The Brain

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The Brain the 5 Senses

• Dawn Burhans
• Pacheco Elementary
• Spring 2001

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Lesson Plan
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Unit Timeline
The amount of time is determined by

• Age of Student
• Ability of Students
• Accessibility
• Whole Class vs. Individual

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I have 4th grade students who have had some
keyboarding, and are familiar with accessing the
Internet at the same time as other local
software. We started the unit with the students
accessing the information videos at their own
pace, but due to time constraints, went to a
whole class presentation of the videos. We then
went and worked in the Computer Lab to write
their summaries into their slide shows. It has
taken 3 weeks so far, with approximately 3 hours
a week between Class Activities and Computer Lab
time. 30 of the students are finished, with the
rest within 2 slides of completion.
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There are no science standards for the Central
Nervous System or the 5 senses, except that the 5
senses are to be used to learn about a students
environment. Pacheco decided that the 4th grade
would add such a unit to their curriculum. The
following standards are general, and can actually
be applied to any grade level.
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Below are the official objectives of the unit.
What I most wanted was that the students would
have fun learning how to access the Internet in
an educational manner, learn some basic skills
with text in slide show presentations, and
hopefully learn the basics of the system that
allows them to learn about the world around them.
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Activities

• There are 3 main areas that the activities fall
  into.
• Hands-on Crafts
• Note-taking from videos
• Writing summaries on slides.

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Assessments Rubrics

• There are 2 areas to be assessed.
• Writing Pacheco Writing Rubric
• Subject Material Funbrain.com Quiz

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Technology Integration
Without the Internet, this lesson wouldnt
exist. BrainPop.com was THE major source of
information. The students will be presenting
their slideshows using our SmartBoard.
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Hair Pulling time!!
Where does one start? After the first day, I
had to go back and break down the 1st Step into
2. It made the kids much happier when I told
them. Most of the changes had to do with going
from individual to whole class pacing. That and
going back to fix links that I thought worked,
and didnt.
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Actually Doing it!
As previously mentioned, I had to change how the
students watched the videos. In retrospect,
doing it as a class makes a lot of sense. 4th
graders dont take notes well, and doing it
together allowed me to do a quick review, add
info, clarify info, etc. with them. It gave them
a lot more focus and if they wanted/needed to go
back and re-watch the videos on their own, they
had a better idea of what they should be
listening for.
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Howd they do?
They pleasantly surprised me! My class has a
history of NOT tracking well, so of course
getting started presented a great test of my
patience. But, by the middle of the project,
most of the students were truly self-guided. It
was great to hear the noise-level reduce as they
became focused on their tasks and to see them
actually being able to manipulate the various
windows needed on their own. Their actual test
scores could have been better, but I think the
overall project was a success.
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Number Correct on Pre-Test
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Number Correct on Post-Test
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Before After
Though the overall scores arent great, the
tighter grouping of the Post-test tells me that
information was learned. I also found out, based
on the questions that were missed, that I need to
go back and re-vamp the questions asked. Not all
of the information I was looking for them to know
was actually found within the sites I was having
them go to.
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What Did I Learn???
That I really, really need to learn to not
procrastinate! That having it all done BEFORE I
have them start would have made my life slightly
easier. That I need to allow a lot more time
for the unit if I want them to do more of the
note-taking on their own, but for 4th grade,
start at whole-class instruction first. My most
exciting thing I learned was that a unit can be
developed and set-up so that 90 of it can be
done in a computer lab.
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What did they learn?
Cesar
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What did they learn?
Jesse C.
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What did they learn?
Morgan
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What did they learn?
Jacob
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What did they learn?
Haley
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What did they learn?
Cassie
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Thank you to my 2000-2001 4th Grade Class. They
did a wonderful job and Im very proud of all of
them!