Lesson #6

WHAT?

During this lesson, we worked with a small group of students and focused on advocacy and cause and effect. Our goal was to help students understand how people can make a difference in their community by identifying problems and creating solutions. One of the main activities was planting a plant. Before planting, we introduced a traditional song called “The Planting Song,” which helped students start thinking about how actions lead to outcomes.

Students then completed cause and effect strips where they matched problems, causes, and effects. We had them work in pairs and small groups so they could collaborate and talk through their thinking. We also facilitated class discussions where students shared their ideas and explained their reasoning. We connected this to real-world issues like helping others and protecting the environment to build social awareness.

What went well was student engagement, especially during the hands-on planting activity and group work. Students were excited and actively participating. Even though some students struggled at first with understanding cause and effect, they improved by working together and asking questions. We adapted our instruction by providing visuals, re-explaining concepts, and offering extra support when needed.

One area of weakness was that some students needed more time to fully understand cause and effect at the beginning of the lesson. Next time, we would model more examples before asking students to work independently.

All students were able to meet the objective by the end of the lesson. Evidence of this includes their completed cause and effect charts, participation in discussions, and final work. Students also showed improvement from the pre-assessment to the post-assessment. Some students struggled at first but were able to meet the objective with support.

SO WHAT?
From this experience, we learned that hands-on and interactive activities help students better understand challenging concepts. The planting activity made cause and effect more meaningful because students were able to see a real-life example.

We also learned that students may not understand a concept right away, but with support and collaboration, they can improve. This showed us the importance of being flexible and patient during instruction.

This experience helped us grow as teachers by improving our ability to adapt instruction, support different learners, and use engaging strategies. We also strengthened our ability to use student data, such as pre- and post-assessments, to guide instruction and measure progress.

NOW WHAT?
This experience will influence our future teaching by encouraging us to plan more interactive, hands-on, and student-centered lessons. We will continue to include activities like experiments, projects, and group work to support student learning.

We will also continue using student data to guide our instruction. For example, we will include more modeling and guided practice for concepts students struggle with.

We incorporated instructor feedback by including more engaging activities, using graphic organizers, and providing sentence starters to support student understanding.

In the future, we will improve by modeling step-by-step at the beginning of lessons, giving students more time to practice, and using multiple ways to assess learning, such as speaking, writing, and drawing.