Lesson Plan Analysis: Play To Learn

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20070111thursday.html

By: Brian Waters

The lesson plan, “Play to Learn: Using Math in Designing and Innovative Playground” is a great example of a lesson plan that relates the lives of children to what they are learning in the classroom.  This seems like it would be a fun, exciting, and effective way to teach students about math and many other subjects that are also related to this lesson plan.

This lesson plan promotes organization in helping to process information.  Organizing information builds schemas that help associate new information with previously learned information.  When the students are told to take measurements using a measuring tape and to measure shapes, angles, height, length and depth, these are all schemas being built that students will someday be able to use as a building block when learning to do new things.  This knowledge of measuring a playground may help them when learning geometry with shapes and angles and volumes, by taking the schemas built through the organization of this information and elaborating upon them.

            Another positive attribute of this lesson plan is that it stimulates visual cues in the learner.  Much of this experiment is hands-on and much, if not all, of the information is processed visually, or recalls visual cues.  Initially, when the students gather information they are also storing chunks of visual information that, when trying to recall from long-term memory, will help recollection of information that was encoded.  The brain likes visual information because many chunks of information can be stored by encoding visually. 

            The lesson plan supports constructivism due to the aspect of discovery and self-involvement that the students take on when performing these tasks.  The students are told to collect data based on observation and hands on involvement and then based on the data collected create a playground with similar attributes as those collected on the playground. 

            Constructivism is also shown through the students’ exploration of the provided article.  Students are given the information, but are asked to find the answer on their own, thus giving it personal meaning and making it more likely to be encoded into the long-term memory.  In exploring these answers and ideas, students may also have higher self-efficacy levels due to the sense of accomplishment that comes along with providing the right answer themselves. 

            Something that can easily go overlooked in inductive learning is that students may wander from the correct path of thought, and come up with incorrect answers.  In step three of the lesson plan it encourages the teacher to make sure that students understand each of the “elements” and ideas covered in the warm-up activity and throughout.  This ensures that all of the students are on the same page, so to speak, and none are confused about the goal of the plan, or anything that has taken place thus far into the lesson.

Collaboration is one of the main elements of this lesson plan because the students are required to work in groups of two or three other students.  The children go out to a playground and get measurements of the equipment.  They also need to work on a series of questions, which will be answered as they observe a local playground.  Then while they are in their groups they are advised to design a 1,000 square foot playground for children age’s five to twelve. This project is mainly left up to the students, but the teacher is instructed to give the children a little guidance so they do not have anything too out of control.  Since they are children they have big imaginations, and as teachers we need to make sure that what they are doing is realistic.  The students then have the job of cooperating, compromising, and agreeing to a final project, which they all feel is a good representation of a playground.

Collaboration is the very first thing mentioned in the lesson plan under “Key Elements” which is some thing that makes this lesson plan so effective.  It is extremely important to the students because it is also supposed to be a fun lesson.  It is a chance for them to get to work together and apply all the knowledge they have learned with something they can relate to their everyday lives.  It also gets them out of the classroom and out in the fresh air, which allows them to look forward to the school day.

Modeling is also a prominent piece of this lesson plan.  Modeling and collaboration are very closely related and very important.  This project requires that students do a lot of math and social studies.  They have to be able to fit their design into a 1000 square foot area, which requires a lot of math while they are doing the measurements needed to complete the task.  The students are also asked to understand the surrounding area around them and this asks for knowledge in social studies.  This means that there will always be some students that are more advanced in these subjects than the other members of their group.  Therefore the students will be there to guide struggling students and then teach them in ways that only other students can understand.  This is an example of how modeling can be effective in this plan.

Another thing that is effective about this lesson plan is how broad the range of learning is.  At the end of the lesson plan it has a section called “Further Questions for Discussion” which ask questions about the government and its role in our lives.  This is an example of elaborative rehearsal because it attaches meaning from things the students hear about every day to the lesson. It is connected to the lesson because at first it asks about what responsibility the government should have in the upkeep of our playgrounds.  Then the questions get more in depth, asking about what kind of role the government should have in our personal lives; then it goes on to ask about how much time should be spent outside playing and why that time should be spent playing.  It then asks the students to consider how much time they spend outside.  This seems like a very effective method of gradually making the questions more and more personal without the students thinking about it.

Then there are “Extension Activities” that can follow the initial lesson plan.  These once again help to make the lesson plan relative to the students’ everyday lives. This is another example of elaborative rehearsal because it relates the information to everyday lives.  It is also great because it allows the students to pull information out of their long term memory to process the new information into their short term memory and hopefully connects the students lives to the new information.  The questions ask about the children’s involvement in local organizations meant for fun, physical activity, and growth; such as the YMCA, YWCA, 4H, Boy or Girl Scouts, ect. It then asks about how well the organization balances learning and play. Then it asks about the interests of the youth today and then asks the students to give an oral presentation on what they have learned. 

Other things mentioned in the “Extension Activities” are also effective.  One of them asks the students to write a reflection based on a David Rockwell quote that explains how play is important for building community, collaboration and creativity. The students are supposed to write about how that quote relates to the students’ own time playing.

Another extension activity asks the class to create an illustrated timeline about how playgrounds have changed in the United States over time.  This gives students a visual image of the changes of playgrounds over time so they will be able to process the information visually, which is effective because students can store a lot of information in one image.

In the final extension activity is a great example of elaborative rehearsal.  It asks students to decide which shapes in their everyday lives provide support and which shapes are for decoration.  This is semantic because it is attaching meaning to their schoolwork.  It also calls for students to use everyday objects to create a model of the object, which is a way for students to get a hands on perspective of what they are learning.  It also asks the instructor to adjust the angles of the shapes until they collapse.  This is an example of inductive learning because the teacher gives an example of why the shapes are built the way they are instead of just saying, “At this angle, the model will collapse.” 

In the “Interdisciplinary Connections” section of the lesson plan is given examples of how this lesson plan can work to combine other subjects such as Civics, Fine Arts, Geography, Global Studies, and Health.  These are all just more examples of relating the lesson plan to the children’s everyday lives.  It also gives them a chance to compare what we have here to other countries. This gives the students the opportunity to learn by comparing the differences and similarities between what they have and others.

“Play to Learn: Using Math in Designing an Innovative Playground” is an effective lesson plan that is a prime example of relating the lives of children to what they are learning in the classroom.  This lesson plan is effective because it has the capability of mixing multiple subject into one, fun-filled hour at school for both the students and the instuctor.