Ultimate Stem Top 5 |
Student Directed:
Activities where students are responsible for collaborating to accomplish a goal. Students have choice in how to obtain the goal and allocating responsibilities. Targeting the Individual Student: Lessons recognize that students have different ways of learning concepts and provides multiple modalities and cognitive levels to meet students’ needs. Experience Linked to Concepts: Lessons that provide authentic experiences that allow students to make personal connections to the ideas and concepts being studied, moving from knowledge to understanding. Active Engagement: Lessons provide tangible experiences, that require students to actively participate in their own learning. These experiences bridge the gap between knowledge and understanding. Broad Utility: Activities that are easily extendable, adaptable, and accessible across different disciplines and grade levels providing entry points for all students regardless of ability or experience. |
Amazing Teaching Moment |
This lesson took place on the third day of surface area study. Students brought in physical examples of spheres. Using their examples, we discuss how we could “unwrap” one of these spheres. At this point, I introduce the concept of an orange as a sphere. By unpeeling the orange we are left with a pile of peelings and nothing to relate the peel to conceptually. We then discuss how surface area relates to the three dimensional shape and what two dimensional shapes make up a sphere.
Following our orange discussion, students formed small groups and each small group received an orange. They traced how many great circles they think they will need to fit the peel of their orange. Groups then peel their orange and fit the peel into the circles. After all the peel has been laid out groups are asked to make a guess on the formula. Because all of the groups should fill four circles with their peel, they were all able to conclude that the surface area is equal to four times the area of the great circle. This is a lesson that I utilize each year in Geometry. With such emphasis based on utilizing new technologies in the classroom, it is such a joy to teach a memorable lesson with nothing more than an orange. One of the most powerful aspects of this lesson is the ability to connect with each type of learner. Kinesthetic learners are able to peel the orange, visual learners are able to see the peel filling the four circles and auditory learners are able to listen to the final class discussion to pick up any material they may have missed. This lesson gives students a visual to go with the memorization of a formula that otherwise may be easily forgotten. |