Naomi Meredith  00:00

When writing a sound lesson plan, there are a lot of components you want to make sure you include, such as the standards, resources, and what students will be creating. There is a lot to think about. In this episode, I will be giving you a behind-the-scenes look into how to write your STEM lesson plan from start to finish and help you improve the experiences in your classroom. 

Naomi Meredith  00:55

Okay, I have a confession to make. One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to STEM lessons is when teachers just throw out their robots, Legos, coding, or whatever STEM tool without any real purpose in mind. Yes, the kids are having a good time, but just using STEM tools doesn't necessarily mean that it is a STEM lesson. Don't get me wrong, STEM is supposed to be fun and engaging. But if we want to level up these lessons and have students use higher level thinking skills, the four C's using standards-based learning, we really have to be more thoughtful with our planning. Likewise, if we are creating or teaching well-thought-out lessons, then there will be a change in perception among teachers in your building and teachers in general as to what STEM education means in the elementary space. In turn, people who are not in education are also going to have a different perception as well. Yes, kids are purposely playing, but what is the real goal that you have in mind? So really take a step back and think about those lessons that you're teaching and how those are creating authentic, real-world connections. 

Naomi Meredith  02:19

If you're curious to learn more about what I believe STEM education means and the elementary space, go back all the way to episode two, and you can hear my thoughts about this and help you build up your perception and beliefs of what STEM means as well. Okay, off my soapbox. Let's dive into this episode and how we can really help you thoughtfully plan those lessons so that there are deeper connections. They are rooted in standards and really help students make those authentic, real-world connections. Throughout this episode, I will be breaking down the process that I use when planning a multi-day lesson. Knowing the structure is important if you see kids all five days in a row. If you're a classroom teacher or a STEM teacher and see kids once a week, this structure can definitely be modified for when you see kids and how to have these meaningful lessons in your classroom. To help you bring this planning process to life, I will be pairing it with a real-life lesson that I teach my third graders. 

Naomi Meredith  03:27

In this lesson, students are taking on the role of paleontologists and telling the story of a living thing that is now fossilized based on the evidence found. I use the Engineering Design Process to plan, but you can definitely modify this same structure if you use a different process, such as the launch cycle, design thinking, or project-based learning. I also use a template for my multi-day project. So there builds consistency for me as a person planning the lessons, but also for my students as well. They are used to a specific structure, and they can be more confident using the Engineering Design Process. But the tools, strategies, skills, standards, and connections will change year after year, lesson by lesson, unit by unit. 

Naomi Meredith  04:17

First, when I am creating my lesson, I work on developing the ask. What is the problem students are going to be solving or the question that they are going to be answering? You can have students help you develop this question based on the time that you have with students. Or you can have this pre-written, so you know the end goal that students are going to get throughout this project. Before I get to developing the ask, I already have gone through the brainstorming process. So I am at a place where I do know what I want students to do. I'm really going to dive into the research behind creating this whole lesson plan. If you want to hear more about my brainstorming process and how I got out here, make sure to go back and listen to episode 24. I break down where I gather ideas and really go down through the line and get to where I am today getting into the lesson. I like to plan my units in my classroom around a theme. My K through five themes is all about STEM careers and animation techniques. Each grade level will have their own way to animate its designs while rooting it in standards and STEM skills. 

Naomi Meredith  05:31

Developing the ask actually takes me a lot more time than you think that it would because this is my North Star, it is my compass and base for the entire lesson. I really look at the wording of the standards to help me write this ask. Also, keep it very open-ended. When I am writing this question, I don't start with “Can you,” because that really limits the question to have a yes or no response. Instead, I start my question off with, “How can you,” so there are multiple ways to solve the problem and think of a lot of different solutions to their designs and their creations. The standard that I am basing this whole project around is the NGSS standard 3-LS4-1. Here's what it says, “Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms in the environments in which they lived long ago.” This is the standard for third grade. That is why for this project, I thought it would tie in nicely with students taking on the role of a paleontologist and then using the evidence from the resources that I give them. They can infer and make connections as to what that living thing's life was like based on where the fossil was and the evidence that is surrounding it. 

