Rowan University Early Childhood Education Program

edTPA/NAEYC/Danielson Learning Experience Plan

Candidate Name: Subject/Grade/Program Type:

Jessica Ansalone Literacy Science Math /Kindergarten/Inclusive

Date: Title of the Lesson:

10/28/20 Sink or Float?

Resources/Materials:
(Danielson 1d)
Bowl of Water
Acorn
Leaf
Bonus item of choice
Youtube Video
Dry Erase Board
Dry Erase Marker
Seesaw Activity

Objective

Expected Learning Students will be able to (SWBAT):

(NAEYC 5a, 5b, 5c;
Danielson 1a) To define the words sink and float and identify which objects sink and float.

Justification Describe how prior assessment determined the content and complexity of the lesson. Cite
(edTPA 1, 2, 3; NAEYC research and theory to justify your instructional decisions.
3a, 3b, 3c, 5a, 5b, 5c;
Danielson 1b) The students have not completed a lot of science lessons so far this year because they
focus on science in the spring. This lesson included a lot of new content so it was a
priority to find a video that explained the concept of sink and float, and performing a live
experience with the students. They worked hands on to complete this activity. This lesson
follows Piaget’s theory because the students are working hands on and learning by doing
the activity.

Academic Language What words and phrases will children need to know and use? Include subject-specific and
(edTPA 4) general academic vocabulary.
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Words the students will learn are density and molecules. The students will learn and have
to know the differences between sink and float because it is a part of our experience and
home activity to find objects that sink or float.

Content Standards What are the standards (include number & text) addressed by this lesson? How will you
(Danielson 1A) ensure interdisciplinary learning with standards from more than one content area?

● NJSLSA.R7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and

formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. *
● KCC C.6 Compare numbers: Identify whether the number of objects in one
group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another
group, e.g., by using matching and counting strategies.
● K.MD.A.1: Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight.
Describe several measurable attributes of a single object. (K-PS2-1)
● K-2-ETS1-2: The shape and stability of structures of natural and designed objects
are related to their function(s).

Assessment Pre-Assessment Checking for Post-Assessment

(edTPA 5; NAEYC 3a, Results of formal or Understanding How will you assess
3b, 3c; Danielson, 1c, informal check for How will you assess children’s knowledge and
1f) children’s prior children's emerging skills after instruction? What
knowledge and skills knowledge and skills quantitative or qualitative
regarding the objective. during instruction? data will you collect?

Before the lesson, I will I will be showing a youtube After the lesson is over, I will
do an activity on Seesaw video that shows sinking and ask the students to complete
that asks the students to floating and explaining why an activity on Seesaw. The
predict if these items some items sink and some students will be asked to go
will sink or float. The items float. Before the video, on a scavenger hunt in their
items that are shown are I introduced the terms density house and find two items that
an acorn, a leaf, and a and molecules. I explained float and two items that will
pumpkin. The students how if an object has a lot of sink. After they find those
will be asked to circle density, it has tightly packed items, they will test it out and
their answer so I can use molecules. If an object is not upload a picture of those
it towards my lesson. dense, molecules are loosely items to the Seesaw activity.
The students are also packed. After the video, the Then, the students will be
asked to record students will have the asked to record themselves
themselves explaining supplies in front of them to telling me what their items
why they think that item complete the experiment with are and why they think they
floats or sinks. This will me. The students will also be sank or floated. From this
help me see what they bringing a bonus item of activity, I will know if the
choice and explaining to the
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already know about this class what it is, give details of students understood the
concept and what I it, if they think it will sink or concept of the lesson and
should focus on. Also, float, and then test it out to now understand the
to see if they know what the class. These are the differences between sink and
these objects are, I will questions I will be asking the float. The data I will collect
ask them to go on a students throughout the will be from Seesaw after
scavenger hunt outside lesson. they complete this activity.
with a parent and find
these items to bring to What does it mean when an
the live lesson. object sinks?

What does it mean when an

object floats?

What does the leaf look like?

Is the leaf heavy or light?

What does the acorn look

like?

Is the acorn heavy or light?

What does your object look

like?

Is your object heavy or light?

Do you think your object will

float or sink?

Why do you think my

pumpkin floated?

Learning Experience Overview: Brief sequence of learning experiences that you create for children to meet
(edTPA 4, 8; NAEYC objective within the allotted (yet flexible) time frames. Show the logical flow including an
5a, 5b, 5c; Danielson 3a, interesting opening, designed learning experiences, ongoing checking for understanding,
3b, 3c, 2a) and closure. Describe how vocabulary learning will be facilitated.

