Bridgewater College Teacher Education Program Lesson Plan

Name: Meagan Ours

Subject/Grade Level:
Lesson Title: Making Choices in
Unit: Economics
Date or Lesson #:
Social Studies/1st
Economics
Lesson 2
Grade
3-10-15
Virginia SOL/National Standard:
1.8The student will explain that people make choices because they cannot have everything they want.
Essential Understandings

Essential Questions

Essential Knowledge

Essential Skills

People make choices

because they
cannot have everything
they want.

What happens when

people cannot have
everything they
want?

People cannot have all the

goods and services they want.
They must choose some things
and give up others.

Make decisions based on

information.
Explain cause-and-effect
relationships.

Measurable Lesson Objective(s): The learner will be able to justify their choices when they cannot have everything they
want.
Materials/Technologies/Resources Needed:
Smartboard
Smartboard activity (created by me)
Pennies
Apron
3 types of prizes from the class store
Making Choices Pre-shopping money log worksheet for each student
Making Choices Post-shopping writing worksheet for each student
Assessment (Formative and/or Summative):
1.

Making Choices worksheets

Anticipatory Set (Hook & Agenda)

Teacher will:
Remind students that yesterday and today they are
earning pennies during their lessons with me.

Students will:
Listen to the teacher

Accommodations/
Differentiation:

Anticipated
Time:
1 min

Hold up three baskets of prizes.

Ask students to raise their hand if they have enough
coins to buy the prize in each basket.
Access /Review Prior Knowledge
Teacher will:
Review hand motions for producers and consumers
learned during the previous class period.
Movement/SMART board activity: students rotate at
the smartboard tapping a picture to flip. If they flip
over a producer, students do one exercise. If they flip
over a consumer, they do another (noted on
smartboard)

Students will:

Accommodations/
Differentiation:

Anticipate
d Time:

Think and share what

producers and consumers
are.

Marcus & Al:

Guide them
through their turn

6 mins

Teaching Process & Modeling (Content is presented, accessed or built)

Guided Practice & Checking for Understanding
Independent Practice

There is no prescribed order to this section; you must tailor the order to the students and the content. This should be
the longest portion of your lesson plan
Teacher will:
Students will:
Accommodations/
Anticipate
Differentiation:
d Time:
Teaching Process & Modeling (Content is presented,
accessed, or built):
Say, We are going to listen to a book together
about Max and Ruby. In this book Max and Ruby buy
a lot of thing! I want you listen carefully and raise
your hand every time they buy something.
https://youtu.be/Uu2DikLUjh8
Stop the video frequently to discuss the wants versus
needs that Max and Ruby encounter. Also focus on
the decisions they had to make. Point out to the
students that Max and Ruby cant afford everything
they want, so they have to make choices about what
to buy.

Listen and watch the

video while listening
carefully for things they
buy and raising their
hands whenever they
buy something.

Guided Practice/Checking for Understanding

Show different options of things that students could
buy and how many pennies they have (on
smartboard).
Tell students to think-pair-share, what they would
choose to buy if they could only get one thing.
Complete the worksheet information together on
the smartboard.

6 mins

Answers the teachers

questions.

Modeling
Show two or three pictures on the smartboard. Tell
the students which you would buy and why. Talk
through the mental process of the example and do
the worksheets (on the smartboard).

Visual/audio will
help students to
grasp the content.

Listen to the teachers

example.

Think-Pair-Share and
walk the teacher through
completing the
worksheet information as
a class.

Helps weak
readers who may
not be able to
read the
worksheet.

ELL, Marcus & AlThink-Pair-Share

helps them to
think through
their choices while
I monitor.

1 min

3 mins

Independent Practice:
Tell students that they are now going to get the
chance to spend their pennies from yesterday and
today.
Give directions, Each of you is going to get a paper
that looks like this (hold up the making choices
paper). You must write down how many pennies you
have earned. Then you must decide which prizes you
choose to buy. You will not have enough money to
buy all the prizes. You can buy as much as you can
afford, and then you can save the leftover for the
class store. After you finish shopping and completing
the top of the worksheet, you can use the sentence
starters to write about your choices. If you finish that

Listen to the teachers

instructions.

15 mins
Marcus &
Al-assisted by a an
aid.

Complete the
worksheet/shopping
activity with the
worksheet. Come to the
store by math groups
while the other students
start the worksheet.

you can draw a picture of the things you bought or

do an early finishers activity .
Call students over to the store by math group
number and help them buy prizes.

Closure:
Teacher will:
Ask one or two volunteers to share what they
bought and why. Tell students that perhaps there
will be more time later to share their writing.

