Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETSSTemplate I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Mr. N. Driver

Position Teacher

School/District Feldwood Elementary/Fulton County Schools

E-mail driver@fultonschools.org

Phone
Grade
Level(s) 2nd Grade

Content Area English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Civics Math

Timeline A minimum of 5 hours per week over a 3 week period.

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please
put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which
standards were addressed.

Content Standards:

The Civic Responsibility project teaches students the following English and Social Studies
concepts and skills and how to apply them in a real-world context. The learners will apply
knowledge of different writing skills for varied purposes and audiences. The learner will
investigate how to work with adults and community stakeholders in the real world. The learners
will identify and define problems in the community. The learners will demonstrate and produce
towards solutions for specific social, environmental, or cultural issues in the community. The
learners will manage, record, and analyze the results of work in the real world. The learners will
create and present work to a variety of audiences. The other curriculum area or subject area
addressed is Civic Math.

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 NETS*S STANDARDS:

2b: Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology,
including social interactions online or when using networked devices.
3a: Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other
resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
3c: Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to
create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
3d: Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing
ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
4a: Students know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories,
creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
4b: Students select and use digital tools to plan and manage a design process that
considers design constraints and calculated risks.
5b: Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them,
and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making.
6a: Students choose the appropriate platforms and tools for meeting the desired objectives of
their creation or communication.
6d: Students publish or present content that customizes the message and medium for their
intended audiences.
7b: Students use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers,
Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

This is an original PBL project created by Jeff Horwitz and has been modified in order to meet the specific
requirements for course and to meet the needs of the students. Second graders are ready to conquer the world
and they can start with their community. In Make a Difference: Civic Responsibility, elementary school students
make valuable and meaningful contributions to the social, environmental, and cultural well-being of their
communities. They learn to participate actively in their communities as they partner with local organizations to
fill a real need, help a specific population, engage in public service, and make a tangible difference in their
neighborhoods and beyond. In a simple video created especially for the project, parents (or adults from school)
inspire students with a short description of their own civic contributions, and then challenge students to do the
same. In partnerships, students create plans for one specific thing they can do in their community, in partnership
with a relevant local organization. Students implement the solutions with their partnering organization and track
its effect by collecting meaningful data. Finally, students analyze their impact on the community and display their
work at a public showcase where parents, teachers, other students, community members, and even project
beneficiaries are invited to witness and appreciate their civic contributions.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest about the topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on important
aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring
to this topic and build on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry.
They should not be answered with a simple yes or no and should have many acceptable answers.

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 The Make a Difference: Civic Responsibility project requires students to identify a problem in the
community, then propose a piece of work that an organization or population will use. To do this, students
will produce an item, spearhead an effort, or participate in a campaign that has a measurable impact on the
community and meets a real and current need. They will work in teams to generate ideas, refine drafts,
analyze results, showcase work, and share feedback. In doing so they will engage the important Common
Core Standards across multiple disciplines. The final product will be meaningful, have significance beyond
the classroom, and benefit real segments of the community.

Throughout this project, students must think critically and creatively about the obstacles present in their
communities and environments and collaborate to solve contemporary problems faced by people, animals,
and habitats. Technology skills are developed as students select and use the appropriate tools for developing,
printing, photographing, recording, and otherwise creating, collaborating and communicating their work to
the community.

To complete the project, students must engage real-world issues on an in-depth level. They must adopt an
empathetic problem-solving mindset to engage the needs and perspectives of a variety of stakeholders and
constituents, which can only be accomplished through deeply learning and meaningfully considering the
projects content and subject matter.

This project requires students to generate unique answers to the problems and needs of their community. The
Driving Question is open-ended so that teams interpret it in their own way. Each individual student crafts a
unique answer to the Driving Question that reflects the activities and populations they value.

Students are required to understand and confront real world problems and develop useful and relevant
solutions. The issues inherent in the project create compelling and meaningful reasons for students to delve
into material that demands they understand the issue or population with which they decide to engage.

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess
what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or
rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

Assessments will be conducted through teacher and student-created checklists and rubrics.
For example:
Daily Reflection Sheet (Will be answered with tech tool Seesaw, however, physical copies will
be provided to students as needed.)
Checklist
o Project Guideline
Rubric(s)
o Project Overview
o Your Team Work/Daily Reflection Sheet (Seesaw)
o Your Partners Teamwork
o Civic Scoring Guide
Graphic Organizer
o Organization Profile

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 Please find Rubrics, Checklist and Templates in link below:

https://fultonk12-
my.sharepoint.com/personal/burns_fultonschools_org/_layouts/15/guestaccess.aspx?docid=13b7a455f5
ece43f8be4551a9e9c7ab1c&authkey=AalrA1TGsfR7_6LjRaquNY4&e=70630141f9a241e78cb59be1a6
743a61

