Planning an engaging lesson takes time (and effort), and teachers are often short on planning time. Finding the right resource, determining how it will be used, and sharing it with students in a way that will get them excited about learning are all vital to creating a dynamic learning experience, and planning these things takes time. When teachers find something that works, this content can become a staple in planning lessons because they can count on the resources being engaging for students and easy to implement.
Georgia third grade teacher Tammy Owen gave the Discovery Education team a behind the scenes look into how she plans her lessons using Discovery Education Experience and Mystery Science. As a veteran teacher, she can count on the resources from Discovery Education to help make her planning quicker and her students excited! Read on to step into a day in Tammy’s life and hear her tips for planning interesting STEAM lessons!
Meet Tammy Owen, STEM Leader & 3rd Grade Teacher
Tammy Owen is a third grade teacher at Cherokee School District‘s Oak Grove Elementary STEAM Academy in Acworth, Georgia. Tammy has been teaching for over 20 years, and loves trying new things in the classroom, especially from Discovery Education!
Tammy's Inspiration
What made me want to be a teacher was my mom—she was a Special Education paraprofessional. Being in schools with her and seeing her love and passion for education really inspired me, but the great teachers I had along the way also encouraged me to enter the profession. I’ve been teaching for 22 years, and I think it gets better every year, especially seeing the kids’ excitement and love for learning is what keeps me here in the classroom. I teach all subjects (Math, Science, Social Studies, and ELA) in my 3rd grade classroom, and I love incorporating new things, especially from Discovery Education!
A Day in the Life
I’ve been using Discovery Education for over 20 years. Today I use it in all subject areas, and love that I can easily search topics to find interactive Studio Boards, videos, and resources to support my teaching every day in any subject. We are STEAM certified, so there is so much from Discovery Education that I can implement in my classroom, such as using videos as an activator or pulling in Mystery Science.
Mystery Science is a great resource because there are so resources and it saves me a lot of time! The activities don’t take much prep work besides finding the materials and making copies, and I love to use Mystery Science resources with a DE Studio Board or a Quiz as a learning check at the end. In fact, having two Discovery Education products within one platform eliminates the hassle of having to navigate extra resources. It has shortened my prep time significantly and has helped me spend more time with interventions and enrichment activities.
I also use Mystery Science in our ELA and Science blocks. Since we are a STEAM integrated school, we follow a specific Engineering/Design process, which starts with research. We use the Mystery Science resources in the first research step so students can take notes, activate prior knowledge, and learn an introduction from the videos before we move to the create step.
Discovery Education's Impact
My biggest challenge was finding materials that are student friendly. Discovery Education has eliminated the process of having to search through various resources to find information that is student friendly, and I know that students will like. It has so much to offer—activators, SOS instructional strategies for quick reflections or checkups, math and science videos, and great read-alouds!
Discovery Education has helped my students learn the content more successfully. With the use of videos, Studio Boards, passages, and Mystery Science, my students are exposed to more types of digital media and use the content so much more because the materials presented are relevant and interesting.
The Student Experience
I think kids take the energy from their teachers, so when I’m excited, they’re excited! We use the Canvas learning management system, and when the students see I’ve embedded Discovery Education into the lesson, they know it’s going to be fun. There’s so much that students can do through technology that isn’t just a worksheet, and they find these resources engaging and encouraging through the learning process. Other resources we rely on are things like STEM Connect for animal adaptations and the daily Fix-It Studio Boards for writing skills.
This year my students also really loved the Working in Harmony Virtual Field Trip from the Country Music Awards. Since we discussed pollution in our classes, the content about sustainability of clothing was interesting! My students and I took the next step by having them sketch out and plan for how to take a shirt and turn it into something new to be more sustainable.
Learn more about Cherokee County School District's partnership with Discovery Education!
Lightbulb Moments
I truly don’t have just one moment that comes to mind because my students love every single activity we do! When I reflect on what I will use next year, one great resource that comes to mind is the Mystery Science information about fossils. Our students take the steps of fossil creation and turn it into a dance!
We also do a yearlong PBL about pollution, and this year I wrote a grant to acquire a compost bin for the school. I was so excited to find a Mystery Science video about composting and when I paused the video after the introductory question was asked, my students were able to answer it! We listened to Mystery Science’s answers and discussed how we could change our compost bin based on the information in the video and reflected on our work.
Advice to Other Educators
I have new teachers on our team, so my biggest piece of advice for others is, don’t be overwhelmed! There is a lot of content, but it is all really great and engaging. I always start with Discovery Education when I go to plan my activities or work through the design process because I can count on it to be exciting for my students. I use it as my first building block and build a lesson around the resources I find
Looking Ahead
I would like to see other educators use Discovery Education more at my school. I do the science plans for my team, and we use these resources a lot for science and math, but getting people excited about it is my goal. Discovery Education is such a great one-stop-shop, and you don’t have to search for outside resources, like in YouTube for example, when you find quality content in DE. My kids also love the Goosebumps Channel because we read those books, and we use the storybooks as mentor texts.
Whether it's creating lightbulb moments for students or finding the perfect video to accompany a reading passage, teachers work hard to build engaging lessons for their students, and Discovery Education is here to help along the way. This school year, try something new to bring some excitement into your lessons. It could end up being a go-to resource for the future!
