Evaluating Lesson Plans

Please find and review a total of five lessons for the "Resource Notes" section of your course portfolio. You should select lessons that include some type of data analysis by students. The students may generate those data themselves (e.g., through an experiment, field measurements, or some type of simulation) or use data from another source (e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency, the USGS, the Long-Term Ecological Research Network, Project FeederWatch, Project Globe). The data analysis steps do not necessarily have to be sophisticated: they may involve graphing, calculating averages, creating maps or charts, etc. 

Many science lessons that involve data analysis are actually investigations that take more than one day. That's fine: you may consider multiple-day activities of this type a "lesson" for the purpose of this assignment.

We encourage you to review at least one lesson (or series of lessons) from an "Exemplary or Promising Curriculum." Some examples include STC (http://www.nsrconline.org/pubs/stc/matrix.htm; we suggest looking a sample lessons from Grade 5, "Floating and Sinking," or Grade 6, "Magnets and Motors) and FOSS (http://www.fossweb.com/). You may also want to begin with the summary of programs at the Educational Development Center (EDC), at http://cse.edc.org/work/k12dissem/materials.asp.

To evaluate your lessons, use the "Evaluating Lesson Plans" form. You will include both the evaluation sheet and the source lesson in the "Resource Notes" section of  your Course Portfolio. Include a source citation if the source is not fully listed in the lesson plan itself. 

In addition to a completed form, write a 2-5 paragraph narrative evaluation of the lesson. The exact format is up to you but at least part of your essay should discuss the extent to which the lesson is consistent with one or more of the six research findings described on pp. 116-121 of Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards.

Note that the lessons and your reviews will be submitted as part of your electronic course Portfolio. For now, you can prepare your evaluations using Word, FrontPage, or some other editor of your choice. You will not need to submit your five evaluations before the end of the semester, but you should follow our recommended pace for collecting and reviewing lessons over the course of the semester, as you will draw upon these lessons for other in-class assignments.