EDBED4009 Assignment one Sarah Quilty

Adaptation unit

Part 1. (Introduction and creation of an Animal fact file)- To determine

students prior knowledge in this lesson there was an introductory time in

which students were able to discuss what they could remember from

previous lessons or their own readings. The students examples were

written on the board under the subheadings of structural and behavioural

adaptations after we defined what these were. Students will then create

a fictional fact file on an animal that they will create from a hybrid of

other animals and describe why they chose the structural features and

how it will hunt/ gather its food, where it will live and how it may need to

live there. I will include handouts of some examples of animals with

adaptations for students who need prompting.

Part 2. Science lesson (stomach acidity) in this lesson students were

looking at the effect of stomach acid on the breakdown of food in the

stomach. They did so by placing two crackers into a Ziploc bag and

crushing them before squeezing lemon juice onto the crackers. The

result being that the crackers turned into a paste like substance that

resembled digested food (vomit) and had quite a nauseating smell to it.

Before, during and after the experiment the students had a sheet to fill

out on which they had to list the materials used, ask a question,

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formulate a hypothesis, describe the steps of the experiment, describe

the results of the experiment and write a conclusion. At the beginning of

the lesson we went through what these words entailed and short

descriptions were written on the board and examples were given so that

students could understand what the success criteria for the lesson was.

At the end of the lesson the experiment was tied into the adaptation unit

with a discussion about animals who have stomachs that are different to

our own, eg sheep with four stomachs, some animals having stronger

stomach acids that allow them to digest bones etc. This task was able to

be tiered for students because it fit within the

Part 3. Science lesson- (octopus blood) in this lesson students looked at

the components of human and octopus blood. We looked at elements

such as plasma, platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells,

haemoglobin and oxygen. We firstly watched a video by Hank Green

that explored three interesting adaptations, starfish being able to see

with no brains, octopi having blue blood because they have hemocyanin

and humans being able to adapt to survive against strains of diseases

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxmmF2bWy9M). Then we made

blood out of water, food dye, cheerios, marshmallows and pom poms.

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Part 4. Adaptation Research Project (See appendix 1 and 2) This

activity was the main assessment component of the adaptation unit. This

two week long project saw students researching an animal of their

choosing, as long they were able to identify that it had some form of

behavioural and/or structural adaptations. I provided students with a

sheet of questions to answer (appendix 1) and originally I made it so that

the students could only present a poster but after discussions with the

students and previous diagnostic assessments of their computer skills I

decided that they could also make a PowerPoint or a booklet. For the

summative assessment component I created a rubric that assessed

students in a range of areas, from their visual and oral presentation, to

their content and ability to demonstrate that they had learnt the

information rather than copying and pasting it. This task catered for

students prior learning as they had been working on writing reports all

throughout the year, and when working with computers I was really

trying to get students to focus on editing information and putting it into

their own words which many struggled with. When the students

completed the written and visual aspect of their assignments, `they were

also required to present this to the class their completed work with an

additional oral component, discussing the information that they had

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found and what they had learnt. The formative assessment components

of this project were that I was continually providing students feedback,

both individually and as a class, before, during and after lessons and the

completion of their projects. The students in the class also had the

opportunity to provide feedback to their peers and in a positive and

constructive way. I also got the presenter to reflect on how they felt that

they did, with all students being open and honest with their answers. The

structure of the presentation schedule saw many of the higher ability

students finishing first and therefore presenting first, this was a good

opportunity for other students to have a clear idea of what a high

standard of work looked like and what to aim for. I also linked the activity

to the big picture learning of adaptation that we had been looking at

throughout the unit. I aligned the learning outcomes with the task

requirements by having very clear success criteria in the rubric and in

the questions that the students were needing to investigate that covered

all of the focus areas of adaptation that we had been working on.

