Think Aloud Planning Sheet

Directions for Full Credit: Use the think aloud strategy planning sheet below to plan your strategy instruction. Please submit
this completed template to Canvas with the reflection.

Name: Mia Davis

Strategy: Monitoring-Clarifying and Questioning
Content Area and ELA Standards:
Essential HS.L2U3.18 Obtain, evaluate, and communicate about the positive and negative ethical,
social, economic, and political implications of human activity on the biodiversity of an ecosystem.
Plus HS+B.L2U1.1 Develop a model showing the relationship between limiting factors and carrying
capacity, and use the model to make predictions on how environmental changes impact biodiversity.
L.4 Determine the meaning of unknown or multiple meaning words using context,
analyze word parts, and use reference materials.
Objective:
Students will analyze the article on limiting factors and fill out the guided worksheet to completion
according to a rubric which will be provided to them.
:*You may use bullet points if desired in the blue sections below*

Strategy Awareness & Explanation (Purpose for selecting the strategy)

How will you provide students with a clear picture of the why and how?

I selected these methods because I think it is important for students to be guided to the
correct definition of new vocabulary words as they analyze scientific articles. This also
allows for me, as a teacher, to guide them to the correct conclusions to draw. It is also
important that students explain their reasoning in science which I can do by asking them
questions throughout the activity. All of these methods also help increase student
learning by making them active learners instead of passive.
Strategy Demonstration & Modeling (Think Aloud)
How will you model, explain, practice, and reinforce the rules or procedures of the strategy?

What the Text Says What I Say What Comprehension Strategy

I Model

“A new leader came into power in
1933. He was head of the National
Socialist, or Nazi party.
“This part makes me ask all sorts of Asking questions
questions. Was Hitler elected the
head, like we elect presidents? Or was
he born into a family of leaders like a
king and queen.”
“Aquatic algae, a type of
microbe that live in the water,
need to take in nutrients from
their surroundings for growth.
Two important nutrients for
algal growth are nitrogen (N)
and phosphorous (P).”
“This means that growth is not
controlled by all the nutrients,
but by the scarcest one (the
“limiting factor”). When more
than one nutrient limits growth,
algae are considered co-limited.
This just means that a
combination of two nutrients
are needed for algae to grow.
Knowing what nutrients are
limiting growth helps scientists
understand how an ecosystem
is working. ”
“From other research we know
that many ecosystems,
including those in the Alaskan
Arctic, are phosphorus-limited.
Scientists figured this out
“So reading this introduction, of Asking questions
the article it gives us Monitoring
information about the
experiment factors. Using
context clues so far, what
organism will this experiment
be working with?”
“What words from this intro do
we recognize? (nitrogen and
phosphorus)”
“So now we know that algae
relies on nutrients like nitrogen
and phosphorus to grow, which
is a great example of the
nutrient cycles we learned
about earlier this week.
Highlight those two words for
now.”
“So the limiting factor is a new Asking questions
concept for us, right? After Clarifying
reading that, let's brainstorm a
definition using the text and
while you are at it, highlight the
word and write the class
definition next to it
somewhere.”
“Great, so limiting factors can
be found in lots of ecosystems
and organisms including us.
What do yall think our limiting
factor is?”
“Food? What about water? Or
oxygen?”
“Based on the reading so far ,
what do we think the limiting
factor for this algae is?
Remember it can be multiple
since it mentions co-limiting.”
“Looking back on nutrient Asking questions
cycles, what kinds of Monitoring
ecosystems and organisms are
involved in them?” (everything)
“Yes exactly, just about
because they found if they
added phosphorus, then algae
growth increased. These extra
nutrients will likely cause
increases in algae growth in
streams and ponds, which in
turn could change food webs
and nutrient cycling. It is
therefore important to
understand which nutrients are
currently limiting algae growth
before climate change changes
things even more.”
“Abby used small cups that
placed into the streams that fed
into Lake I8. These cups were
filled with agar gel, a material
used in labs to grow microbes.
Each cup contained different
nutrient treatments. Abby used
four different treatments in her
cups: (1) a control (agar only),
(2) agar + nitrogen, (3) agar +
phosphorus, and (4) agar +
nitrogen + phosphorus. On the
top of each cup, she placed a
glass disk to provide a surface
for the algae to grow.”
“Abby put 5 replicate cups for
each treatment at both the Inlet
and Outlet streams on the I8
Lake. “
“She brought the cups back to
the lab to
measure the algae that grew on
everything. So why might it be
important for us to observe the
way nutrient cycles are
changing? What might it
change?” (everything)
“We will definitely talk about
climate change more in depth
later but this is the WHY of our
experiment. It is important for
us to identify why scientists are
conducting research like this.
Make a note of that in your
article annotations just write
WHY next to this paragraph.”
“So this basically means that Asking questions
Abby created different cups Clarifying
with different kinds of nutrients Monitoring
in them. One nitrogen, one with
phosphorus, one with both and
a control. Why might Abby need
a control for this experiment?
What would happen if she did
not have a control group?” (to
compare growth rates
otherwise how are you
supposed to know)
“Correct, that's why it is so
important to plan out
experiments to make sure you
get results that can be used.”
“Just to clarify, inlet streams are Clarifying
ones found at the beginning of
the river and outlet streams are
ones found at the end of the
river. Think about flow of water
and how water composition
might be different at different
points as it picks up and carries
things with it.”
“So Abby measured the growth Clarifying
based on how green the cups
were at the end of the four
 each glass disk. Abby measured weeks. The more green the
how much algae grew more growth.“
on each disk by measuring the
amount of Chlorophyll a, the
green pigment that helps
plants photosynthesize. The
more pigment, the more the
algae is growing.”

