Learning Activity 4-4: Social Bookmarking Lesson Plan

Class: Statistics

Title: Resource-Collection for our Culminating Group Project

Audience: 11th and 12th grade students

Objective: Students will be able to use Pinterest to create a collaborative Pinterest board sharing resources about one of the graphs we have discussed in class.

Materials needed: Access to Pinterest and our School’s LMS Schoology

Prior knowledge: At the end of the year in Stats, students always complete a culminating group project where they collect their own data and make various graphs. Students learned the following 8 graphs throughout the year: pie charts, bar charts, histograms, dotplots, stempots, timeplots, boxplots, and scatterplots.

The problem is that sometimes students forget about some of the different graphs we have learned throughout the year. I always just kind of “throw” students into the final project and expect them to look back in their notes or research online if they forgot about any of these graphs. Below is my revised lesson plan for incorporating social bookmarking before starting this culminating group project.

Revised lesson plan: Depending on the size of the classes, I will have students work in teams of two or three to compile Pinterest boards on the different graphs. All students will be able to refer to these boards then for a refresher on the components and aspects of these graphs. 

Each group of students will be assigned one of the graphs we covered in class. Then, each group will contribute to a shared/collaborative Pinterest board where they find videos, handouts, posters, etc. that serve as a reminder of how to properly create and analyze their graph. Once finished, each group will share the link to their Pinterest board to a class discussion board. These boards will become a massive resource center for all groups to reference when creating the graphs for their culminating group project.

Short explanation (3 to 5 sentences) as to why I chose the lesson plan: Sometimes as teachers, we take for granted how much students remember (especially at the end of the year when motivation and engagement are dwindling). Although I think graphing is one of the easier topics, it is something we haven’t really fully immersed ourselves into since the first few months of the school year. I chose this lesson plan because I think it will be a great way for students to collaborate together online as they locate useful resources that can benefit the entire class. Pinterest is very user-friendly and filled with an abundance of educational resources (which I wasn’t even aware of!), so students will be able to maneuver through this social bookmarking process fairly effortlessly.

Describe the predicted advantages that will happen as a result of the revision: With the revision, one major advantage is that students will have a “one stop shop” for all of their resources and review materials on the graphs we learned. In the past, students would have to hunt around for their own research and refreshers on how to create the various graphs in the class. However, Pinterest boards that are shared with the entire class will make it so much easier for students to locate streamlined relevant content for their final project. Another advantage is the pure organization of using Pinterest boards. I think some students struggle with organizing their online thoughts and findings; social bookmarking will hopefully help these students. One last advantage is that this revision just makes things easier for students! By collaborating with each other and sharing their Pinterest boards, they only need to find the resources for one of the types of graphs, and their peers will be providing them with the information for the other seven graphs. 

Describe the predicted disadvantages that will happen as a result of the revision: I’d probably have to say that the disadvantages of this revision are the same as with most other group assignments. Small groups of students will work together to make their Pinterest boards. If there are disagreements or some students are MIA, it might cause some friction. Additionally, students need to rely on the other groups to create meaningful Pinterest boards that they can utilize to help them in their final project. If some of the groups do a poor job, the whole class will unfortunately suffer. This will result in students needing to do the research on their own, instead of being able to benefit from the class collaboration. (Fingers crossed each group does their job!)