Term III Social Studies Lesson plan for Jesse Gottschalk (3rd grade) - DRAFT Intended implementation dates:

: Tuesday, November 26 Topic: What is fairness? Goals & Objectives SWBAT articulate a Is this a single, you know, consensus definition of fairness? definition of fairness, and apply it SWBAT will be able to craft personal definitions of fairness and apply them IOT assess the fairness of various situations. SWBAT understand fairness as a concept that can have different meanings and interpretations IOT discuss and describe their personal perspectives on fairness under different contexts.

Standards NCSS Standards: Thematic standards 1. Civic Ideals and Practices (Teachers should assist learners in understanding the origins and continuing influence of key ideals of the democratic republican form of government, such as individual human dignity, liberty, justice, equality, and the rule of law) a. Also, this lesson can in some ways be a preface to some other standards, including: i. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions (Teachers should help learners to describe and examine belief systems basic to specific traditions and laws in contemporary and historical societies) ii. Power, Authority, and Governance (Teachers should provide opportunities for learners to examine issues involving the rights, roles, and status of individuals in relation to the general welfare, and help learners to analyze and explain governmental mechanisms to meet the needs and wants of citizens) iii. Production, Distribution, and Consumption (Teachers should help learners critically examine the values and assumptions underlying the theories and models of economics) Disciplinary standards 1. Economics (Different methods can be used to allocate goods and services. People, acting individually or collectively through government, must choose which methods to use to allocate different kinds of goods and services.) a. Although it is less connected to the language of the Civics and Government standard, it clearly has important and direct connections (it could be interpreted to relate to, assist learners in developing an understanding of civic life, politics, and government, so that the learners can explore the origins of governmental authority, recognize the need for government; identify the crucial functions of government, including laws and rules; evaluate rules and laws; differentiate between limited and unlimited government; and appreciate the importance of limitations on government power.) PA Common Core standards

1. C.C.1.5.3.A: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions on gradelevel topics and texts, buildin g on others ideas and expressing their own clearly. 2. C.C.1.4.3.I: Support an opinion with reasons. Materials & Prep Materials: 1. Bowl with 8 marbles 2. Sticky notes with scenarios written on them (2 copies of each see plan below for what they will say), numbered. 3. Extra sticky notes 4. Sharpened pencils 5. Easel or large paper to mount on wall 6. Markers Preparation: 1. The primary prep work will be writing out the scenarios on the sticky notes; to save time, I will probably type and print them, then tape them on the notes. 2. Prep will also be necessary to prepare the work space (see arrangement below). 3. One student (and only one) should be quietly encouraged to bring a pencil to the activity. Classroom arrangement & management issues Classroom arrangement may be a bit tricky because our classroom has virtually no wall space available, and this plan is reliant on that. I will either attempt to use a different classroom (if prep times align), or else I will do the activity in the hallway (which would not be unprecedented). However, the hallway is rife with distractions, so this is also not ideal. Either way, I will need to make arrangements in advance. My lesson space will need two sections of empty wall, as well as a place for me to take public notes (either an easel or a piece of poster paper). The plan 1. Whole group a. Prep: (As I gather the students, Ill try to quietly ask one student, but not all of them, to bring a pencil). You could also give one child a pencil. Either way, I like this for the sense of speculation inherent of it all. This is a meta-lesson about the passage of time and the changing patterns of historiographic interpretation. b. Discussion: Ask students to, in their mind, think about what it means for something to be fair. i. Present norms of discussion were going to be talking about things where you guys might disagree, and I need you all to treat that as okay. There arent going to be wrong answers to any of the questions we ask, but I do expect you to think hard about your answers, be ready to explain them, and listen respectfully to each others answers. c. Activity: I have a bowl of 8 marbles. If I wanted to give them out to you guys, what would be a fair way to do it? i. Choose one student volunteer to share their answer.