Students will:

Accommodations/
Differentiation:

Anticipated
Time:
2 mins

Declarative Summary Statement: Today we learned about making choices when we cannot afford to buy everything we
want.
Activity If Extra Time Remains or Technology Fails
Teacher will:
If technology fails: teach the lesson using printed
slides from the smartboard activity and a dry erase
board

Students will:
If extra time remains: draw
a picture to accompany
their writing or do an early
finishers activity from the
classroom poster.

Note: Attach or provide hyperlink to all handouts, external documents, resources, etc.

Accommodations/
Differentiation:

Anticipated
Time:

Teaching Experience Assignment

After you have taught your lesson in your field experience, respond to the three questions
below. Recall content from previous/current coursework & course readings and how it relates
to the prompts. Your assignment should be at least 750 words. Carefully review the rubric to
ensure you adequately and appropriately complete this assignment. Be sure to include
pseudonyms replacing all actual names for confidentiality.
What worked?
What would you do differently?
What is your evidence that your students learned the concept?
Your assignment MUST include at least two literature references,
with correct APA citation (in-text and reference page).

Use the following format guidelines:

Times New Roman, Courier New, or Arial, 12 pt. black font
750 word minimum
Name, date, and word count in top right corner, single spaced (include school,
grade, and subject if you are a content specific candidate.

Meagan Ours
March 11, 2016
Word Count: 969
First Grade, Waterman Elementary School
In Ms. Smiths first grade classroom at Waterman Elementary School, I had the
opportunity to teach my second lesson during the economics social studies unit corresponding to
SOL 1.8. My lesson also reviewed my previous lessons topic of producers and consumers.
I feel that my lesson was very successful in both accomplishing the curriculum goals and
engaging the students. My cooperating teacher greatly praised my classroom management
because I was able to sustain control and attention of the group while maintaining a positive tone
and drawing in students with my energy and excitement. This fun and energetic approach was
important in making my lesson a success.
The access and review of prior knowledge section of the lesson was an effective
implication of both technology and a movement activity while reviewing the previous days
content. The students were engaged and actively participating during this activity. My CT
heavily supports the use of movement activities frequently throughout the day, so I have
observed the benefits of these activities in improving focus and attention span. Because of this, I
chose to incorporate movement activities in my lesson. In addition, research supports this claim
by revealing that movement activities are an effective method of classroom instruction,
especially for ELLs and literacy development (Rieg & Paquette, 2009). In their article, Using
Drama and Movement to Enhance English Language Learners Literacy Development, Rieg and
Paquette conclude that, Using drama and movement facilitates the brain to learn and to retain

information and it provides a stimulating environment for most young learners, particularly
ELLs. Because of this research support and my own observation, I was certain that including
this movement activity in a first grade classroom of primarily ELLs would be a success, and it
was definitely a beneficial aspect of this lesson.
Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my and my CTs control, the time frame in
which I had to complete my lesson was shortened at the last minute. Because of this, I made the
spur of moment decision to not show the video about the book Bunny Money. Instead, I used
SMART board pictures to discuss the necessity of making choices when buying things. Students
drew parallels between the previous content of wants and needs as we discussed making choices
about spending. Despite this unfortunate cut from my lesson, afterwards, my CT and I both
agreed that, although the video would have been beneficial, I made the best decision in cutting
this part. My flexibility and last minute decision making was a great skill to practice during this
teaching experience.
I also feel that my independent practice and the class store activity was greatly
successful. Students earned pennies throughout the lesson, and then, in this hands-on, real life
experience students to applied their knowledge about both money and making choices. Each
student had the opportunity to buy prizes from a special version of the class store that I set up
and adapted to fit the lesson. As the students logged their purchases, discussed them and wrote
about their decision making process using sentence starters, I was able to assess their
understanding in a very individualized way.

On the other hand, if I taught this lesson again, I would adjust the organization of this
independent practice activity. It could have flowed more smoothly if I had a few more minutes
dedicated to it. In addition, it would have been helpful to have set up the store in a location
slightly further away from the students desks as the center of the room got very congested. If I
taught this again, the store would be across the room from the desks and only 2-3 students would
shop at a time. Having a larger group of shopping students prevented me from giving each
student the one on one attention that could have increased the effectiveness of the activity.
If I were to teach this again, I would also improve the lesson by providing more modeling
in the use of the SMART board activity. The students were somewhat unfamiliar with how to
interact with the board, causing some distraction from the lesson. If I was to teach this lesson
again, I would be sure to explain the technology more as I modeled the activity.
After teaching my technology focused lesson, I also began to question ways to keep all
students actively participating while calling individual students to the SMART board. In a
classroom that does not yet have one technological device per student, it is concerning that
students will tune out once another student is called to the SMART board. Research supports the
educational framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which is based upon the pillars
of representation, action, expression and engagement while focusing on varied representation,
expression and engagement (Parette & Blum, 2014). In their article Using Flexible Participation
in Technology-Supported, Universally Designed Preschool Activities, Parette and Blum apply the
UDL framework to this same question of total participation with whole group technology and
encourage the use of peer collaboration and the incorporation of concrete manipulatives in order
to reach this goal. If I could teach this lesson again, I would incorporate this research into my

lesson plan by having more think-pair-share activities or giving each child a whiteboard to write
down their answers before calling one student to the board. Either of these activities could
increase the learning of each individual student.
Despite these small obstacles in the lesson, I know that my students successfully learned
the content. Their independent practice assessment is evidence of their learning because their
writing assignments were well completed and demonstrated their knowledge effectively. The
students were able to effectively express why they had to make choices with their money and
why they chose the way that they did.

