Introduction

Most of us have thought about, if not actually planned, a weekend get-a-way. What is involved in getting ready for the weekend? Most of us start with why we want to get away—see something new, relax, meet new people or visit old acquaintances, etc. The why of going away for the weekend will help us determine where we are going and when we will leave and return—our itinerary. Now that the parameters are defined, we must get down to the nitty-gritty of planning our weekend. This will include what clothing to take, what activities we will enjoy, what reservations need to be made, how much money we will need, what directions will be needed, etc.

Planning for instruction has many similarities to planning a weekend getaway. We start with the why of what we are teaching. Many tools are available to help us determine the reason for teaching a particular topic. These tools include state and national standards, district expectations, specific learner needs, and teacher interest, to name just a few. A teacher should be able to explain to students, teachers, parents, and administrators why they are teaching specific content and how it will benefit students.

Key Terms to Know

Body

Closure

Format

Formative Assessments

Introduction

Learning Activities

Objectives

Post-Assessment

Pre-assessment

Scope

Scope and Sequence

Semester Plan Sequence

State and National Standards

Summative Assessments

Unit

Why Teach What We Teach

Once the reasons for teaching course content have been identified, the nitty-gritty, or the specifics of planning, can occur. These include items such as the order of teaching the content, the time needed to spend on each area, the assessments to be used, and the activities to be used. We need to keep in mind available resources, possible activities, diverse student needs, date and time constraints, and our own knowledge, interest, and experience levels. Since these learning activities are for a classroom of very diverse students, maybe even several classrooms, the needs of all participants must be considered in the planning process. It is critical to remember that all students can learn something if we plan with them in mind and then execute the plans to meet their needs. In the process, it is hoped that everyone will enjoy, at least a little bit, the learning process and feel like they have achieved something by the end of the year.

Articulating the “why” of teaching naturally leads to the pertinent state and national standards for the content. These standards are the place to start when planning for the upcoming semester or year. They give a foundation for what the students are expected to accomplish, often define goals or the highest order objectives, and may suggest learning activities and assessment strategies. Standards also suggest the scope or depth of knowledge and the sequence or order for teaching any given knowledge which will help guide planning. Standards naturally evolve into objectives, helping define the higher-order, or terminal, objectives used for unit planning. The lower-level daily objectives are identified later, as planning becomes more focused and specific.

When doing any planning, it is always best to start with the end in mind. Too many teachers make great lesson plans and then are not sure how they will evaluate student knowledge and growth. This may leave students wondering if what they learned was what was tested or assessed and teachers may question whether the students learned anything at all. If assessments are based on the articulated standards and objectives, they should also reflect the content that was taught. Decisions about how to assess learning need to be made at the start of planning to ensure valid and authentic assessments are planned and implemented. Any teacher or administrator should be able to look at a set of unit and lesson plans and identify how every objective is taught and, in turn, assessed.

Scope and Sequence

The first level of planning is the semester or year plan. This level of planning is called the scope and sequence. The scope and sequence plan is a basic level of planning and consists of identified topics which will be taught throughout the semester. It is an outline for the next level of planning which can easily be converted to a calendar since little detail is required. It should include the scope, or basic concepts that are taught, including the depth of knowledge mandated by the course and age level of the students and the sequence, or order, in which the content will be taught. If I were to give each member of the class a handful of assorted miniature candy bars and ask them to put the candy bars in the order they would eat them, we would have as many different configurations as there were people. A scope and sequence will differ from one teacher to the next in much the same way. The content may be the same, but circumstances will dictate the order you choose to present the information. Suggestions from colleagues may help guide this level of planning, but much is left up to the individual teacher. (See the example of a scope and sequence in the appendices of this chapter).