This lesson will start with reviewing our homework assignment from the previous day.
The students had to decide whether or not an acorn, leaf, and pumpkin float. I will have a
chart created using tally marks to show how many students voted for float and how many
voted for sink. (3 minutes). Then, I will introduce two new words the students will hear in
the video, density and molecules. The students will then watch a two minute video about
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sink and float (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dyCe1GPagE stop at 2:00). At the

end of the video, I will review and summarize the video and the words density and
molecules. (3 minutes). Then, I will have the students get their bowl of water ready and
perform the experiment with me. We will start with the acorn and leaf, then I will show
them a pumpkin. We will be talking about what the objects look like, how they feel, and if
they are heavy or light. Then, the students were asked to bring 1 additional item and they
will have the spotlight (zoom tool) on them to show the class what it is and why they
think it will sink or float. Then, they will put it in a bowl of water and show if it sinks or
floats. (15 minutes). Finally, I will review the terms density and molecules with the
students and allow time for questions if they have any. I will also review their seesaw
activity that is to be completed at home. (30 minutes total).

Elements of an Effective Learning Environment

1) Differentiation How will you ensure that children of various interests, readiness levels, and learning
(edTPA 6, 7, 8; NAEYC profiles are engaged in active and multimodal learning experiences/assessments?
4b, 4c, 4d; Danielson
3d) and Multimodality I will ensure that the students' needs at various levels are met by having them be involved
(edTPA 1; NAEYC 4b, in the activity and perform the activity at home with me. Allowing the students to do the
4c, 4d) activity with me and having them bring an item of their choice will give them the
opportunity to become more involved and practice language skills. I modeled how to do
the experiment and allowed the student to be the teacher with their object and explain to
the class independently what it is and if it sinks or floats. The students will explain to the
class what the object of their choice is and show the class if that object will sink or float.
The video will also show the students visually the concept of sinking and floating as well
as the hands-on experiment.

2) Assets of Diverse How will you support/challenge children with IEPs or 504 plans, ELLs, children at
Learners different points of development, struggling readers, and/or gifted children?
(edTPA 6, 7; NAEYC
1c; Danielson 1b) In my placement, I do not have any students who have IEPs, 504 plans, ELLs and Gifted
students. Although the children are at different levels, I allowed the students to bring an
object of their own to test out which allows them to learn if that object will sink or float.
The students were also asked to predict each item students brought if it would sink or
float. The student would tell the class what the item was, and the class would do thumbs
up if it would float and thumbs down if it would sink.

3) Intellectual Growth How will you promote correctness/accuracy, cognitive complexity, sophistication and
(edTPA 6, 8; elaboration of responses, and/or quality of explanations?
NAEYC 4d)
Class discussions will take place before and after the activity and video about what we
already knew and learned from the lesson. I will also allow time for questions if the
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students do not understand a word or concept at the end of the lesson. I will also give
other students the opportunities to answer that question so it can create discussions
between the students.

4) Self-Regulation and How will you support development of self-regulation, student autonomy, and leadership?
Autonomy
(edTPA 6, 8; These activities are created based on the students' learning needs. The activities during
NAEYC 4d; Danielson my lesson and at home will allow students to use what they already know and learned to
2b, 3b, 3d) answer questions independently. This lesson fosters leadership because they will have the
opportunity to show an object to the class, tell them if they think it sinks or floats, show
the class if it did sink or float, then explain to the class why they think that happened.

5) Instructional How will you support students to understand and use teacher/peer feedback on their
Feedback strengths and weaknesses related to the learning objective?
(edTPA 7, 8, 9, 12, 13;
Danielson 3d) Support will be given regarding instructional feedback by using it towards future
assignments and assessments to make sure that they are understanding the previous
content before moving onto more advanced content.

6) Home/Community How will you connect learning to families and communities, including children’s everyday
Link experiences, cultural and language backgrounds/practices, and/or interests?
(NAEYC 2a, 2b, 2c)
I will connect families and the community in this lesson because the students were asked
to go outside and find the objects with a parent and they were able to bring an object of
their choice to the live session and share it to the class. The parents are also able to
participate by helping the students find the items, set them up, and perform the activity
with the class. The seesaw activity for after the lesson has the students go on a scavenger
hunt at home and find two items that sink and two items that float. The families can be
involved by testing out different objects together and figuring out what sinks and what
floats.

7) Building Positive How will you encourage initiative, engagement and persistence, creativity and
Approaches to imagination, problem-solving, and/or application of learning to new situations?
Learning (
edTPA 8, 10) We will encourage different approaches to learning by having them engage and use
cognitive skills to remember what they already know and have observed during the live
lesson of the experiment. I will also have them use their imagination if they cannot
remember the difference between sink or float to guess what the objects will do in the
water. I will also use hand gestures to demonstrate the differences. Sitting on top means
floating and resting on the bottom means sinking.
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8) Play as Best How will you promote learning through play (i.e., dramatic/role play; games;
Practice construction; hands-on experiments; engagement with open-ended, multi-use materials)?
(edTPA 6, 10; NAEYC
4b, 4c) I will promote learning through play by having the students take time to go outside and
complete at scavenger hunt before the lesson, then complete a scavenger hunt again but to
find specific items. The specifics they will be looking for is two items that sink and two
items that float. They will also be performing hands-on experiments during the live
session and at home for the post-assessment.

