Technology Lesson in the Classroom

by Teri Giraud

• Uen.org: Standard 6, Objective 1a.• Learning Objective: The students will

be able to match definitions with the correct vocabulary words. The will gain a larger vocabulary by reviewing the words we’ve read from and discussed from Charlotte’s Web.

Lesson Plan in Action!Expectations for behavior: “During today’s lesson I expect you to

listen carefully, and work cooperatively with the groups you’ll be put into. You should keep your voices at a whisper when you need to use them.”

Introduction: Attitude Orientation: I’m going to tell you two different stories,

and after I’ve told you both of them I’ll need you to vote on which one you thought was more interesting.

#1 Teri had a cat. It was pretty. It liked to climb. #2 Teri had a black and white Siamese kitten. It was absolutely

beautiful! It enjoyed ascending to the very peek of the trees in Teri’s yard.

Schema Orientation: What made the second story more interesting? Yes-good writers use a large variety of vocabulary words to make their stories more interesting. If you want readers to be engaged, and excited to read your story you will need to know more vocabulary to include in your writing.

Activity Orientation: We will be playing Jeopardy to review vocabulary words. I will divide students into 4 groups. They will have 1 representative from their team come to the front at a time. I will have some sort of buzzer, or way to tell which student gets the answer first. That student will have 30 seconds to come up with the answer. We will keep score on the white board. There will be a list of the possible vocabulary words up on the board to choose from.

Activity: Play Jeopardy!Discussion: Give me a thumbs if you had fun today practicing your

vocabulary words! Turn to your and tell them 3 words that you re-learned today, and what they mean. Your partner has to pick 3 new words to tell the other.

What went well?

I thought this lesson went very well, because most everybody was engaged! They were very excited for their turn, and very excited to see who would win! Also, it was a really good assessment to see where certain students were at in developing their vocabulary.

What Went Not So Well?

I thought I was grouping students fairly based on their level, but it seemed that one team kept getting points each time a certain individual was up. Next time I would switch up the team system, and maybe even have the class play together.

I also thought it might be a good idea to mix this jeopardy of vocabulary in with other comprehension skills that are to be developed in the 3rd grade.

Principles of Effective Technology Integration

My technology integration brings in the visual that technology offers and helps students another modality in which to learn. They got to use with their eyes the technology available. The school didn’t have other hands on technology for the classroom available, so the students didn’t necessarily get to use the technology with their hands, but I still think it was beneficial. They were actively involved in the lesson, and it wasn’t just me standing up at the front lecturing.

Technology was used to enhance the lesson, and wasn’t solely the lesson. My lesson focused on the importance of developing more vocabulary to become interesting readers and writers. Although we didn’t read in this lesson, we had been reading Charlotte’s Web previously. So this lesson was an assessment of what they students really knew about the vocabulary we had been discussing.

The lesson is entirely focused on the vocabulary, and definitions. The technology enhances the way we do this because it’s fun for the students to play the Jeopardy game, and actually know the answers because it relates to knowledge they’re currently learning. The technology is definitely being used to focus the learning task.

I don’t think it is impossible for these students to learn vocabulary without the Jeopardy game that I used as my technology. However, I don’t think I could make something quite as engaging for the students without it. By using technology I got to appeal the senses better! The students were doing, hearing, and seeing definitions or sounds. Altogether, I think this added a lot to their learning experience on vocabulary.