School Counselor: Jennifer Moore, Sixth Grade Date: 2/20/15

Lesson Plan Template

School Counselor: Jennifer Moore, Sixth Grade Date: 2/20/15

Activity: “Career Cruising: Learning Style”

Grade(s): Sixth Grade

ASCA Student Standards (Domain/Standard/Competencies):

*While it may seem that “too many” standards are covered at one time, it is important to note that each core curriculum lesson is 70 minutes in length, allowing adequate time to address each standard. Because our district requires counselors to ensure that specific standards are covered with ALL students and because we are limited to sharing core curriculum in the classroom three times a year, we strategically plan and organize our core curriculum lessons to ensure that all the necessary standards are covered in the most developmentally appropriate way.

Primary Standards Covered:

A:A1.5 Identify attitudes and behaviors that lead to successful learning
A:A2.4 Apply knowledge and learning styles to positively influence school performance

A:A3.4 Demonstrate dependability, productivity and initiative

A:B1.3 Apply the study skills necessary for academic success at each level

A:B1.6 Use knowledge of learning styles to positively influence school performance

A:B2.5 Use problem-solving and decision-making skills to assess progress toward educational goals

Secondary Standards Covered:

A:A1.1 Articulate feelings of competence and confidence as learners

A:A1.2 Display a positive interest in learning

A:A1.3 Take pride in work and achievement

A:A1.4 Accept mistakes as essential to the learning process

A:A2.1 Apply time-management and task-management skills

A:A2.2 Demonstrate how effort and persistence positively affect learning

A:A2.3 Use communications skills to know when and how to ask for help when needed

A:A3.1 Take responsibility for their actions

A:A3.2 Demonstrate the ability to work independently, as well as the ability to work cooperatively with other students

A:B1.1 Demonstrate the motivation to achieve individual potential

A:B1.2 Learn and apply critical-thinking skills

A:B1.4 Seek information and support from faculty, staff, family and peers

A:B1.5 Organize and apply academic information from a variety of sources

A:B1.7 Become a self-directed and independent learner

A:B2.3 Develop and implement annual plan of study to maximize academic ability and achievement

A:B2.6 Understand the relationship between classroom performance and success in school

A:C1.1 Demonstrate the ability to balance school, studies, extracurricular activities, leisure time and family life

A:C1.3 Understand the relationship between learning and work

A:C1.5 Understand that school success is the preparation to make the transition from student to community member

A:C1.6 Understand how school success and academic achievement enhance future career and vocational opportunities

Learning Objective(s):

1. Students will be able to identify what their learning style is.

2. Students will be able to identify the teaching style of each teacher.

3. Students will be able to identify the different ways teacher’s present information in the classroom that will “speak” to the different learning styles.

4. Students will be able to identify strategies how to study for each subject based on their learning style.

5. Students will understand that they must own their learning and their success in school is directly correlated with their work ethic.

6. Students will understand how and where to set up a study area at home based on their learning style.

7. Students will be learn how to translate information in class to speak to their learning style

8. Students will understand how their behavior might interfere with someone else’s learning.

9. Students will learn how to manage their time outside of school with extracurricular activities and academics

Materials:

1. Computer Lab

2. Handout for each student with directions for Career Cruising including their user ID and Password.

3. Handout for each student with learning styles tip for each subject for each learning style.

Procedure: Lesson will last entire class period (70 minutes).

1. Administer pre evaluation. Mrs. Moore will show the power point slide of pre evaluation (three true or false questions). She’ll then instruct students to read the questions and answer the questions on their own sheet of paper. She’ll allow about 3 minutes for students to complete the pre evaluation.

2. Mrs. Moore will begin the class by telling a personal story of wasting time studying in a way different from her learning style (from the time frame of 8th grade and continuing through college). She hopes the story will show them the mistakes she made because she didn’t know a different way to study. Explaining how the students are so busy after school, she explains how students can lower their study time and increase their knowledge by figuring out how they learn best. This will help them balance extracurricular activities and academic responsibilities.

3. Our district pays for each student to have an account on a career website called Career Cruising. Each grade level has specific requirements and areas to cover with all students. Mrs. Moore will walk the students through logging on Career Cruising and creating an account. She will ask each student take the learning styles inventory and stop when finished.