Semester Plan

Once the outline of the scope and sequence has been completed, the content should be plotted out on a calendar. This allows the teacher the opportunity to further develop and illustrate the depth of each area of the content by assigning a given number of days it will occupy. It also helps the teacher plan ahead for known professional development or vacation days. This becomes the semester plan. An important part of the semester plan is a brief statement identifying the course and a justification for teaching it. This will help guide the teacher as he or she selects the most relevant content to include in the class. She or he will also be better prepared to answer questions from administrators, parents, and students about the value of what is being taught. The national standards each begin with a brief statement, called a comprehensive standard, which can be a start to the justification. Some state standards may also include a similar introductory statement. (See the example of a semester plan in the appendicies of this chapter).

Unit Plan

Once the course plan is outlined, it is broken down into units. Units are major concepts that have been grouped into manageable blocks of time. Most units are four to ten days long. This length allows for students to make the connections necessary to recall and use the content without it becoming unmanageable for assessment. While the course plan will be broken down into units, it is important to remember that continuity throughout the semester is critical so students can see and make connections between the various units and how they relate to their own individual circumstances.

Unit plans include more detail than course plans. Objectives, often called goals at this point, should be identified for the unit. Since these are larger blocks of time, incorporating several daily lessons, the objectives should be of a higher-order. They may be labeled goals, terminal objectives, or unit objectives. Unit summative assessments should be identified and developed at this point to ensure students have achieved the higher-order objectives of the unit. Major learning activities to facilitate student accomplishment of the objectives are the next determination. These are the things students will do while learning the content and may include both formative and summative assessment.

Remember that formative assessment is used to find out where the students are as they are being taught and to guide and inform instruction while summative assessment is used at the end of instruction to show what the students have learned. They both follow pre-assessment that tells you where the students were at the beginning of the unit and what information they brought with them into the class. Summative assessment may also be called a post-assessment since it shows what is known at the end of the unit.

Don’t feel like you need to list every activity at this point, only those that will require more time and will directly enable the students to reach the unit objectives. The objectives, learning activities, and assessments should all be at the same, higher level. It may take several days to accomplish the unit objectives and to complete the major learning activities. (See the example of a unit plan in the appendicies of this chapter).

Lesson Plans

Lesson plans are the third level of planning and the most detailed. They are a ‘guide to action’ (Orlich, et al., 2004). This is where a teacher gets to the nitty-gritty of planning—the specifics of what, when, and how of teaching the content. With the unit plan broken down into days of instruction that allow for the content to be taught in a connected manner, it is easier to now move on to the daily details.

Objectives

Since the unit objectives have been identified at a higher order, the teacher must now determine the lesson objectives that will facilitate bringing students from where they currently are to that higher level. Many lesson objectives begin at a lower-level as students are introduced to the content and start to have experiences with it. Learning activities and assessments in the lesson plans must align to the corresponding objectives.

Assessment

Once you have identified what the students should be able to do at the end of the lesson, the methods of formative assessment should be determined. This is critical as content is introduced. It allows you, the teacher, to know what the students learned during their time in your classroom, make plans to correct any misunderstandings, and then help them integrate the learning into what they know and do.

You may also identify a summative assessment that will be used for the daily lesson. This may be the one you identified when developing the unit or another summative assessment. It is critical that assessments be identified at the beginning of planning rather than left for the end. Assessment should always guide instruction, not the other way around.

Learning Activities

The identified assessments will often suggest at least one learning activity for the lesson plan; you will fill in with others. These activities can be chosen from the large assortment at your disposal. It is critical that you plan for a variety of activities each day. This will help both you and the students maintain interest in the class. Experience teaches that it is much better to over plan than to under plan!

Every lesson plan needs a beginning, a body or middle, and an ending or summary. Even if the content continues to the following class period, closure is needed before students are dismissed and an introduction of some type must pull them back in the following day. We sometimes hear it stated “tell them what you are going to teach, teach them, and then tell them what you taught them.” Most of us need to hear things multiple times before they become part of our knowledge base.

Many teachers are in the habit of starting class with a bell ringer or jumpstart activity. These allow the teacher time to take roll and deal with immediate classroom issues that often arise. The bell ringer is a good time to do a bit of review or get the students thinking about the topic for the day. It is generally NOT an effective introduction to the topic by itself.

