For my lesson plan analysis, I chose a plan intended for 3-5th graders on recycling. The 60-minute plan includes factual posters on recycling, a bag of trash for sorting, individual fact sheets for the students, recycling containers, and magnets. Though it depends on the specific way in which the teacher presents the plan, this plan illustrates numerous aspects that are consistent with research on human development and learning that we have covered in class.

Self Determination Theory

            The Self Determination Theory involves the idea of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. If taught this particular way, this lesson plan incorporates all three of these ideas. Simply put, this lesson teaches students how, where, and what to recycle. For students between the ages of 8-11, the sorting trash task is very achievable. Consequently, students will feel competent because the teacher gave them an attainable activity that is applicable to the real world.

 The trash sorting task allows students work alongside one another. This exemplifies the idea of relatedness because students become intrinsically motivated through working with peers. Rather than working individually, the task becomes much more engaging and interesting when students are allowed to work with one another.

Lastly, this lesson has autonomous aspects. The end of the lesson gives students the chance to design their own label for recycling containers. The teacher encourages student creativity in making these labels. This allows students to be autonomous and for them to have control over how they would like their labels to look. All in all, this lesson plan is well structured to intrinsically motivate students because students are able to feel competent, they are able to work with their peers, and they are able to feel autonomous when creating recycle bin labels.

Elaborative rehearsal

            The three subgroups of elaborative rehearsal are seen throughout this lesson plan. First, the teacher attaches association to the material by presenting a chart including facts and figures of household trash percentages. The teacher would use pictures on a colorful poster in this part. The pictures and colors allow the students to draw visual associations and thus better remember the material. Secondly, elaborative rehearsal requires teachers to present new information in an organized fashion. This organization will help the students remember the material better. In the beginning of the lesson, the teacher explains the three R’s; Recycle, reduce, and reuse. By explaining these three concepts using this helpful abbreviation, it is likely they will remember it better. This abbreviation would also be considered a verbal association because the letters neatly correspond with the concepts. Lastly, elaborative rehearsal involves the teacher attaching meaning to the subject. In the closing discussion, the teacher mentions locations in which the students can recycle items and allows the students to create labels for recycling containers at their home. The children learn that recycling is meaningful enough to practice it within their own homes and community. Also, this lesson plan requires teachers to explain that 500,000 trees are used to create one Sunday paper. By using this drastic, real-world example, the teacher attaches meaning to the importance of recycling by illustrating how many trees are needed for newspapers. Through this meaning, the student understand that recycling is important because it can reduce the amount of trees needed to make a newspaper. The aspects of elaborative rehearsal including: verbal associations, visual associations, attaching meaning, and organization are all well presented in this lesson plan.

Natural Consequence

            Following the idea of attaching meaning, in the ending discussion, the teacher demonstrates that the children could recycle and help the environment. More specifically, after presenting the data on how many trees are used to make a newspaper, the teacher indicates that the children can take an active role in protecting tress if they recycle. Rather than using a traditional operant conditioning model to influence the children to recycle, the teacher simply explains that the children could save trees if they recycle. After being educated on recycling, the teacher can ask the students to explain some other natural consequences that are involved with recycling such as saving money, saving energy, and reducing pollution.

Deductive learning

            More broadly, the lesson plan is set up in a deductive manner. The teacher begins by giving a definition of recycling and then goes on to explain examples. After they are given a clear description of recycling, the children are then allowed to participate in an open discussion in which they give their examples of recycling. Rather than giving the children items of trash and telling them to organize them, the teacher explains how items need to be separated by their specific material make-up. Due to the fact that the teacher gives the students the definition and a paper describing recycling details, the children are learning deductively as opposed to inductively. In terms of deductive learning, this lesson is laid-out well. The teacher is given almost full control, the lesson duration is just 1-hour, and the teacher is able to straightforwardly teach these concepts to the children.

Role-Playing

            After an introduction and discussion, the students are given various items of trash and they’re asked to sort them into the correct piles such as paper, plastic, glass, metal, etc. This is an example of a role-playing activity because the children are given a real-life situation in which they actively recycle items of trash. Role-playing is under the category of peer modeling. When I envision this task I see children, each with their own pile of trash, looking to their classmates to see how they’re organizing their trash. The children are given an opportunity to complete the task on their own, but to look to their peers for guidance when they’re confused about a particular item. This role play activity is well structured because the students are given a hands-on memorable experience that will get them used to sorting their own trash. A really important aspect that makes this role-play well structured is that the students are given magnets to identify aluminum vs. steel cans. Given this particular age range, this aspect of the role-play makes it fun and interesting to the students.

Defining attributes

            During the activity portion of this lesson, children are asked to use a magnet to learn to separate aluminum cans from steel cans when recycling. This is an example of a defining attributes because the children learn that in order for an item to be considered aluminum, it can’t be magnetic. The students learn that if a can is attracted to the magnet, then the can is steel and that if the can isn’t attracted to the magnet, then it is an aluminum can.

Variable attributes

            Similarly, the students learn in this lesson that there are variable attributes that are involved in sorting trash. The students learn that various items constitute as paper such as newspaper, office paper, and cardboard. These items vary a lot in characteristics, but in the context of recycling, they all fall under the category of “paper.”

Forced Retrieval

            The end of the lesson plan indicates that a recycling pre-test and post-test will be administered.        The testing effect indicates that children will better learn material if they are tested on the subject multiple times. The pre-test doesn’t perfectly exemplify forced retrieval because they didn’t learn the material yet, but the post-test is an example of forced retrieval because they’re given the same test after learning the material. The pre-post tests are used to see how effective the lesson plan was in teaching the idea of recycling. According to the testing effect, the students would do even better on a recycling test that was administered after the post-test. This is a well structured way of allowing the students to express their newly acquired knowledge without the fear of a graded evaluation.

            Overall, I believe the lesson plan adequately exemplifies recycling for this age of students. It is long enough for the information to make its way into the student’s long term memory. It contains all aspects of elaborative rehearsal such as attaching meaning, association and organization. The role-playing activity shows how different recyclable items have variable or defining attributes. Forced retrieval by way of a post-test allows the students to demonstrate how much they’ve learned. Through deductively teaching and using schemas, recycling is put in a well-formatted lesson plan.