Students will create real work that serves a need or function in their community, and they will showcase
this work and the results it generated to a public audience back at school. Students have multiple
opportunities to bring their work into the real world, see how it is used by real stakeholders in the
community, and then explain these artifacts and experiences to audiences of peers, teachers, family
members, and the broader community. Students will have a choice of which technology tool to use to
create their final products. Technology will also utilize for collaboration and communication with team
members and the organizations they will partner with. Student will use technology to document their
experience and to answer important questions related to the project that will assist them with executing
effectively during the process. Lastly, students will use technology to document, analyze and present
their finding. Students will have the choice of creating their final product with one of the following
tools:
SWAY (Presentation Tool)
FlipGrid (can also use to document project journey)
PowerPoint (Presentation Tool)
Office Mix (Presentation Tool)
Animoto (Presentation Tool)
iPad (Used for Research, Collaboration/Communication and documentation)
Desktop Computers (Used for Research, Collaboration/Communication and documentation
MS Excel (input and analyze data collected. This data will also be in presentation with
explanations students provide.)

Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resourcesonline student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etchelp elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

Technology will be utilize for collaboration and communication with team members and the
organizations they will partner with. Student will use technology to document their experience and to
answer important questions related to the project that will assist them with executing effectively during
the process. Lastly, students will use technology to collect, document, analyze and present their finding.
Students will use Seesaw to document experience and answer questions such as:
o What is the problem?
o Who is affected by this problem?
o Why is it a problem?
o Who can help you with this project?
o What are you going to do about the problem?
o What steps will you take to solve this problem?
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 o Who will benefit from this solution?
o How can you measure whether you made a difference?
o How did you make a difference?
Seesaw will also be used for Daily Reflections where students will set goals, state obstacles and
give solutions of how they overcame those obstacles.
Because students will be conducting research, they must have completed their digital citizenship
certification through Common Sense Media. Students must know how to properly conduct research on a
topic. Prior to completing this project, students would have to know how to use the technology tool they
plan to use for their final product. Students would also have to be familiar with the basics of Seesaw and
Excel.

Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can
you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

Teacher will explain to students that the goal is to benefit a community, solve a problem, help a
population, or otherwise positively engage their community. Students will not be asking for money or
soliciting donations from the public, but rather producing real work for an organization, making
something that complements an organizations mission, participating in an activity that benefits a
specific population, or raising awareness about a particular problem. Students will be asked to think
about what they heard from the adults in the video, and to keep pushing these ideas even further.
Students will be instructed to go home to ask their family members what kinds of civic activities they
have ever participated in. This activity will be conducted by the teacher providing students with a
handout with a web link and QR Code to provide family members with, so they can record their
responses. Teachers will want students to find out answers to the following kinds of questions:
Are members of their families are involved with a civic organization? If so, who are they and
what organizations are they involved in?
Does anyone belong to a church or religious group that sponsors food drives or
community need events? If so, which church or religious group? What is the name of the food drive or
community needs events?
Is your parent, sibling, aunt, grandparent, or other relative active in the community?
Do they volunteer at a senior citizens facility? If so, which one?
Do they help the homeless? If so, in what ways?
Do they volunteer in youth activities, like sports leagues or the boy and girl scouts? Do
they help at a local animal shelter, school, or community center?
Do they help orchestrate local elections? How does that process work?
Are they involved in a local environmental cause? If so, which one? How does this benefit your
community?
Students may have difficulty narrowing down what direction they may want to take their project.
Teachers who attempt this project in very rural or remote areas may have trouble connecting with
organizations that are close enough for students to access. In this case, find ways for students to
contribute virtual work. Students can measure their impact from afar, either by tracking the number of

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 times a video has been viewed, or by getting updates from the organization on how they were able to use
their work.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
trouble-shoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

Students will be paired into teams according to the list made by teacher. Students will be instructed to sit
next his/her partner. Once correct teams are made, teacher will go over Project Guidelines and show
students where they can be located. The tech tool Seesaw will be the electronic portfolio where students
will keep all electronic worksheets, Daily Reflections, Rubrics, etc. The teacher will tell students they
will regularly access and add to their folders over the life of the project. Teacher will explain to students
that the goal is to benefit a community, solve a problem, help a population, or otherwise positively
engage their community. The students have access to 7 functioning desktops and 15 iPads. The teacher
to conduct the project does a great job of continuously using technology via station rotation models that
have been adopted by the school. The students are not allowed to take devices home, however, all
students have access to personal devices at home. Technology will be used to collect, create and produce
information. As far a troubleshooting, the project was created with hard copies of all activities and
students will have access to the lesson if they should run into an issue.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or
creativity levels of Blooms Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic,
relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge
and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other
and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?

The teacher will let students know their work will be showcased at school for other students, teachers,
administrators, and parents to see; students generate high quality work when they embrace the idea that
they have an audience waiting to see what they have produced. Teacher will then conduct a discussion
in which he will ask students which parts of the video most resonated with them. Did a person featured
on the video mention an activity that sounded particularly interesting (such as helping animals or
delivering toys to sick children)? Did anyone featured on the video mention a problem that is
particularly concerning to the students (such as smoking, littering, or homelessness)? Did anyone
mention a group in the community that the students were not aware needed help (such as orphaned
children, victims of a natural disaster, or sufferers of a disability)? Teacher will take note of students
reactions to the activities mentioned by the adults and let it form conversations and brainstorming
sessions going forward.