4. As each student finishes, Mrs. Moore will walk around and tell each student a color (Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Purple, and Orange) based on the results of their learning style quiz. Each color represents a learning style preference. Students will later break into groups based on their color assigned.

5. Once all inventories are completed, student could see a pie chart with the percentages of each learning style based on their results. Mrs. Moore explained the difference between the three possible pie charts and how it is important to understand what it means for each student. For example, a student who has a balanced learning style with all three learning styles (visual, auditory, tactile) has a better chance understanding the material because of HOW the teacher presents the information. Another example would be for the students that have a high percentage in ONE of the learning styles. If the teaching style of the teacher matches the learning style of the student, more than likely, that student has a great chance of understanding the material; however, if the teaching style is not the same, that student will have to adjust the way they take notes or experience class instruction. For example, if an auditory learner has a visual teacher, that student must ask questions in order to “hear” the information. On the flip side, someone who is a visual learner that has an auditory teacher, that student must take notes of what that teacher is saying so the student can “see” the material. In addition to explaining how to adjust your learning in class, she briefly gave suggestions of what each learning style needed in the class, how each learner could distract other learners, and ways each learning style gets distracted. Ms. Moore explained how much more confidence students would feel in the class, how much more they would be engaged in class and effort would be given, and how much easier the class would seem if learning styles matched up with teaching styles (with or without adjustments from the student). She also discussed how ultimately, students were responsible for their learning and how their success in school would lead to opportunities after high school. We all make mistakes, but when something is not working, we need to re-evaluate so we don’t keep making the same mistake. Ms. Moore also talked about how to “self-advocate” with the adults in the building and at home so students can get the support they need to be successful.

6. Students are then broken into groups based on their color that was given to them by Mrs. Moore. Student groups were to brainstorm ways to study for each subject (MA, LA, SC, and SS) and make a list of study tips in each class. They are to jot down ideas to share with the class.

7. After 15 minutes of group discussion, Mrs. Moore posted a list of study tips for each learning style over the projector and shared ideas with all groups. (attached)

8. During the final 15 minutes of class, students were asked to log on to their student portal to practice studying for one of their upcoming tests using the new techniques learned.

Plan for Evaluation: How will each of the following be collected?

Process Data: The number of pre and post evaluations collected will indicate how many students were present in class for the lesson. Any students absent the day of the lesson will be able to access the Power Point presentation on the TRMS Counselors’ Website. The lesson was given to all sixth grade Social Studies classes (6 teachers, 19 total classes). 527 sixth graders were present on the days this lesson was given (96% of sixth grade).

Perception Data: A three question true or false pre evaluation will be given at the beginning of the class period. Students will read the questions from the Power Point slide and will record their answers on their own sheet of paper. The directions and questions read as follows: “Please respond “TRUE” or “FALSE” to the following three statements on your own sheet of paper. 1.) I know my learning style. 2.) I can name 3 study tips for my learning style. 3.) I know what distracts me from learning based on my learning style. The same three true and false questions will be given as a post evaluation at the conclusion of the class period. Again, students will read the questions from the Power Point slide and will record their answers on the back of their original sheet of paper. The pre evaluation average score was 13% and the post evaluation average score was 92% (an increase of 79 percentage points).

Outcome Data: The number of students meeting 6th grade academic promotion criteria will be used to indicate outcome data. Sixth grade academic promotion criteria require students to pass four out of five of their classes (two of the four subjects passed must be Language Arts and Math) both semesters. A passing grade is a 70% or higher. After the first semester, only 2 of 547 sixth grade students were NOT on track for promotion (as indicated by passing grades in all of their classes). By the end of the year, only 1 student was retained and 18 others were required to attend summer school to meet promotion.

Follow Up:

Students targeted based on our academic program goals (due to low 2014 reading and/or math CRCT scores) will receive follow-up individual and small group counseling after this core curriculum lesson is given. Their grades will be monitored closely and they will be reminded of the strategies that were taught during this lesson. Additionally, students who enroll at Twin Rivers later in the school year and miss this introductory lesson will be directed to review the power point posted on the TRMS Counselors’ website. New students’ parents will also be contacted and made aware of these online resources.

I believe this lesson is very beneficial to the students. Next year, I would like to do this lesson earlier in the year and create a class list of learning styles for the teacher. I would also like to hang a copy of study tips for each of the learning style for that particular subject in each teacher’s classroom for the kids to see all year.