Commented [JG1]: Is it? Please explain!

ii. Show me let the student distribute the marbles according to their described method. iii. Ask the class was this fair? Can you think of any other ways he could have shared the marbles? iv. (If the student didnt give me any marbles): What about me? Dont I get any? 1. If they say yes: But youve already given them all out how can we give some to me? 2. If they say no: Why not? Do the rest of you agree that I shouldnt get any marbles? I like this questioning very much. Might you find a way to have them write a response to this demonstration of fairness (as a basis for each students contribution to discussion)? You could cap the response at, say, three sentences. Also: you have a great chance to teach context-specific synonyms for fairness here. For instance, you could distinguish between egalitarian and equitable. v. (If the student did give me some marbles): I dont actually need any of these. I wanted you guys to have them. What should I do with mine? vi. Recap: what made this fair? 1. Write words/phrases on the board. d. Activity: For this next part, we need to do some writing who needs a pencil? i. (Hand out pencils to students who dont have one) ii. Was that fair, the way I gave them out? But I didnt give everybody the same number. Why was that still fair?1 2. Partner work a. Introduction: What I hope you see is that fairness might not always be as simple as everyone gets the same, and that different people might have different opinions. i. Present and walk through the next task: b. Partner Task 1: Each pair will receive three large sticky notes. They must arrange them on the wall. The more fair it is, the higher on the wall they should put it. The less fair, the lower they should put it. You might like to classify the degrees of fairness, too. As in Top Third: Fair to All; Middle Third: Fair to Some; Bottom Third: Fair to None. One ambiguity/misconception point that you can demystify before they even begin assessing fairness. i. Model an example: Mr. G. brings a bag of candy to class and gives one piece to every student. Ask the group if they think its fair; if they say its very fair, post it high up. Show that, if they thought it was very unfair, I would post it on the bottom. ii. Present rules for partner work: one partner must read aloud each sticky note. They must both say where they think it belongs. If they disagree, they should try to convince each other. (If they still disagree, Ill step in and consider allowing them to hold on to it and explain their decision to the class later, but I dont want to give that as an option right off the bat.)
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Commented [JG2]: I like this, but I worry that, for some of my students, even that will be a fairly daunting task, so I think I dont want to interrupt the flow of this section. Commented [JG3]: Agreed! Ill have this prepared, but gauge whether to introduce it according to student engagement (if theyre having trouble with engagement, Id probably try to move quickly to the partner work and then circle back to these concepts at the end).

Commented [JG4]: I worry that this would cause a problem for the next activity, where students will be ranking a large number of notes if I present this as three categories, rather than a continuous spectrum, it may be less mystifying but it could also encourage students to cluster their responses together instead of ranking them comparatively.

This part of the lesson is shamelessly lifted from here: http://teachersnetwork.org/tnli/nyc/cfe/wynn2.htm. I can cite this more formally in the final version.

I like this partner arbitration business. Great. You might think about how to model being convincing without being forceful. iii. Sticky notes, round 1:2 1. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He gives each student a slice that looks the same. 2. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He asks the students, Are you hungry? Everyone who says Yes! gets a slice. 3. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He gives it all to his favorite student. c. Partner Task 2: i. If both pairs appear to go through Task 1 at similar rates, I will wait and introduce Task 2 to both at once; if one group finishes Task 1 much faster than the other, I may simply allow them to move on to Task 2 immediately. ii. Task 2 has the same procedure as Task 1, but now they have a lot more sticky notes to use. iii. Sticky notes, round 2: 4. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He sells the slices for $1. 5. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He eats it all by himself. 6. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He gives a slice to every student who didnt eat breakfast. 7. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He gives a slice to every student who has good behavior all day. 8. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He breaks it into 700 crumbs, and gives one to every teacher and student in the school. 9. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. Ms. Arafin says, No cake in the classroom! and she eats the whole cake. 10. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He gives a slice to every student who answers a math problem. 11. Mr. G. brings a cake to school. He puts it in the middle of the room, gives everyone a fork, and says come eat it! i. If one pair is moving at a much slower pace than the other pair, I may only give the slower pair a subset of these (including at least 4-7). This is a terrifically thorough investigation of the scenario. Im delighted to read all of this. b. Partner Task 3: i. When both pairs are finished, they will be asked to swap places and without touching the notes, to quietly examine the way that the other pair ranked their answers. 1. I will make sure to explain and model what is appropriate/inappropriate discourse during this time (speak respectfully; this is an opinion issue, just because you disagree doesnt make them wrong, but you should use it as an opportunity to talk to your partner and explain why you disagree). 3. Whole group debrief a. Teacher should notice a few items both similarities and differences and ask students to comment on them. Examples:
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Formatted: Numbered + Level: 2 + Numbering Style: a, b, c, + Start at: 1 + Alignment: Left + Aligned at: 0.75" + Indent at: 1" Formatted: Numbered + Level: 3 + Numbering Style: i, ii, iii, + Start at: 1 + Alignment: Right + Aligned at: 1.38" + Indent at: 1.5" Formatted: Numbered + Level: 4 + Numbering Style: 1, 2, 3, + Start at: 1 + Alignment: Left + Aligned at: 1.75" + Indent at: 2"

