Pre-Assessment
Group 1
5 students who answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly.
Group 2
12 students who have some knowledge about the topic as shown in their score, but need to develop higher order thinking skills
Group 3
5 students who appear to have limited knowledge about the topic
This group already has good undertstanding of the sequence of the life cycle of a plant and the key words in each process. They can go on to complete the project with practice of writing the vocabulary and hands-on practice and documentation.
Have this group watch this simple video to understand the basics of life cycle of a plant.
They can learn to spell these key words and write them down using this worksheet: Link
After they are done with the worksheet, they can watch this video to extend on their understanding of the life cycle of a plant.
3 students have lower reading level of English
Split the group into 3 teams of 4 students each.
Have them work in teams to review the pre-assessment.
Use pictures to explain what each part of the plant is. Teacher spends extra time one-on-one with these 3 students to go over the life cycle of a plant.
Have these students trace the key words of the life cycle, e.g. seeds, seedling, leaves, flower, to learn these English words. Tracing these words can also help reinforce their memory of what they mean.
2 students have little to no comprehension of the topic and need to be further tested for special needs
Should find out what their needs are to better address them.
Provide more sensory experience for these students, e.g. bring in actual seeds, soil, plant and flower to have the touch, see, feel and smell. Use these to teach the key parts of the plant. Then introduce the life cycle.
Have each student in this group plant a seed and take care of it for the following 4 weeks to see the life cycle in action
Use journals to document the key process, with pictures and words and sentence.
Re-assess and monitor their progress:
- Yes and no cards to test understanding of key concept
- Four corners of the room: to test if they understand a statement related to the topic
Working in teams, students plant a seed together and document the key process.
One team can produce one journal to document the process.
If these are ELLs, we should avoid just playing a video to show them the topic. The speed of the video is harder for ELLs to understand.
Once they learn the English of the key vocabulary and understand what each key process of the life cycle of a plant, they can participate in planting a seed.
Students can also use journaling to document the process, we can have the key vocabularies of the process up on the wall so ELLs can refer back to these when they write.
If the student has reading and/or writing difficulty, we can have the student draw pictures when journaling. They can also re-tell the life cycle process so we know they have learned the concept.
If a student is non-verbal, we can have him/her match picture card to object and lay them out in the right order to see if they have understood the concept.