Building Your Lesson Step-by-Step

Section Building Your Lesson Step-by-Step

Let’s work through the lesson planning process systematically, making decisions at each step and building toward a complete lesson you can actually teach.

🔗

Exploration 38. Step 1: Identify Your Curriculum Connection.

Start with what you’re already planning to teach. Data science works best when it enhances existing content rather than replacing it.

🔗

Reflection Questions:

🔗

• What unit or topic are you teaching in the next 2-3 weeks?

🔗

• What questions do students typically ask about this topic?

🔗

• What information or comparisons would help students understand this topic better?

🔗

• Are there any controversies, choices, or decisions related to this topic?

🔗

Examples Across Subjects:

🔗

• Math: Studying fractions → Investigate fractional parts of students’ daily schedules

🔗

• Science: Learning about weather → Track and analyze local weather patterns

🔗

• Social Studies: Studying community → Survey and analyze neighborhood characteristics

🔗

• ELA: Reading different genres → Analyze word patterns in different types of books

🔗

Watch this webinar if you are interested in hearing about how educators have implemented data science in their algebra classrooms!

🔗

Watch this webinar if you are interested in hearing about what data literacy looks like in the K-5 space!

🔗

Checkpoint 86.

Think about a specific unit you’re teaching in the next month. Write down: (1) The main topic or concept, (2) One question students often ask about this topic, (3) One type of information that would help them understand it better.

🔗

Exploration 39. Step 2: Craft Your Engaging Question.

The question should connect to your curriculum content while being investigable through data. It should make students think, “I want to know the answer to that!”

🔗

Question Quality Checklist:

🔗

✓ Connects to curriculum content students are learning

🔗

✓ Can be investigated through data collection or analysis

🔗

✓ Is specific enough to be answerable but broad enough to be interesting

🔗

✓ Matters to students—they care about finding the answer

🔗

✓ Appropriate for your grade level and available time

🔗

Question Transformation Practice:

🔗

• Weak: “What do students like?” → Strong: “What activities do students in our school prefer for indoor recess?”

🔗

• Weak: “How does the weather change?” → Strong: “How has our local temperature changed over the past month compared to the same month last year?”

🔗

• Weak: “What makes a good story?” → Strong: “What types of words appear most frequently in mystery books compared to adventure books?”

🔗

Checkpoint 87.

Using the curriculum connection you identified earlier, write three possible investigation questions. Then use the quality checklist to evaluate and improve them. Which one feels most engaging and manageable for your students?

🔗

Exploration 40. Step 3: Design the Investigation Process.

Now plan how students will actively work with data to explore your question. This is where you decide which data science strands to emphasize and what students will actually do.

🔗

Investigation Design Decisions:

🔗

Data Source: Will students collect new data, use existing datasets, or both?

🔗

Data Science Strands: Which 1-2 strands will you emphasize? (Don’t try to cover everything in one lesson)

🔗

Student Role: Will they work individually, in pairs, or small groups? What will each person be responsible for?

🔗

Tools and Materials: What will students use to collect, organize, and analyze data? (Keep it simple for your first lesson)

🔗

Investigation Flow Example:

🔗

Question: “What types of books are most popular among different grade levels in our school?”

🔗

1. Students design a simple survey (Creation & Curation)

🔗

2. Collect data from other classes (Creation & Curation)

🔗

3. Organize responses and create frequency tables (Analysis & Modeling)

🔗

4. Create visualizations and identify patterns (Visualization & Communication)

🔗

5. Discuss what findings mean for school library decisions (Interpreting Problems & Results)

🔗

Checkpoint 88.

For your question, sketch out a 3-5 step investigation process. What will students do in each step? Which data science strands are you emphasizing? What materials will you need?

🔗

Prev Top Next