In pairs, students will make a 1 list of 20 nouns and find simple clip art pictures to match. For example; cabinet, ship, orangutan, grapefruit, pen, CD player, boxing gloves, rocking chair, sofa, TV, flag, sneakers, key board, skate board, Hippopotamus, baseball hat, dictionary, fingers, bus, watch.
Two other students will be given the list to study for one minute and then, separately given one minute to repeat as many of the objects they can remember. A second test or trial would then be performed as before, but with the addition of the test subject listening to music with headphones. A third trial would be run with picture representations in place of the word list. A fourth trial given after the student has one minute to sort objects into categories such as, items that go on your hand, or things that move. In a final trial, the pair of subjects will be given the list to study for one minute and then work together to name as many objects as possible. The data could be graphed in a math lesson. This lesson could be differentiated by adjusting the number of items or the number of trials. The following day, students would switch roles so that students could have both experiences. The assessment would be completion of the graph and answering these two open-ended questions:
Which trial did you excel in and which trial did you find the most challenging?
How could you use this information about metacognition to improve your study habits?
Haikus
In order to further explore the different brain functions students and experiment with creative writing students will write their own haikus for each of these parts thalamus, occipital, parietal, temporal, frontal, and cerebellum. Writing haikus is also a great way to foster phonemic awareness and a unique way to study science. Here are some examples:
Brain cell
Electricity runs
from dendrites through myelin
synapse spark ideas
Cerebellum
On top of the brainstem
balance, movement, muscles
coordination time
The number of syllables for each word is basically determined by the number of vowel sounds present in a given word. There are a number of websites that students can type their lines into and check to make sure their syllabication is correct. This lesson could be differentiated by the number of haikus required for each student. The assessment would be the poem.