Justification

I believe that my assessment task was successful in the fact that it

explored many elements of students prior learning from both their in

school work and assigned homework tasks. It catered for differentiated

levels because students were able to answer the set questions to the

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best of their abilities, and the students that could go further could be

easily extended in the information that they included, and the way that

they presented it.

The skills that I was trying to target with this research project were

researching and critical thinking capabilities, which is something that that

we had been working on as a teaching team throughout the year, but

particularly in term three. I was also trying to put a strong emphasis on

getting students to write the information that they found when looking on

the internet or for some, in -books, in their own words. There was a clear

improvement in this area for some students however for others it was

obvious when they were presenting their work to the class that they did

not know what the words meant or how to read them. I also asked some

follow up questions to determine what students understood and what

they had just written without comprehending. I was also targeting

students ICT skills with this research project as a majority of the

research was done on the computer and many students chose to

present their work as power points or as booklets.

The teaching strategies that I used were a range of evidence based

strategies including providing students with before, during and after

assessment feedback, I was flexible with the amount of time that

students had to complete the task, and I set clear learning intention and

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success criteria for that the students all had access to, this supported

engagement and learning by giving them ownership and responsibility of

their assessment as they knew what they needed to get the points they

wanted. I incorporated the 5E model across the course of my other

lessons leading up to this project so that students had been highly

engaged in the topic and a strong prior knowledge. As well as the

lessons that I had conducted, their classroom teacher had also set them

homework about evolution, adaptations and mutations, they had to

practice rewriting information into their own words and basic researching

skills.

I incorporated literacy in my assessment because students had to

present a task that had strong grasps on visual, written and oral literacy

curriculum strands. These strands include living things have structural

features and adaptations that help them to survive in their environment

(VCSSU074) ,the growth and survival of living things are affected by the

physical conditions of their environment (VCSSU075), navigate and read

imaginative, informative and persuasive texts by interpreting structural

features, including tables of content, glossaries, chapters, headings and

subheadings and applying appropriate text processing strategies,

including monitoring meaning, skimming and scanning (VCELY318), use

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comprehension strategies to analyse information, integrating and linking

ideas from a variety of print and digital sources (VCELY319).

I developed students engagement in the assessment when I allowed

them to have input in the way that they would like to present their

project, I also allowed time for students at the end of each students oral

presentation of their poster or power point to provide peer feedback, this

was something that we had to practice so that the feedback was

delivered in positive, constructive, encouraging manner. The students

were also engaged in the assessment because they had ownership over

which animal they chose, so it was able to be related back to an area of

interest. Also the engage lessons that students had previously

participated in had any students interest peaked in how adaptation.

The assessment strategies that I utilised were diagnostic assessment

strategies in that I was always monitoring which students were computer

literate and which ones still had trouble searching for key terms or

editing information into their own words or even properly saving

documents. I would then work one on one with these students and

address the class as a whole with a refresher at the start of the next

lesson on how to do these things without identifying the children that

were explicitly struggling.

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I also provided a lot of formative feedback in the form of feedback given

to students throughout the duration of the project and the adaptation

unit. I provided feedback before, during and after students had

completed their tasks to fit with The Workshop Model (Tovani, 2012) and

the Feedback System model (Fisher and Frey, 2009). The use of

feedback throughout the unit allowed me to scaffold students

understanding and capabilities (Vygotsky, 1978).

This assessment task can be utilised for other areas of learning because

it can be adapted to look at questions to do with other topics whilst still

assessing students computer proficiency and literacy skills. The next

steps that my mentor teacher and I have taken after completing this

assessment task, is too set students another project but with explicit

lessons set into the unit plan to work on the areas that many students

showed weakness in.

This assessment task is responsive to the learning strengths and needs

of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic

backgrounds because the task was able to be tiered for students who

required additional support or extension, and for those students who

were from low socioeconomic households and didnt have a computer to

conduct research on if they missed a lesson, we were able to provide

them with books to take home.

