Incorporating Additional Objectives for a More Challenging Lesson Plan

           My lesson plan is designed for 6^th grade middle school students. It is an in-class assignment and activity that consists of students learning how to read and understand the Nutritional Value Label on breakfast cereals and apply that understanding for future references. I plan on adding more objectives to create a more challenging lesson plan. A change in difficulty will mean a change in the length of the lesson. Initially this lesson was intended to be completed within one 80-minute class period, but due to the addition of objectives and harder difficulty, this lesson will now be aimed to be completed in two 80-minute class periods. The additional objectives I will include in my lesson plan are a short verbal quiz, an essay of what students have learned, and a presentation of that essay by the student in front of the class.

            In the beginning of this lesson, students will be taught how to identify the fat, sugar, and sodium on a Nutritional Value Label by watching a short video on YouTube. Students will learn and understand the components of a Nutritional Value Label and how to properly read it. After watching the video, I, as the teacher, will test my students’ understanding of the video and present them a short verbal quiz. Each student will be called upon and be given a random question to answer that pertained to the video. As a teacher, I feel that this method of quizzing students verbally will enable students to answer the question given to them with the utmost competence, having to relate back to what they have watched in the video about the Nutritional Value Label.

            After learning and understanding the parts of a Nutritional Value Label and applying that understanding to the breakfast cereal activity, students will be asked to write an essay about what they have learned from this lesson. Students already have the knowledge to differentiate what kinds of breakfast cereals are considered healthy and unhealthy by analyzing the amount of fat, sugar, and sodium each cereal contains. A significant aspect I expect my students to write about in this essay is the importance/meaning of this lesson to them. I feel that by having my students express their views, feelings, and concerns about a certain topic is indeed challenging, but stimulating at the same time. I do not expect my students to write an academic essay, but more so, a reflective essay. According to Watton, Collings, and Moon (2001), reflective writing allows individual to “deepen the learning from work” (p. 4).

            At the end of this lesson and activity, students will read what they had written in their reflective essay in front of the class. This part of the lesson will demonstrate each students’ ability to present in front of an audience. Although presenting in front of an audience is difficult for many students, I feel that it is best to develop and practice presentation skills at an early age. It will allow students to grow into more comfortable and competent presenters in the future. Also, this activity will give other students a chance to attentively listen and observe their fellow classmates present, creating a profound understanding of the subject at hand in different points of views.

            The additions to my lesson plan are not made to discourage my students, but to stretch and challenge them in positive ways. A lesson plan does not need to be difficult, but instead a doable demand in which students are capable of moving forward (Scrivener & Adrian Underhill, 2012). In my new lesson plan, I incorporated three new objectives. I included a short verbal quiz, an essay, and a presentation. These new components of my lesson plan will teach students how to recall, reflect, and reveal their understanding of what is being taught. Challenging students means deeper thinking.