Nutritional Facts Label 101

ASSURE Multimedia Lesson Plan: Nutrition Facts Label 101

ASSURE Model Instructional Plan

Lesson Title: Nutritional Facts Label 101

Grade Level: Grade 6

Lesson Length: 60-minute period

A: Analyze Learner Characteristics

Learners General Characteristics: The school that I am teaching this lesson would be Agueda I. Johnston Middle School. The grade level targeted is grade 6. According to the school's website, ethnicity in this school is dominated by pacific islanders. 89% Pacific Islanders. 8% Asian. 1% American Indian. 2% Other. Classes are filled with 15 students who range from 11-12 year old kids.

6th Grade Entry Characteristics: At this grade level, students should be able to recognize how a nutritional fact label looks like on a cereal bar and have decent internet skills. The familiarity of a bar graph might range from student to student. In the lesson, they will watch a video about bar graphs to make them learn the concept or refresh it for some who already know. 

Learning Styles

Auditory 21% 

Kinesthetic 45%

Visual 34%

OBJECTIVES:

1. Students will be able to create a bar graph on graphing paper.
2. Students will be able to read and understand the fat, sugar, and salt labels on the nutritional facts label.
3. Students will be able to compare which cereal is healthy and unhealthy by results from bar graph.

S: Select Methods, Media, and Materials 

Methods: Cooperative Learning Groups

Materials: 

1. Picture of Nutritional Fact Label of following cereals

•  Fruity Pebbles
• Captain Crunch
• Special K

     2. Pencil and Eraser

     3. Graphing paper for Bar Graph

     4. Bar Graph Picture

    

Media: 

1. Youtube video. How to Read a Nutritional Facts Label.
2. Understand and Create a Bar Graph.

U: Utilize Media, Materials, and Methods

Prepare the Materials: The two YouTube videos will be downloaded and ready for students to watch. The handouts on each cereals nutritional facts label will be separated for the groups of students. Lastly, students will have their pen, eraser, and graphing paper out for when it is needed later in the lesson.

Prepare the Environment: With the help of students, the classroom will be separated in desks of three with each desk facing the front of the classroom.

Methods: Cooperative Learning Methods. Students will be split into groups of three. All three will play an equal role in the groups success. One student will be the note taker, another will be the detective, and the last student will be the supervisor. The role of the detective will be inspect the nutritional facts label while the note taker will be taking notes. The supervisor will make sure everything is going smoothly.

Materials: 

1. Picture of Nutritional Fact Label of following cereals

•  Fruity Pebbles
• Captain Crunch
• Special K

     2. Pencil and Eraser: These two tools will be used for students to draw their bar graphs.

     3. Graphing paper for Bar Graph: Graphing is an easier alternative to regular paper. It gives students straight lines to draw out their bar graphs.

     4. Bar Graph Picture: After watching the video on bar graphs, this picture will help give students a real life image of how their bar graph should turn out.

Media: 

1. Youtube video. How to Read a Nutritional Facts Label. This video will introduce students to the nutritional facts label and what it is all about. It is kid friendly and long enough to educate students without boring them by the length, 
2. Understand and Create a Bar Graph. This video is a fun and entertaining way to get students to understand what is a bar graph and how to collect data for it. It also gives students an idea of how bar graphs will look when they have to create one later in the lesson.

R: Require Learner Participation

Introduction (5 minutes): Students will be aware of the objectives for the day's lesson plan. With that, the class room will be arranged already and students will be told what group they will be with for today. Lastly, students will be given their handouts of the three cereals nutritional facts label, bar graph picture.

Media Presentations (15 minutes): After each video, the class will be asked questions to ensure they gained the necessary knowledge to carry out the lesson plan. 

Class Activity (20 minutes): In the groups, students will now extract the data on fat, sugar, and salt from each nutritional facts labels. After that, they will create a bar graph with the help of a simple bar graph picture that was handed out in the beginning of class. Students will analyze the collected data on each bar graph and determine which cereal is healthy and unhealthy.

Closing Activity (20 minutes): Students will have this time for a class discussion on what they learned in today's lesson. It will be open to any questions and concerns from them. Three groups will have the opportunity to present their bar graph to the class for bonus points towards their grade.