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 The Civic Responsibility project teaches students the following English and Social Studies
concepts and skills and how to apply them in a real-world context:

The learners will apply knowledge of different writing skills for varied purposes and audiences.
The learner will investigate how to work with adults and community stakeholders in the real world.
The learners will identify and define problems in the community.
The learners will demonstrate and produce towards solutions for specific social, environmental, or
cultural issues in the community.
The learners will manage, record, and analyze the results of work in the real world.
The learners will create and present work to a variety of audiences.

Technology Use:
Students will have the choice of creating their final product with one of the following tools:
SWAY (Presentation Tool)
FlipGrid (can also use to document project journey)
PowerPoint (Presentation Tool)
Office Mix (Presentation Tool)
Animoto (Presentation Tool)
iPad (Used for Research, Collaboration/Communication and documentation)
Desktop Computers (Used for Research, Collaboration/Communication and documentation
Students will use Seesaw to document experience and answer questions such as:
o What is the problem?
o Who is affected by this problem?
o Why is it a problem?
o Who can help you with this project?
o What are you going to do about the problem?
o What steps will you take to solve this problem?
o Who will benefit from this solution?
o How can you measure whether you made a difference?
o How did you make a difference?
Seesaw will also be used for Daily Reflections where students will set goals, state obstacles and
give solutions of how they overcame those obstacles.
MS Excel (input and analyze data collected. This data will also be in presentation with
explanations students provide.)
Padlet (collect brainstorming ideas in the beginning stages if the process.)

Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)
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 Students responses to the driving question will yield an array of subjects they can explore in more depth
over the life of the project. Direct students to consider the following Driving Question and to reflect on
how it will underscore their work:
How can we make a positive difference in our community?
Time will be given to allow time for teams to personalize this question and develop an understanding of
what each part of it means. Enrich their thinking with questions such as:
What parts of your community exist to make positive difference? (Hospitals, senior citizens
centers, homeless shelters, firefighters, police, lifeguards, libraries, animal shelters, schools,
churches, community centers, public/government facilities, etc.)
What parts of your community interest you the most? (Parks, lakes, malls, recreational trails,
community centers, museums, schools, theaters, farms, city centers, etc.)
What parts of your community experience problems? (Do libraries need more books?
Teacher will share with students the list of organizations that have already been contacted. (These
will be placed up in the room.)
The list will be partial and students will be able to add to it.
1) Ask students if anyone in their family is involved in civic activities. Students answers will be added
to the list over the coming days, as they ask around at home about the topic. Teacher will also add every
organization or activity mentioned in the video that was showed in the Entry Event.
2) With teacher guidance, students will match organizations to the problems the class identified. For
example, for animal-related problems, you could match the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals (SPCA), an animal-training organization, or pet shop that facilitates adoptions.
Teacher Note: It is not necessary that every group partner with a different organization; one
organization may end up helping several teams in the class.

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
In what ways was this lesson effective?
What went well and why?
What did not go well and why?
How would you teach this lesson differently?)

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 The Make A Difference: Civic Responsibility project offers multiple opportunities for students to
present their work. Students will create real work that serves a need or function in their community, and
they will showcase this work and the results it generated to a public audience back at school. Students
have multiple opportunities to bring their work into the real world, see how it is used by real
stakeholders in the community, and then explain these artifacts and experiences to audiences of peers,
teachers, family members, and the broader community. Students will have a choice of which technology
tool to use to create their final products. Technology will also utilize for collaboration and
communication with team members and the organizations they will partner with. Student will use
technology to document their experience and to answer important questions related to the project that
will assist them with executing effectively during the process. Lastly, students will use technology to
document, analyze and present their finding.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.

This project was very enriching and challenging at the same time. By challenging, I mean it stretched
me as a technology facilitator and leader. Following the showcase, we had the opportunity to debrief the
work with the students and celebrate their successes. I assisted the teacher in grading work using the
rubrics provided. Students did a great job of following the rubrics to the best of their abilities. Students
had a chance to look through their many work samples, their displays from the showcase, and the
evidence of the good work they did in the community. Students also looked through their Seesaw
portfolios, revisit their Daily Reflection Sheets, and consider all that they experienced throughout the
project. There was a class discussion conducted and students were asked to reflect on the meaning and
value of their experience. Students answered questions such as; What did they like best? When did they
feel successful? How might they continue helping their community? How might they grow up to be
amazing students and positive members of the community?

The advice I would give to others who may be thinking of conducting this lesson would be to make sure
they make the project their own. Be sure to make the content and strategies used align to your students
and/or their needs and interest. Some of the components that were in this project may or may not be
suitable for the goal one may be attempting to achieve, therefore, the teacher has to be familiar with the
demographics of her students.

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