“When there is more growth in
a treatment compared to the
control, that means a particular
nutrient was limited at that
location.”
“This is how Abby analyzed the Monitoring
data to figure out the limiting Clarifying
factor of the algae and
compared the data against the
control group. Does it make
sense why she believes the
limiting factor sees more
growth?”

“Abby expected that the “In an experiment what do we Asking questions

streams would be limited by the
amount of phosphorus, but not
the amount of nitrogen. She
predicted algae would grow
more when they are given
additional phosphorus
compared to the control
treatment.”
call the prediction made Monitoring
before? Right a hypothesis so
you may want to make a note
on that as one of the guided
questions later will ask you
about Abby’s hypothesis.”
“Great, now that we have
walked through the article as a
class, go to your lab groups
where you will begin working
on answering the questions. Let
me know if you have any
questions and I will give you
some class time tomorrow to
complete this. It is NOT
homework.”

Guided Practice
How will you have students practice the strategy with support?

By analyzing the article as a class with students driving the questions and discovery it
allows for students to practice breaking down scientific text. While helping me ensure
they pull out the information they need to do the worksheet in the group setting
without me to guide them.
Strategy Application
How will students apply the strategy independently?

Students will apply the strategy in groups by further analyzing the article to help them
understand the data and answer the corresponding short answer questions.

Reflection Write a 2-3 paragraph detailed reflection about your teaching experience based off your
own self-assessment.
● How did the structure (awareness & explanation, demonstration & modeling, guided practice,
application) help support your instruction and student learning?
● How does this strategy support learning in your discipline specifically?
● What were your strengths, and areas for growth (please consider both your planning and your
instruction of the strategy).

I have found from actual classroom experience with articles like this that students often need to be
guided to what they should be drawing from the article as important information. Walking through and
annotating and expanding on the key concepts will help them actually understand the experiment and
the aimed takeaways. Especially with scientific readings at a 9th grade level, most students have not
had experience using the scientific method, pulling important data, identifying variables, and analyzing
results. By prompting them with notes and annotations it helps them begin to develop those skills. It
also helps to have the reading be about concepts they are familiar with as well as new ones. In this
case, they theoretically just learned about nutrient cycles earlier in the week so works like nitrogen and
phosphorus are recognizable to them while also reinforcing nutrient cycles learning.