Target generic skills: Critical thinking, Collaboration skills, Self-learning skills

Target values and attitudes: spirit of exploration and inquiry

Learning goals: Breadth of knowledge, learning skills

Target essential learning experiences: intellectual development

Q2:
Target generic skills:

Q3:

Creativity is expected in the experiment, since students can make use of various surrounding materials to explore sound. Students can pair up with different materials to create unique sounds.

Students develop problem solving skills to identify different sounds and figure out some principles about sounds transmission from the experiments.

Q3: In Jojo’s lesson plan, she integrates several activities into the class, which stimulates students’ motivation of learning. Firstly, she decides to provide students with first-hand experience of inquiring into the issues around sound transmission. By conducting the first-hand task, students have the chance to “touch” and “feel” the knowledge, which enables them to comprehend better. Referring to the types of curriculum orientations, in my opinion, Jojo conducts child-centeredness orientation into her lesson plan designing. The first-hand task emphasizes on the process of learning and educational meaningful experiences, and it also puts students as the center of learning. Besides, Jojo also designs group task and mini-experiments for observing the effects. By working in a group, students will be trained to develop their collaborative and communicative skills. 

Students had to conduct mini-experiments, this could allow students to demonstrate their creativity; even though students got same set of material, they could conduct the experiment in various way.

Also, during the process of conducting the experiment, they might face difficulties or they had to relate the experiment result to the principles behind, this could probably help students to develop their problem-solving skills.
Lastly, as these are group tasks, students are required to communicate with their group, so their communication skills will also be developed.

Question 2:

Communication skills:
The teacher gives lecture to the students in order to introduce the topic of sound. Since it is hard for students to understand sound transmission, giving lecture before the group tasks could help student do better during the process of the experiment. In the group task, by cooperating with group member, students can have opportunities to communicate with other group members to solve problems. This is a effective method for students to construct different opinions. Also, teacher can briefly give summary for the class by choosing a presenter to share their conclusion.

Creativity: 
By designing mini-experiments, students can explore on their own and experience the process of how the sound can emit. By observing the experiment result, students can summarize the findings by themselves. Compared to giving knowledge directly to students, this is more understandable for them. Also, during the process of the mini-experiment, students may have creative thinking and other new findings besides the lesson content. This can build up an interesting atmosphere for the lesson so that students can concentrate more on teacher.

Question 3:

Basically, I think students can adequately supported by Jojo. 
Firstly, Jojo decided to provide students with first-hand experience of inquiring into the issue around sound transmission because the concepts and knowledge is a lit bit abstract for grade 4 pupils. This enable pupils to experience the concepts of sound transmission because they can explore how the sound emit by themselves (Learning Outcome 1). 
On the other hand, Jojo designed group activity for students to conduct mini-experiments. Also, Jojo briefed pupils on the rules of conducting on the tasks. This is a qualitative measure for them to analyze the process of learning in assessment. Besides, Jojo prepared different kinds of objects for students so that they can combine the objects with materials. Therefore, it is easy for teacher to summarize the concepts at the end of the lesson. According to the course orientation, this is child-centeredness which emphasize pupil’s activity and self-learning. This is an important element for them to achieve exploratory thinking which they can explain things through group discussion and real-life experience (Learning Outcome 2). 

 

Generic skills are difficult to be taught through teacher-centered teaching. We think that teacher should enhance students' generic skills development through different types of activities, making generic skills as implicit learning objectives , providing them with an opportunity to practice their skills. For example, to teach self-learning skills, the teacher can ask the students to do lesson preparation and collect information about the new topic which is going to be teach, sharing what they have found with the class later. This encourages students to actively explore knowledge themselves rather than just receive information from the teacher. Students may also explore new ways of learning other than listening to the teacher, facilitating their self-learning skills development.

 

Since that the students are divided into groups, they need to work with other students. Students are required to use their communication skills to discuss the topic with group members and to follow teachers’ instructions. 

They also need to have excellent collaboration skills to finish the task with their group members. 

 

Information Technology skills

 

The skills aim to provide students with the basic knowledge of sound transmission and the applications of equipment. This is can help student easily follow the instructions and lesson plans. The use of first-hand experiment provides the chances for student to acquire the knowledge that does not exist in their textbooks. 

 

Problem solving and self-learning skills

 

These two skills will be acquired during doing the experiments. Students need to learn solving any problems by themselves. Even though they are working in a group, each of them are responsible for their own parts. They must learn to overcome the difficulties in the task.  

 

Q3. According to the given background information and the teaching plan, Jojo provided necessary support but not adequately in conducting her tasks. Jojo decides to provide the students with the first-hand experience of inquiring into the issues around sound transmission. Before students are conducting the experiment, they need to acquire themselves with the knowledge of sound transmitting. In this case, Jojo established the basis of the knowledge on sound transmitting; students are therefore acknowledged with the theory. After that, Jojo explained the rules of the experiment which is helpful for the students to follow during their procedure in experimenting.  During the task, by students making the actions to feel the sounds and vibrations, students can easily understand and approach the topic. However, Jojo is not providing enough support for the students during, and after the experiment. Jojo should provide instant support to the students. As the experiment involved several objects, students might encounter problems in the experiment. Jojo should observe students to see if they have any problems, and provide instant support such as answering their questions during the experiment. Yet, this is unseen in her teaching plan. Besides, Jojo should also add an evaluation part for the lesson. As achieving the learning outcomes is a main part of students’ learning, it is believed that students are not able to fully achieve the learning outcomes without the evaluation part. During the evaluation part, Jojo should explain the theory applied in the task in order to familiarize students with the previously taught knowledge as well as highlighting the important parts of the tasks.