Introduction of the Lesson

A good introduction is something that will catch the attention of the students and help them focus on the topic. It can also create a transition to the next learning activity so students are ready to move on with their learning. Some terms often used to identify the introduction activity are anticipatory set, establishment of set or set induction. The term ‘set’ refers to being in a state or condition to learn. These terms remind us that it is the teacher’s job to make sure the students’ minds are ready to receive, reflect upon, and retain the information that will be presented. Another term often used for the introduction is motivator. The use of this term suggests that we need to motivate the students and give them a reason to learn the forthcoming content.

Body of the Lesson

After the introduction, the body of the lesson is prepared. How will the objectives be accomplished? What content will be taught? What learning activities will be used? The body consists of both the content and the learning activities to teach the content. It is the main part of the day and the lesson plan.

It is important to be clear on the content that will be taught each day. Many teachers identify this content in an outline form. More experienced teachers may have less of a formal content outline after teaching for several years. However, it is a good suggestion to have the content available in the event a less experienced substitute needs to be called. It is not necessary to write down every word that will be said while teaching the lesson but many teachers find it helpful to write down the critical, higher-order questions they want to use. These are almost always easier to identify when not in front of a class full of students!

There are a wide variety of teaching strategies to pull from to teach the content. The average attention span of teenagers is five to ten minutes, so that means that teachers need to change their teaching strategy that frequently. Think about the transitions you will use to make moving from the introduction to the first activity and then to the next smooth and seamless.

Closure of the Lesson

The closure or summary ties the lesson together for the students. (It is not a summary for the teacher of what the day entailed, as some think, but a summary by and for the students of what was learned.) It reminds the students of the main concepts or objectives of the day. The teacher can summarize what was learned or draw the summary from the students. This may take the form of an exit slip such as “Write three things you learned today” or an oral discussion of the main points from the lesson content. A well-constructed summary can be an effective formative assessment. Planning for a summary ensures that you are ready for the end of class before the bell rings and that you, not the bell, will dismiss the students. (See the example of a lesson plan in the appendices of this chapter).

Lesson Plan Format

Some teachers become overly concerned about the format of the lesson plan. Research regarding lesson planning indicates that there is no “best” way to plan and a variety of formats are used (Orlich, et al., 2004). In fact, it is possible to find nearly as many lesson plan formats as there are teachers. At times, the school or district may have a specific form they prefer that teachers use, but for the most part, teachers can base their lesson plan format on personal preference. There are, however, some basic elements that should be included in any lesson plan format:

• Unit, lesson, and course titles: this will help with filing and retrieval, both now and in the future
• Objectives: make it clear what the goal of the lesson is
• Introduction: how you will introduce the content
• Content: what you will teach
• Learning activities or strategies: what you and/or the students will do
• Summary: how you will end and review the lesson
• Materials and resources needed: what you will need for the lesson
• Assessment: how you will know if the students achieved the objectives

Other elements may be included in a lesson plan, depending on personal preference:

• Time allotted for each activity: how much time you will spend on each lesson segment. This can be a helpful guide but is seldom 100% accurate.
• Critical questions: the questions you want to ask to guide learning. You may want to put these in bold or colored print so you can more easily see them at a glance.
• Place for teacher notes/comments/reflection: where you make notes about how the lesson went. It is helpful to include both positive and negative feedback and comments, for future review and reflection.
• Assignments for students: any homework or student activities for classroom and/or home completion. Make sure you can justify the work you ask students to do as a valid and worthwhile learning activity (no busy work).
• State/national standards and connections: how the lesson connects to state/national standards. These show we are meeting established content expectations.
• Common Core connections: how the lesson teaches literacy and math concepts. These help identify the relevance of content to the total education of students.
• Needed differentiation: how the lesson meets the needs of various students. Thinking this through in advance is especially helpful if student and class needs vary widely. Don’t forget the gifted students as well as the slower learners.
• Student prior knowledge: what you expect students to already know about the content. Students come to us with some knowledge and background; we waste their time and ours if they already know the information and we just repeat it. We need to establish the current level of knowledge (pre-assessment).
• Contextual factors: items specific to the class that may affect teaching. These may include such items as time of day, community issues, school activities, etc.