Naomi Meredith  06:55

Now there are a lot of different ways that you can attack this standard. It definitely doesn't have to be STEM or stop motion. But this is how I am blending the two together, making sense of the standard and giving it my own STEM twist. So eventually, the ask that I came up with for this project that students will be answering along this whole week is how can you create a stop motion video to show how fossils have formed from living things long ago. I will be tying in other standards as it relates to Reading Informational Text writing, speaking and listening, producing short audio, and even some math where students have to count the number of frames that they are using in their video to make sure that it's not moving too quickly. All of those standards are part of my research as well. I'm not going to list all of those out here because of time, but just know that I'm using that NGSS standard as my big base. I am connecting in that ELA and maths standards as well. 

Naomi Meredith  08:01

Next is planning at the imagine and plan stage. Like with the standards, this stage takes me the second longest as well. I want to make sure that I am giving resources to my students that are really helping them answer this question and find the evidence and research that they need. So they can produce a script and a storyboard that will then help them create their props and then eventually have their whole stop motion animation video. Sometimes I even will write my own research for students, especially for the younger grades, because I will often find research that is so relevant to the standard, but the reading level is way beyond their grade level. So oftentimes, I will have to research many different things and then rewrite them in a way that will make sense for my younger students. Thankfully, for third grade and up, I can usually find things that work well that relate to the standards. 

Naomi Meredith  09:03

So using some of my favorite research websites and also epic books that have a great collection of things as well. So for this specific lesson, I found a lot of different resources that would be relevant for third graders to research how different fossils are found. It also gives them information on what the life of that fossil might have been like. Students will have to infer and add in their own information as well, to put it in a way that would make sense for a story, which eventually is their stop motion animation. I also like to include two to four video clips that we can watch together as a class at the beginning of the lesson to add to their knowledge and the science behind how a fossil is formed. Of course, my favorite go-to I always check out first is SciShow Kids, but sometimes I will find other resources that relate to the standard and also build that background knowledge. I also will create vocabulary that students will need to know that will be found in their research. Or they will also have to apply to the script and storyboard that they will end up writing some of those vocabulary words. Of course, I tell them what a paleontologist is and all the different types of fossils that they will be reading and exploring about. 

Naomi Meredith  10:23

When I create vocabulary, I like to have the word nice and bold at the top, write the definition in kid-friendly language and include a picture and maybe a little more about the picture to help them understand what those words mean and give them some context. For this planning stage, since students will be creating a video, this is a lot different than if students will be building a project where they might be planning through drawing and labeling. For this plan, they have a small graphic organizer where they can add three different examples of fossils that they have found through their research to help them gather ideas for their video. Eventually, they will be picking one of these examples where they will dive in deeper and create the story for the stop motion, the things that they're looking for in this lesson, and I really try to focus the resources that I'm giving kids are centered around these questions and pieces of evidence, type of fossils that they found about how old is the fossil? Where was it found? What do you think happened? Of course, in this project, and like other projects, my classroom students will be able to collaborate and work together to fill this out if they so choose. 

Naomi Meredith  11:41

I always give the option of independent work because some students sometimes just need that opportunity that students can work together to create this plan. They'll then move on to that create, experiment, and improve stage. During this create, experiment, and improve stage, specifically since they are creating a video, they do have a script where they need to plug in their information and sketch out what they hope to have their props do during their video. With any video and audio project that I do with my students, I always use a script. When I first started doing these types of projects, I didn't use a script. I noticed kids would get off track with their videos, and they would always say things like “like and subscribe.” They would definitely get off topic and not really zone in on what the project is asking and even miss a lot of important details. In fact, I will say writing the script and creating the props for this project for this stop motion animation takes a lot longer than the actual video production. 

Naomi Meredith  12:45

There is a whole lot of high-level learning when students are thinking about the story of how their props are going to move and connect to the words that they are going to say when it comes to the prop creation. To help save time, I give students the opportunity to create one page of the prompts on the computer, whether they use shape tools to create them or insert images. That way, they don't have to worry so much about the drawing, especially since they are making a stop motion video about fossils and things in the past, like dinosaurs, and all sorts of living things, which are very complicated to draw. So I make sure to include that part in the create stage where they don't have to be so stressed about the drawing part. They can have the props ready to go. Unless I'm planning, I also think about overall the types of materials I'm going to need, which grade levels are going to be working on specific projects, and how I'm going to store these projects. For this stop motion animation, I actually only use paper for the props. 