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Appendix 1
Animal Adaptations Research Project
Name: _______________
Find an interesting animal with structural and
behavioural adaptations to research
1. What is the animals common name?

2. What is the animals scientific name?

3. What does the animal eat?

4. How does it gather/hunt for its food?

5. Where does the animal live?

6. How has it adapted to its surrounds?

7. Describe any other structural adaptations they

may have and why they have them.
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8. What genetic mutations does this animal have?

9. What behavioural adaptations does it have?

10. Who/ what is a threat to the species.

11. What classification does this animal belong

to?

12. Colour in where your animal lives:

13. Draw or glue a picture of your animal here:

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Appendix 2

Making A Poster : Researching Animal Adaptations

Teacher Name: Ms. Quilty

Student
Name: ________________________________________

CATEGORY 4 3 2 1
Graphics - Graphics are Most Most Many
Clarity all in focus graphics are graphics are graphics are
and the in focus and in focus and not clear or
content easily the content the content is are too small.
viewed and easily viewed easily viewed
identified and identified and identified
from two from two from one
metres away. metres away. metre away.

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Content - At least 9 6-8 accurate 3-5 accurate Less than 3

Accuracy accurate facts facts are facts are accurate
are displayed displayed on displayed on facts are
on the poster. the poster. the poster. displayed on
the poster.
Labels All items of Almost all Several items Labels are
importance items of of importance too small to
on the poster importance on the poster view OR no
are clearly on the poster are clearly important
labelled with are clearly labelled with items were
labels that labelled with labels that labelled.
can be read labels that can be read
from at least can be read from at least
a metre away from at least a metre
a metre away.
away.
Knowledge Student can Student can Student can Student
Gained accurately accurately accurately appears to
answer all answer most answer about have
questions questions 75% of insufficient
related to related to questions knowledge
facts in the facts in the related to about the
poster and poster and facts in the facts or
processes processes poster and processes
used to used to processes used in the
create the create the used to poster.
poster. poster. create the
poster.
Graphics - All graphics All graphics All graphics Graphics do
Relevance are related to are related to relate to the not relate to
the topic and the topic and topic. Most the topic OR
make it easier most make it borrowed several
to easier to graphics borrowed
understand. understand. have a graphics do
All borrowed All borrowed source not have a
graphics have graphics citation. source
a source have a citation.
citation. source
citation.

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Required The poster All required All but 1 of Several

Elements includes all elements are the required required
required included on elements are elements
elements as the poster. included on were
well as the poster. missing.
additional
information.
Grammar There are no There are 1- There are 5-8 There are
grammatical 4 grammatical more than 8
mistakes on grammatical mistakes on grammatical
the poster. mistakes on the poster. mistakes on
the poster. the poster.
Punctuation Capitalization There are 1- There are 3-4 There are
and 3 mistakes in mistakes in more than 4
punctuation capitalization capitalization mistakes in
are correct or or capitalization
throughout punctuation. punctuation. or
the poster. punctuation.
Use of Class Used time Used time Used some Did not use
Time well during well during of the time class time to
each class each class well during focus on the
period. period. each class project OR
Focused on Usually period. There often
getting the focused on was some distracted
project done. getting the focus on others.
Never project done getting the
distracted and never project done
others. distracted but
others. occasionally
distracted
others.
Presentation Clear and Somewhat Clear Neither clear
projected clear speaking speaking
speaking speaking voice but no voice or eye
voice, voice and eye contact contact with
maintained occasional or vice versa the audience.
eye contact eye contact.
with the
audience.

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References

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2009). Feed up, Back, Forward. Educational

Leadership, 67(3), 20-25

Tovani, C. (2012). Feedback Is a Two-Way Street. Educational

Leadership, 70(1), 48-51.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society: The Development of Higher

Psychological Processes (Eds. M. Cole, V. John-Steirner, S.

Scribner E. Souberman, Trans.) (Cambridge MA, Harvard

University Press).

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