9) Social, Emotional, What specific skills will you address regarding social (relational), emotional (feeling),
and Physical and physical (moving/doing) aspects of development along a continuum of growth?
Development
(edTPA 6; NAEYC 1a, We will focus on the developmental skills mentioned above my having the students give
1b, 1c, 4d) examples of items from their house and explain to the class what it is and why they think
that item will sink or float. Additionally, collaboration will be encouraged that supports
the students development by having whole class discussions and student led discussions.

Reflection (complete Analyze your impact on student learning of the objective:

after the lesson is 1) Summarize the group’s learning in a table, chart, or paragraph.
done) (NAEYC 3a, 3b, 2) Analyze a student’s work/feedback: First, identify what they understood and did
3c, 6c, 6d, 6e; edTPA well. Second, identify common errors, confusions, need for greater challenge.
12, 13, 14, 15) Evidence should include student’s use of academic language.
3) Propose changes that address children’s individual and collective learning needs
related to the objective based on your assessment and research/theory.

1. My students learned about sinking and floating. They learned new vocabulary
words such as density, molecules, and the difference between sinking and
floating.. A youtube video helped explain the differences to the students and gave
a few examples of items that sink and items that float. I taught this lesson twice
because my class is split into two cohorts and my CT asked I teach this lesson to
both. The students were asked to bring a leaf, an acorn, and a bowl of water to
perform the experiment with me. Also, the students were asked to bring a bonus
item of choice to show the class if it sinks or floats.
2. The students understood the concept of sinking and floating and what to expect
from each. The hands on activity and video helped the students better understand
the differences and see physically the differences between the items. Common
confusions I noticed for a few students were they were mixing up the meaning of
sinking and floating. Some students in my pre assessment thought sinking meant
floating and floating meant sinking. The hands on activity and youtube video
shown helped the students better understand the difference and know correctly
what each word means and does. Although the two new terms density and
molecules are a little advanced for the students, it was still important to introduce
the meaning since they will be using those vocabulary terms in the future.
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3. Some changes I would make for future lessons is reflecting back on the
pre-assessment more to remind the students what they thought would happen
before seeing if the objects sink or float. It will teach the students the actual
meaning of the words and correct them if there were any mistakes.

Assessment Plan:

My lesson connects to the learning objectives and standards because they will be

physically completing a sink or float activity with me, identify each item's characteristics

(heavy/light, color, size), and learn new terms. This is an appropriate measure of instruction

because the students have not touched on a lot of science yet this year and I felt that this was a

great learning experience for the students to complete something hands on, engaging, and

learning. The pre-assessment for my lesson was an activity I posted on seesaw that gave the

students a list of items and they were to identify if those items sink or float. Then during my

lesson, the students were taught what exactly sinking and floating means, what makes an object

sink or float, and then we completed an activity together. The post-assessment asked the

students to find 2 items in their homes that sink and 2 items that float. They were then asked to

record themselves explaining why those items sink and float and post it on Seesaw for my CT

and I to review. This was the assessment I used to make sure the students were understanding

and completed the activity correctly.

Student stayed 3 2 1
seated, listened, and Student stayed Student was paying Student was
did not move their seated and paid attention but did distracted and kept
device. attention the whole leave the seat once. getting up from his
time. seat.

Student comprehend 3 2 1
the context of Understood all parts Understood ⅔ of the Understood ⅓ to
sinking and floating of sinking and sinking and floating almost none of the
floating lesson sinking and floating
lesson

Student answered 3 2 1
reflection and Answered questions Answered questions Needed help
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comprehension without needing with minimal understanding and

questions assistance assistance answering the
question

Completed all parts 3 2 1

of take home activity Completed all parts Missed one part of Completed less than
of activity activity half of what was
asked in the activity

I gave the students clear directions in the beginning of the lesson about what is expected

behaviourally and what is to be expected during the lesson. I gave them a verbal outline of

what the lesson is going to be about and what we will be completing as a class together. We

used real world connections and examples from what they have experienced involving

sinking and floating and finding new items that sink/float.

This lesson had a developmentally appropriate “complex” challenge because I asked

questions throughout the lesson and was looking for students to learn about new terms and use

them in sentences when giving answers. For the students who had a difficult time with the

questions given, I asked easier and more basic questions to see if they understood what the

difference was between sinking and floating. It is important to do that to make sure that all

students understand, are paying attention, and following along with the assignment. There were

no modifications for advanced/gifted learners because we do not have any students identified

as gifted/advanced. I asked students questions within a range of difficulty levels that met with

each student's academic level.