers and should only take a couple of minutes.
• ·         The teacher will have the same website open on the Smart Board to direct the students to the fractions portion of the site. They will be working on W.1, W.2, and W.3. We will open W.1 at the same time and the teacher will leave the page open on the Smart Board to have a visual of the timer. *The teacher will be monitoring the students as they work and making notes of their progress when needed.
• ·         Students will have 5 minutes to work on W.1 (Equal parts). When the time is up, the teacher will inform the class to write down their score on the paper that is provided. When this is done, we will open W.2 (Halves, thirds, and fourths) together and the students will start on the next section. This should take about 6 minutes.
• ·         Students will work on W.2 (Halves, thirds, and fourths) while the teacher walks among them to monitor and make notes of their progress. After 5 minutes, they will stop and write down their score as before. This should take about 6 minutes.
• ·         Students will open W.3 (Identify the fraction) and work on this last section for another 5 minutes while the teacher walks among them to monitor and make notes of progress. After 5 minutes, they will record their score again. This should take about 6 minutes.
• ·        At this point the students will log onto the class discussion board and write under the fractions section, created by the teacher prior to class, which part they felt most confident about and which part they had most difficulty with. The teacher will go around collecting the score sheets while the students write. This should take about 5 minutes.

Section 3 – Reflection Part 1 – Pedagogical Content

            Strategies used to teach the content of this lesson, particularly this activity, includes analogies, demonstrations, illustrations, examples, drill-practice, and self-guided learning. The activity in itself provides every single one of these strategies, with or without teacher’s assistance. It provides analogies such as comparing fractions to pizza slices. This strategy is effective because it helps to connect content knowledge with the student’s every day life experiences. The Khan academy video provides demonstrations, illustrations, and examples that is enhanced by further explanation from the teacher. This strategy is effective because many students are visual learners and providing them with demonstrations, illustration, and visual examples will reach these students much more effectively than lecture alone.

This activity also provides drill-practice and self-guided learning that are both good strategies to use for mathematical concepts. These two strategies in combination is effective because the more students are exposed to fractions in all forms, the better they are able to recognize and calculate these concepts. Enabling the students to work in a self-guided, self-paced learning environment is effective because children learn at different rates and this ensures that every student learns at a pace that is most effective to their individual needs. Most students, especially youngers students, have this preconceived notion that fractions are hard, but these strategies make learning fractions easy and fun.

Section 3 (Continued) – Reflection Part 2 – Technological Pedagogical

            The technology used for this activity is an Internet program called IXL Learning that is preceded by an instructional video through Khan Academy. Since this is a flipped classroom lesson, the video serves as an instructional strategy in which the students receive instruction about the content of the lesson from an outside source that is both visual and auditory. Following the instructional video, the students do independent work, a drill-and-practice strategy, that is also done through the use of technology (IXL.com). Through this program, the students are constantly exposed to all three concepts covered in this lesson. Not only does it provide sufficient practice, but it also provides them with an explanation when they get a question wrong which, in turn, provides further instruction on the concept. The students are also provided with a method to give the teacher feedback on how they felt about each section – a survey of sorts that is immediately available to the teacher in order to plan accordingly for the guided practice that would follow this activity.

            Some of the implications for the classroom as well as the teacher’s instructional strategy that this technology provides include repeated exposure to the content, an immediate progress report, and immediate feedback to use in the guided practice. This allowed me to see right away where my students needed the most help with and I could provide guided practice based on individual needs without wasting time on parts of the content material that my students already know.

            Different classroom management strategies I might need to consider prior to using this technology in my activity are whether my students are computer literate enough to use the program, rules to asking for assistance such as raising their hands, and what to do when they run into technical difficulties.

Section 3 (Continued) – Reflection Part 3 – Technological Pedagogical Content

            The use of this technology enhances the way the content is represented in my activity by providing demonstrations, explanations, illustrations, and analogies of the concept taught. The content of this program demonstrates and illustrates fractions in different forms, what it looks like in picture form as well as written form. It uses analogies such as food and shapes to teach the concept in a way that connects the concept to students’ personal lives (food) and concepts they have learned before (shapes). It also provides them with examples and explanations when they answer incorrectly which gives my students immediate feedback and instruction on areas they experience difficulty with. For these reasons, I think my selection and the pedagogical use of this technology enhances the content of this lesson.

            The use of this technology offers my students practice, immediate feedback, and immediate additional instruction that would otherwise not be possible in a traditional classroom setting. It also provides me as the teacher with immediate feedback in order to adapt guided practice right away to meet individual needs before the lesson ends that would otherwise not be possible until after assessment, usually after a lesson is taught, in a traditional classroom setting.