References

Rieg, S. A., & Paquette, K. R. (2009). Using Drama and Movement to Enhance English
Language Learners Literacy Development. Journal Of Instructional Psychology, 36(2),
148-154.
Parette, J. P., & Blum, C. (2014). Using Flexible Participation in Technology-Supported,
Universally Designed Preschool Activities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 46(3), 60-67.

Narrative
Reflection

Influence on
Future Teaching

Evidence-based
Instruction

Citations

Quality of
writing

Rubric for Teaching Reflections

A
B-C
(10-9 pts)
(8-7 pts)
Narrative of
teaching
experience. Analysis
of the first teaching
experience is
Weak, lacking details,
thoughtful and
brief teaching
insightful. Details
experience narrative
about your learning
and growth as a
potential teacher
are well developed.
Analysis of the first
Weak, lacking details,
teaching experience
or superficial analysis
is thoughtful and
of experience, your
insightful. Detailed
learning, and growth
explanation of how
as a potential teacher.
this experience will
Conclusions about the
influence your
impact of how this
future teaching
experience will
(i.e., what you will
influence your future
do or not do in your
teaching are not well
teaching).
developed or specific.
Clear details of
Lacking specific details
impact on student
as to how the teacher
learning. Articulate
used evidence to
response with
ensure student
evidence for
learning
student learning.
At least two quality
References are
references are
included within the
included within the
assignment but they
assignment.
are not quality, or
Citations within the
incorrectly cited using
text and the
APA 6th
edition format.
reference page are
Citations are not
correct APA 6th

supported but
edition format.
inserted.
Paragraphs are well
developed with no,
Paragraphs are poorly
or few,
written, some
grammatical,
grammatical, spelling
spelling or word
or word choice errors.
choice errors. 750
Minimum of 750
words or more. All
words. Most
formatting is
formatting is correct.
correct

F
(< 6 pts)

Weight

Total

Narrative not included

Analysis is limited to
general statements
such as I liked ..., I
learned a lot from
or I did not like
with no supporting
details.

x2

19

There is no mention of
how the experience
will influence future
teaching.

x2

19

There is no mention of
evidence-based
instruction or student
learning.

x2

14

No references are
included within the
assignment

x2

19

Paragraphs are brief,

many grammatical,
spelling and word
choice errors. Essays
are less than 750
words. Formatting is
mostly incorrect.

x1

Professionalism

Focus of the
assignment is on
your learning and
growth as a
potential teacher
and impact on
student learning.
Analysis of CT is
objective and
respectful.
Pseudonyms are
used.

The assignment is
subjective and
opinionated. Writing
focuses on the
candidates (your)
feelings. No attention
is given to impact on
student learning or
your learning and
growth as a potential
teacher.

Critical and negative

judgmental
statements about CT,
students and/or
school are overt. For
example She is not an
effective teacherNo
attention is given to
impact on student
learning or your
learning and growth as
a potential teacher.

x1

Final Grade

10

90%

Meagan, Thank you for your lesson assignment reflection. I bet you are feeling relieved
to have completed these assignments. I do wish they could have been separately slightly.
Did you have a different CT complete this evaluation? Maybe remind me if so - they
seems so different. I sort of recall one was completed by your ESL and the other by
your classroom CT? Is that correct. Just comment on the side here or mention
something in class. As with your previous submission, your lesson plan was clear and
detailed. I'm so glad that you felt successful in this lesson. Im glad you felt success in
this second lesson with the application of money and the review of prior knowledge.. I
think this lesson is a good example of higher order thinking and specifically
application. Im sorry your time was cut short but I think you were able to correctly
cut the appropriate activity.. Im pleased with your thoughtful reflection on how to
improve this lesson in the future. On your next submissions, again, (I know you didnt
really get the chance to make changes because of the back to back submissions) I
would encourage you to elaborate further on the student evidence based instruction.
What evidence did you provide to ensure your students are learning?. As indicated
previously this was a short paragraph in your assignment. However it has the same
weight as the narrative reflection on the influence on future teaching section.. The best
part of this assignment was your ability to use flexibility and decision making to
ensure student learning success. Dr. Carr