As you look at various lesson plan formats, try a few out and create one that will work for you. It can be helpful to create and save a template to make lesson plan writing quicker.

Lesson Plan Review

Once the lesson plan is written, take a few minutes to review. Is every objective taught and assessed? Are there activities in the plan that don’t relate to any of the objectives? Is there a plan to build on prior learning and knowledge? Are there connections enabling students to relate the learning to their personal lives? Will the introduction lead the students into the content? Is there a concise way to summarize and conclude the lesson? Can someone else come in and teach this lesson without much difficulty? If you can answer these questions, you have done a good job planning.

Summary

Lesson planning can seem overwhelming and intimidating for beginning teachers. It doesn’t have to be that way, if the planning process is taken one step at a time. Beginning teachers undoubtedly plan differently than an experienced teacher does. The ease of planning that long-time teachers seem to exhibit comes with time and experience, though it is seldom as easy as it seems to others. Research has identified six findings related to teacher planning. They are 1) no widely accepted or consistently practical planning model has been identified, 2) a variety of lesson plan formats are used by teachers, 3) planning is a guide to action, 4) teacher planning tends to be in their minds rather than on paper, 5) linear planning is seldom used by teachers, and 6) planning is the key to excellent teaching but it must be flexible (Orlich, Harder, Callahan, Trevisan, & Brown, 2004).

Many of these findings relate more to seasoned teachers, not beginning teachers or those learning to become teachers. While experienced teachers may plan mainly in their minds and in a nonlinear fashion (Orlich, et al. , 2004), a beginning teacher will benefit from writing things down as they navigate the planning process, with the understanding that with experience will also come less need for detail. This will be the case with any “new beginning” when teaching, whether a new content preparation or a new school ordistrict. Updated standards may also necessitate more detailed planning and preparation, to make sure classroom content and activities remain current and relevant.

As you work with and use the plans you create, take notes on them of changes you implement or think of, student reactions, your thoughts, feelings, and reactions, things that worked and things that didn’t, etc. This will help when you begin planning for the next teaching cycle. The goal of all professionals, including teachers, is to continually review what has been done and plan for improvement with each new semester or year.

Every teacher has had students ask “Why do we have to know this?” at one time or another. Others, including parents and administrators, may wonder the same thing. Do you have an answer? As the teacher, you should have clearly in mind what the students are learning from any activity, how it relates to the standards and content, and how it will benefit students in the future. Unless the teacher is clear on the “why” of teaching something, it is difficult to convey those reasons to those that ask. Remember that we don’t have time or effort for an activity just because someone else used it or it is “fun” to do. There should always be learning involved.

As Orlich, et al. (2004) stated, planning is key to excellent teaching, but once the plan is made, flexibility and adaptability are critical so the need of every child is met. Just as your well planned weekend get-away will allow everyone in the group to have fun, relax and enjoy something new, your lesson plan will help both you and your students progress.

References

Chamberlain, V. M. & Cummings, M. N. (2003). Creative instructional methods for family & consumer sciences, nutrition & wellness. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill.

Dictionary. Com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/set retrieved 07/25/2013.

Hitch, E. J. & Youatt, J. P. (2002). Communicating family and consumer sciences: a guidebook for professionals. Tinley Park, IL: Goodheart-Willcox.

Moore, K. D. (2005), Effective instructional strategies: From theory to practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Orlich, D. C., Harder, R. J., Callahan, R. C., Trevisan, M. S., & Brown, A. H. (2004). Teaching strategies: A guide to effective instruction (7th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.