This portion is heavily inspired by Stone, D. (2002). Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making . New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

ii. I noticed that one pair put ___ very high, and the other put it very low. Who wants to share why they put it where they did? iii. Where did people put #4? Why did you think that me selling them was fair/unfair? iv. I noticed that you both put #6 very high. Why did you think that one was especially fair? b. Would it be different if, instead of cake, I was using something like pencils, which some of you had and some of you didnt? Think for a minute before I call on people c. Final task (optional; time permitting): give each student a large sticky note and ask them to write on it a definition of what they think it means to be fair. i. Each sticky can already have written on it, Fairness is ii. This is their exit ticket. Anticipating students responses and your possible responses The biggest challenge I anticipate as a possibility is that some students may struggle to engage with the scenarios on the sticky notes I will be involving students of mixed reading levels, so while I am hoping that mixed-level partnerships will support both students, it could well backfire and create situations where one student disengages and the other does all the work. I hope that by setting expectations for partner work (one student must read each note aloud, and both are expected to share their thoughts). Agreed. You may need to spend some time discussing normative partner behavior. This will require, I suspect, the arrangement of a poster that you create so that reminders about what acceptable shared tasking looks and sounds like. Another potential problem involved in mixed-levels partnerships is that some pairs may finish their work much more quickly than others. I have some built-in mechanisms for differentiation to address that, especially as the latter partner task can be altered to be shorter for a slower group. I could also work with an already-finished group to challenge them on their arrangements of sticky notes, and ask them questions while the other group catches up. In the interest of accommodating early finishers, you can very easily create a worksheet-type extension task that, for instances, asks them to identify the least fair scenario and rewrite it to make it Fair to All (or something similar). Assessment of goals & objectives Most of the assessments will be informal based on my observations of student verbal responses and their articulated justifications for their ordering of scenarios. I will seek to listen to their reasoning to determine the extent to which they are weighing different interpretations of fairness and the situational contexts, and are able to explain and defend those interpretations. There will also be formal assessment in the form of the final note (the exit ticket), which can allow for assessment of how deeply they are considering the question of defining fairness. Be sure to photograph your informal Post-it assessment. One never knows when something informal becomes formal. Accommodations

Commented [JG5]: That sounds like a great idea. Not sure Ill have time for it with this lesson, but if I were doing the lesson in my own classroom, I would definitely want to have done something like this early in the year.

Commented [JG6]: Didnt have time to do this for this lesson, but I like the idea for the future.

Commented [JG7]: Good call.

The use of partnerships will, I hope, be the most important accommodation I will provide. I hope that it will provide access to the partnered tasks even to those students who would have trouble reading the scenarios themselves. Other accommodations include the variety of task and presentation modes (writing for the class, modeling an actual distribution, representing arguments through physical arrangements, etc.) and the mechanisms for differentiating the pace (described above).