Georgia Southwestern State University Lesson Plan Guidelines

Created by GSW School of Education

EDEC 4200 Spring 2016
(Revised by L. Larsen)
Name: Sara Hall
Lesson Date: 3/9/16
Lesson Start Time: 10:50 Lesson End Time: 11:40
Classroom/Lesson Context
__20__ Whole Group _____ Small Group _____ One-on-One
Please specify the number of students:
__9___ Girls __11___Boys
Learning Central Focus
A. Lesson Plan Title: ___Wedges_____
B. Grade Level: __4th____
C. Central Focus:
The central focus of this lesson is for the students to gain a true understanding of what a
wedge is and to be able to explain its uses.
D. Content Standard:
S4P3. Students will demonstrate the relationship between the application of a force and the
resulting change in position and motion on an object.
a. Identify simple machines and explain their uses (lever, pulley, wedge, inclined plane,
screw, wheel and axle).
Student Learning Goal(s)/ Objective(s):
A. Skills/procedures:
The students will be identifying a wedge and explaining its uses. They will perform an
activity relating to wedges.
B. Prior Academic Knowledge and Conceptions:

In order to be successful in this lesson, the students will need to know how to write a
constructed response. The students also need know the safety rules of experiments and the
importance of following directions. Most of these students have the prior knowledge that is
needed to succeed in this lesson. The students all have the ability to do well with the
reading, writing, and verbal aspects of this lesson.
Common Errors, Developmental Approximations, Misconceptions, Partial
Understandings, or Misunderstandings:
Some students may think that a wedge does not make work easier. They may also have the
misconception that simple machines do the work for us. The students may think that the
box split through the rice more efficiently than the tube (wedge). I will address this confusion
by giving clear and detailed information about the wedge and its purpose of making work
easier.
Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks
A. Launch: ___5____ Minutes
To start the lesson, I will tell the class that today we will be learning about wedges, one of
the six simple machines. I will then ask Can anyone raise their hand and tell me what a
wedge is? After the students have answered, I will ask Did any of you know that we have a
wedge as a part of our body? After hearing the students answer yes or no, I will instruct
them to use their tongues to feel of their front teeth. I will then explain to the students that
when we bite into food, our teeth act as a wedge and separate the food into a smaller piece
for us to chew. I will instruct the students to sit quietly and pay attention as we begin our
instruction time.
B. Instruction: ___10____ Minutes
I will begin instruction by explaining to the students that a wedge is a simple machine that
makes work easier for us to do. I will inform them that wedges work by putting a narrow end
into something that we want to come apart, and applying force to the wider end. I will
provide each student with a copy of Simple Machines: The Wedge, a passage about
wedges. I will then ask the students to listen closely and follow along as I read the passage
about wedges aloud to them. After reading the passage I will ask the students if they have
any questions and answer any of the questions that they may have.
C. Structured Practice and Application: ___30_____ Minutes
Guided Practice After having the students listen to me read the passage about wedges
during instruction, we will go back and read the passage aloud together. I will tell the
students that while we are reading, we will be pausing to underline important phrases about
wedges as we come across them in the passage. I will inform the students to pay close
attention, because this will help them to write a constructed response about wedges that
will be assigned once we are finished reading.
Independent Practice I will give the students instructions to individually write a short
constructed response in the space provided on their worksheet. We will quickly review the
guidelines of a constructed response. I will tell them that in their responses, they will be

