Teacher:

Ms. Masters
Subject: Biology/Science Lesson Title: Thinking Interdependently/Teambuilding
Challenge


Lesson Objective: (What will my students KNOW by the end of the lesson? What will they DO to learn it?)
I can describe what effective teamwork looks/sounds like and use teamwork guidelines to develop a solution
to an engineering problem.


TIME INSTRUCTIONAL SEQUENCE

Get started/Drill/Do Now: (What meaningful activity will students complete as soon as they enter the classroom?)
5
min Students will enter the classroom, watch the warm up video, and answer the 4 questions below. We will discuss afterwards.

Engage/Motivation: (How will student interest be sparked? Is there prior knowledge that should be tapped? Is there vocabulary that must be
cleared? Is there brainstorming that student need to complete before the lesson begins?)

Students will write on a sticky note what effective teamwork looks or sounds like. What do effective teammates do when they work
5-6 together? Once students write down their answers, they will stick on the class Twitter board for discussion.
min
We will quickly discuss as a class, and students may volunteer to share out! I will tell students these ideas are going to be important in
solving the problem I pose today. Students will be engaged through wanting to know what the problem is and what we are going to
do in our groups!

Whole Group Instruction: (Focus lessons [explicit teaching/modeling, strategy demonstration, activate prior knowledge], shared reading, shared
writing, discussion, writing process.)

5 min After discussing the team norms students generated, I will post a list of group guidelines in front of the class
that students will copy down in their own notes for future reference. Students will take turns reading and I
will ask students for examples of what these expectations look and don’t look like.
Group Practice/Independent: (teacher-facilitated group discussion, student or teacher-led collaboration, student conferencing, re-teaching or
intervention, writing process)
Students will be presented with the task of building the tallest marshmallow tower possible using 50g of
spaghetti, 20g of mini marshmallows, and 5 large marshmallows. Rules are
• Can manipulate materials
• Tower must be free-standing (no tape, glue, leaning against anything, etc.)
25 min • Have 25 minutes only
• Don’t have to use all materials but may not use more than what is measured out initially
Students will have 25 minutes to complete the task and will have the teamwork guidelines posted at the front of class to
remind them Ms. Carla and I will circulate as well to remind students of using positive language and to communicate
with group members. Once the time is up, we will measure the towers to find the winning team!
*This time will include using the classroom food scales to weigh out materials (leader will be designated from each team
to be the materials getter)
Evaluate Understanding/Assessment: (How will I know if students have achieved today’s objective?)
Students will fill out the teamwork reflection of what conversations and team actions led to
5
min success and inhibited their success. Students will self-assess their teams using the Likert scale
style questions and will answer self-reflection questions at the bottom.

5 Closing Activities/Summary: (How will I tie up loose ends, reinforce/revisit the objective and connect the lesson to the unit?)
min Quick share out of free-response questions!
Enrichment/Extension/Re-teaching/Accommodations: (How will my lesson satisfy the needs of all learners?)

If extra time, students may try to attempt to build again using the self-assessment reflection as a guide!