E: Evaluate and Revise 

Student Performances: 

• Students will be graded on their team performance.
• Their bar graph will be graded by the correctness of their data and the neatness of their graph.
• Extra points will be given for those who participate in the closing class discussions.

Media Effectiveness: 

• Was the YouTube video informative?
• Did the video catch the student's attention?
• Did the video enhance the student's learning experience?

Instructor Performance:

• Was the instructor in control of the class during the lesson?
• Did the instructor thoroughly explain the objectives to the class and carry out each one?
• Did the instructor help students who might have been lost?
• Did all the students gain from the lesson plan?

Bar Graph Rubric:

The Journey to Argument Wars

      Technology in education can enhance learning in today's times. We are surrounded by so many tools that make learning fun. I was fortunate enough to have an assignment that gave light to that statement. My ED271 class was split up into groups and were assigned to find an online educational game that would best serve learning. At first, I thought this assignment would be useless. Why would a game help someone learn? I was always under the influence that learning should be from reading, writing, or applying material, but never from playing a game. I gave it a chance and consulted with my group. My group composed of two secondary education majors and one elementary major. That left us with a problem of finding a game that we all agreed on although our age groups were completely different. Despite that obstacle, we overlooked it and began the search.

     Meanwhile, every group was assigned to make a rubric for our game. Once again, I doubted the importance of a rubric, but with further research, I was proved wrong. According to Brookhart (2013), "Rubrics are important because they clarify for students the qualities their work should have" (chp. 1). I realized that rubrics can be considered cheat sheets for students. They have access to the guideline of what excellent work should be. From that, I was excited to create a rubric that represented the game we were about to find. My group used Google Docs to compose our rubric. It was really convenient to have an online tool where we could all work on it together at once. Google docs eliminates the need to meet face to face which is difficult considering everyone has other obligations to attend to. So we used this online tool and worked on the rubric together.

      Finally, after some time, my group found a game that we all agreed was the best online educational game ever. "Argument Wars" is a game which taught material mostly from social studies. The objective of the game is to debate in a courtroom on a well known case and try to win against your opponent. It is highly interactive with feedback from your opponent and the judge. My group found it so fun that we all played it in our free time. How often can you say that you were playing an educational game during your leisure time? This game made me say that to many people. It was awesome to use because it takes a boring subject and turns it into a competitive game that people would enjoy playing. It would apply perfectly for a middle school and high school social studies class. I would assign my students to play the game and beat your opponent. The proof would be the cool certificate you get at the end when you win the game. I know that this would be an assignment that all the students would love playing considering online gaming is a big hit today.

      Our online educational game was now official and we were all set to get started on the presentation. The hardest part about putting it together was finding a online presentation site to use. There are a huge list of them and we were baffled. At first, we chose Prezi because it was a group decision. After creating the material to apply on Prezi, we changed our mind and chose Emaze because we wanted to be different. I thought that was innovative that we can choose from a number of great websites. From there we applied the information onto Emaze and the presentation was set in stone. Meanwhile, another obstacle occurred. One of my group members was unable to make the presentation date due to the fact she had to be off island. My group responded perfectly. Since we are in a technology based class, let us use technology to fix this problem. We had the missing member record her part and applied it onto the presentation. This would be a huge problem ten years ago, but today's technology tools made it so easy to solve.

       Some people think technology should stay out of the classroom but I think it should stay inside and keep allowing students to utilize it for it's advantages.  Often times kids get tired of reading from a social studies textbook that can possibly make them sleep. According to Honeycutt (2013), " When technology is integrated into school lessons, learners are more likely to be interested in, focused on, and excited about the subjects they are studying." It is very crucial to figure out ways for my students to be engaged in the material I will be teaching. It's even more important that they have fun while they learn because I believe you cannot learn if you are not having fun in the process. Argument Wars is all about making learning fun from technology.

References

 Brookhart, S. (2013). How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/112001/chapters/What-Are-Rubrics-and-Why-Are-They-Important%C2%A2.aspx

Huneycutt, T. (2013). Technology in the Classroom: The Benefits of Blended Learning. Retrieved October 7, 2015, from http://www.nms.org/Blog/TabId/58/PostId/188/technology-in-the-classroom-the-benefits-of-b