showing what they have learned from the passage and explaining how wedges can make
work easier. I will ask the students to flip their papers over once they are finished and read
their library books quietly while everyone else completes their work. After everyone is
finished I will take up all of the papers and check for evidence that the students have an
understanding of the passage.
Guided Practice This guided practice will be an activity on wedges. The students will be
split up into 4 groups of 5. I will provide each student with a Wedges to the Rescue
worksheet that they will be completing throughout the activity. I will tell the students what
materials the activity will consist of, then present the question at the top of their worksheets,
How might a wedge be used to make work easier? The students will then fill out their
Hypothesis about what they think will happen with the experiment and explain their
reasoning. I will then provide each group with a pan of uncooked rice, a tube of toothpaste,
and the toothpaste box. The students will be told to follow instructions and to not touch
anything until told to do so. After all of the groups have received their materials, I will begin
going over the procedure they will follow as it is explained on their papers. First, the will
make sure that the pan is evenly covered with rice. They will place the block into the rice so
that it is submerged in the rice. The students will then take turns pushing the block to the
opposite side of the baking sheet paying attention to the amount of force used and noticing
what happens to the rice. Next, they will repeat the pushing using the wedge which is the
toothpaste tube. After all of the members of each group have had a chance to take part in
the activity, the materials will be cleared and the students will sit down at their desks with
their worksheets.
Independent Practice Once the children have all returned to their seats, I will begin giving
them instructions for their independent practice. The children will be told that the group
work is over and they will complete their worksheet individually without the help of their
neighbors. On their own, the students will describe what happened in the experiment. They
will then explain what they learned from the experiment. I will have the students turn in
their papers when they are finished so that I can determine from their responses whether or
not they benefited from the experiment.
D. Closure: ___5____ Minutes
I will end the lesson by asking the students to tell me what our lesson was about? On a
small piece of paper, I will have the students write down one thing that they learned about
wedges and give them to me on their way out of class as a ticket out of the door. I will
check their slips of paper to ensure correct responses as each student passes.

Differentiation/ Planned Support

Students will receive instruction in multiple learning styles in order to help each student
understand the content. Students will also receive hands-on work. They will be able to work
in groups as well as work individually. Prior knowledge needed for this lesson will be
reviewed during instruction of the independent practice when we review the guidelines for a
constructed response. Should this not be sufficient for some students, I will provide support
that is needed throughout the lesson.

A. Student Interactions
The students will work in groups of 5 during the guided practice segment of the lesson
when they are performing the experiment on wedges. Students will be placed into groups
based on their academic level. The lower level students will work with higher level students
for the support that may be needed to complete the experiment successfully.
B. What Ifs
The copy machine may not be working. I would then not be able to make copies of the
worksheet and passage for each of the students to have. If this were to happen, I would
have to be prepared to have an alternate way to provide the students with this material. I
could project an image of the papers onto the board using an elmo device. I would also
need to have some notebook paper on hand to supply the students with so that they could
have something to complete their work on.

Theoretical Principles and/or Research Based Best Practices

The learning tasks for this lesson are appropriate for my student because the transfer of
learning is taking place. The students read through the passage Simple Machines: The
Wedge and write about the important information that they discovered while reading. They
then must transfer this information to the experiment that the complete next. If they do not
transfer the information over that they learned about wedges, they will not have the knowledge
necessary to fully understand what is taking place in the experiment. When transfer of learning
occurs, it is in the form of meanings, expectations, generalizations, concepts, or insights that are
developed in one learning situation being employed in others (Bigge and Shermis, 1992).
Materials
For this lesson, the teacher will need Simple Machine: The Wedge passage, baking sheet,
uncooked rice, toothpaste tube, toothpaste box, Wedges to the Rescue worksheet, and small
slips of paper.
The students will each need a pencil and their library book.
Vocabulary
Simple machines, lever, pulley, inclined plane, wheel and axle, wedge, screw, constructed
response
Analyzing Teaching
A. Worked/Didnt Work

Reading the passage aloud to the students before we read it together as a class seemed to help
the students read the words correctly and at an appropriate pace compared to times that they
have read a passage aloud the first time reading it. This seemed to benefit the whole class.
Some of the students that have attention disorders had a challenging time following instructions
during the experiment. They were tempted to play in the rice instead of go through the steps of
the experiment that were instructed.
B. Adjustments
When deciding that the students will be doing a constructing response over the passage,
Simple Machines: The Wedge, I will go back and edit the paper. To make it easier for the
students to look back at their facts on wedges and transfer information into a constructed
response, I will add lines underneath the passage. The students will use this space to write
their responses.
C. Proposed Changes
Whole group: I would include a book on wedges with a variety of pictures that they students
could pass around the class and get a good look at. I wanted to include one in this lesson,
but I did not have time to order the kind that I was looking for.
Group of Students: I may give a little more instruction for the groups as they experiment. I
would inform them of specific consequences for not following directions and doing what they
are told.
Individual Students: I would maybe give the students more freedom over their constructed
responses. Instead of going through the passage Simple Machines: The Wedge and
underlining important parts, I would consider giving the students more independence over
what important information they put in their responses.
D. Justification
These changes will improve student learning by giving more detail to the lesson. It would
also help the students work on picking out important information more independently
instead of being lead to the important facts.