Naomi Meredith  13:48

Typically with stop motion animation, you might see 3D figures, clay, and playdough, which are excellent tools. However, when I'm thinking about how I have four third-grade classes, at least 25 students each, that is a lot of clay and playdough that my budget doesn't allow. So using paper is just as good. It can get the point across, and students can still create a stop motion animation. It's easy to store the materials when they're not in my classroom. So when you're doing that lesson planning, think about the tools that you have, how can you be creative with things that are easy to get to? Also, think about the tools when you're getting to that cleanup time. How long is it going to take students to clean up those materials and move on for the rest of the day? When I am lesson planning, I also like to include mentor examples and even non-examples for students to refer to when I am teaching them throughout the week, especially if this is a project I have never done with the kids before. I want to actually test out the script to see if it makes sense and find any holes and bugs that are missing before I actually teach it to the kids. 

Naomi Meredith  15:02

Of course, when you teach, things to come up, things are going to happen, and you're always going to have to modify. But actually, testing it out yourself is really helpful, especially when it comes to a video or animation. You can show kids your examples and talk about what went well and what are some other things I needed to work on. I will link in the show notes an example that I created for this stop motion video all about fossils, so you can get an idea of where this project is headed for students. Another thing that I like to do if projects are going well, and this is something that I would like to teach the following year, I will save a lot of their projects in my Google Drive, whether it is a link to the video or even the pictures that I take as well. This is helpful for me to show other students and future years of projects that were super successful. It also helps me reflect as a teacher. So when I'm planning for the next year, what are some things that I need to modify for the lesson to make them better? 

Naomi Meredith  16:05

Finally, I like to plan and think about ways how students are going to be sharing their work in a meaningful way and have an authentic audience. My favorite go-to tool is to use Seesaw K through five because it provides a variety of tools to have students share their voices. Students can write, draw, record, and even make videos of their responses, so they can definitely share in a way that works best for them. The cool thing about this project for this fossil's stop motion is students are creating a digital piece. Their peers can definitely see their work once we put it in Seesaw. With video projects, I also like to create a peer feedback rubric that is the same as the modification checklist or self-assessment rubric, it has the same qualification. So it's really good for kids to self-evaluate using this checklist and also for their peers to look for those same things as well. For this project, when I was creating the feedback checklist, I wanted to make sure to include things that were about the specific video editing. So did they take 30-plus pictures so that the video doesn't go too fast? Are their cameras still so that the light isn't flashing? Are those elements about this specific video I added to their checklist? But then I also made sure to include things that talk about the actual standard. Does your video actually tell the story of a fossil and what its life was like long ago and actually answer the question that we are looking for?

Naomi Meredith  17:43

 From there, I also create a student-friendly rubric that students can self-assess if they have time. Or I can use the same rubric as well. Years ago, I took a workshop about rubric writing. A thing that they mentioned when creating a rubric is to have the grade level expectations in the middle. So maybe it's a four-point rubric, you have the three as grade-level expectations, all written out in that kid-friendly language. Then you have the below-grade-level expectations like they're almost there, the twos have those all written out. But then the lowest, the one where they're missing things, is blank, where you can actually write in what they're missing, or students can write themselves what they're missing. Then the highest qualifier, the four, if they are beyond grade level, students can write what they did that is beyond grade level expectations. Or you can write about those things as well. Having a rubric cleaned out really helps you reflect as the teacher, especially for this project. I wanted to make sure that I am hitting all of those integrated standards, that I am providing the resources that make sense for this lesson, and that it really is answering that main NGSS standard. 

Naomi Meredith  18:58

So creating a rubric is super helpful. A lot of us are starting to have to add grades to our STEM space. So having this prepared ahead of time for your project can really help with your overall grading for your classroom. As you can see for this lesson, there is a lot of thoughtful planning when creating just one lesson for my third grade stop motion animation unit, all about them taking the role of the paleontologist and explaining the evidence behind why that fossil became the fossil that we have found today. I totally understand that this can be overwhelming going through this whole process K through five and having different units that are thoughtfully planned and standards-based. Lucky for you, I am obsessed with this stuff. I really do love lesson planning, and I just really love seeing the engagement in my students in my classroom and seeing how they're making all of these real-world connections. In fact, I have my ultimate STEM resource library membership that I would love for you to join. You can join one time for one annual fee or pay monthly, and you will get access to monthly themed lessons, but also the K through five core lessons that are planned with this structure so you can get some time back and not have to worry about every single grade level for every single unit. I hope that seeing this process has helped you rethink the way you're lesson planning and really thinking about all those connections you're making, tying them to standards, and bringing those authentic, real-world connections.