Basic Productivity Tools (BPT)

Lesson Idea Name:​ Planets vs. Stars

Content Area/Grade(s):​ 4th grade, Science
Content Standard Summarized: Students will be able to construct, analyze, and evaluate the difference
between a star and a planet.
Technology Standard Addressed:​ ITSE Standard 3d. ​Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world
issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

Selected Technology Tool:​ Padlet

URL(s) to support the lesson (if applicable):​ ​https://padlet.com/beccalindsey9/hh6tld7e6mb3sw27

Bloom’s Taxonomy Level(s):

X​Remembering ​X​Understanding ​X​Applying ​X ​Analyzing ​X​Evaluating ​X​Creating

Levels of Technology Integration:

☐​​Infusion Level:​ Students may work at a higher Bloom’s Level, but they do not have any “Voice or Choice”
during the activity and most of the decisions are made by the teacher.

X​​Integration Level:​ We would like to see ALL lessons/activities reach this level. The project is student-driven.
Students have “Voice and Choice” in the activities, selecting the topic of study and determining the
technology tool to demonstrate mastery of the standard. All products of learning are unique and
personalized. The teacher becomes more of a facilitator walking around monitoring the student-led
activity.
☐​​Expansion Level​: The projects created are shared outside of the classroom, publishing student work and
promoting authorship. This could be reached by showcasing the project on the school’s morning newscast,
posting the project to the classroom blog, or publishing via an outside source.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL):

- In this lesson, students will be researching about a star or planet of their choice, and also present it in
whatever format they choose to do so. The students will also be working in pairs, and by doing this, it
gives students an opportunity to learn from each other. There will also be goals for each group of
students to reach on their research. This lesson supports the UDL Principles because I will give
students multiple representations of the content they are learning, and one of them being the padlet
by enhancing their background knowledge about stars and planets. I will also capture the students'
engagement by allowing them to research which star or a planet that they choose. Students will be
able to also express their knowledge in a format of their choice. All of these components will support
and enhance student learning in this content area.

Lesson idea implementation:

- To start this lesson, students will review the padlet that I made on stars and planets. We will do this as
a whole-group. This is just to familiarize students with the differences between stars and planets.
During this instruction, I will ask students the questions posted and review the answers, and also the
facts about stars and planets. This will increase their engagement and motivation by understanding
the difference between stars and planets. After this, I will explain how the students are going to work
with a partner and research a star or planet of their choice. Students will research a star or planet and
be given a checklist for their findings. The students will also create a presentation using a format of

TFrazier, 2021
 Basic Productivity Tools (BPT)
their choice to express their research findings. The students will then choose one fact about their
specific star/planet and share it on our class padlet. This will extend student learning by having them
learn from their peers about their research findings. To conclude the lesson, I will have each student
talk about the research that they did on the star or planet of their choice.
Reflective Practice:
- After reviewing this lesson, I feel as if the activities will impact student learning by allowing students
to learn from whole-group instruction and by doing their own research. I feel as if the lesson will
benefit overall student learning because they will be presenting to their classmates about their
research findings. If I were to extend this lesson, I would have the students post to a blog of some
type that relates to planets and stars so that students could share their findings and also look at other
people’s findings.

TFrazier, 2021