TPACK

Our M&M science lesson incorporates all 3 aspects of TPACK...
Content: Standard 3, Objective 3 in Utah's 1st grade core curriculum states that students will be able to "Collect, organize, and represent simple data." Students do this through sorting M&M's into their respective color groups and representing the information in the form of a graph.
Pedagogy: Students will be excited to participate in this experiment because of the reward at the end (yummy M&M's!). The teacher will have students to work in small groups so they can help each other while teacher walks around and assists groups who need her help.
Technology: The lesson simply uses the graphing aspect of PowerPoint. This is a simple tool that students can use to quickly and professionally represent their data. 1st graders will be able to handle the difficulty of this task because it is within their zone of proximal development; however they will need to first have the task modeled and then receive scaffolding along the way.

Tech Savvy Teacher

Technology is a part of everyday life and it is essential that we teach our students how to use it effectively by incorporating it into our teaching.

Miss Cluff and Miss Schefcik teamed up and performed an experiment that was originally designed for a 1st grade class, showing how simple it can be to bring technology into a classroom. They found this experiment at http://www.macomb.k12.mi.us/eastdet/Plans/EL-math.htm. This fulfills a 1st Grade standard found in Utah Public Schools' Curriculum...
Standard 3
Students will understand simple geometry and measurement concepts as well as collect, represent, and draw conclusions from data.
Objective 3
Collect, organize, and represent simple data.
1. Collect and represent data using tables, tally marks, pictographs, and bar graphs.
2. Describe and interpret data.

What better way to explore math than with food?
In this experiment, students compare the color quantities in two different packages of M&M's. Miss Cluff and Miss Schefcik used a package of peanut and a package of plain M&M’s.

After sorting their data they created a bar graph of their findings using PowerPoint. The bar graph helped them quickly and clearly organize their findings so they could analyze their information. They learned that along with having more M&M’s in them, plain M&M packages also have a wider variety of colors. One thing is for sure...M&M's sure are tasty!

Incorporating PowerPoint into the lesson is beneficial for students because they gain experience using the program and learn how to professionally organize and present data. These 1st grade scientists are ready to present their findings to the public in a way that presents their experimental data in a way that could be readily repeated by other curious students. Not only does this fulfill the 1st grade standard, it does so in a unique way that will help the students for the rest of their lives! Whether students grow up to be scientists or not, they will need to know how to use various aspects of PowerPoint. This lesson merely explored one of PowerPoint's many capabilities. As Miss Schefcik and Miss Cluff learned, incorporating technology into a lesson plan does not have to give teachers a headache. The hardest thing about bringing technology into the classroom is knowing what resources you have, after that, the rest is as easy as eating a whole bag of M&Ms by yourself!!