Activity Planning! Being Intentional about

Supporting Skill Development

When do you have to Plan?

• Whenever an activity is not part of the daily routine

• Whenever you are doing a new activity

• Whenever you want to pass on your great ideas to other people

Breakdown of an Activity Plan

• Objectives

• Activity description

• Supplies

• De-brief/Reflection

• Assessment

ObjectivesWhat you expect the participants to be able to do,

know or feel after the activity

Characteristics of A Good Objective

• Specific – says exactly what the learner will be able to do

• Measurable – can be observed by the end of the activity

• Attainable within scheduled time and specified conditions

• Relevant to the needs of the participant and the organization

Examples of Objectives

• demonstrate dance movements through informal presentations and share their thoughts and feelings in response to their own and others’ dances

• describe how a volcano explodes

• recognize and draw the following line styles; vertical, horizontal, diagonal, wavy, curved and zig-zag

• convince a donor to provide refreshments for the program’s showcase program

Participants will be able to

Activity Description:

Description of what you and the participants are going

to do in the activity. It should be in enough detail so that a person who did not write the lesson plan

can follow it.

Supplies

What is needed to do the activity (Don’t forget the small stuff like pencils, paper, scotch tape)

De-brief/Reflection Strategies that allows the participants a few minutes to internalize what happened during the activity or connect to their own lives.

Give the participants the opportunity to reflect on the following:

• What happened? Describe what happened or what was learned during the activity • So What? Determine what was important about what was learned/done during the activity • Now What? Think of what can be done with what was learned during the activity

Great websites for reflection strategies:

• Reflection Activity for Community Service and Service Learning Projects: http://4h.uwex.edu/pubs/showdoc.cfm?documentid=22661

• Reflection Toolkit: Northwest Service Academy, Metro Center, Portland, OR http://www1.aucegypt.edu/maan/pdf/Reflection%20Toolkit%201.pdf

•Reflection Strategies: http://www.usfca.edu/uploadedFiles/Destinations/Institutes_and_Centers/OSL/docs/Reflection%20Activities.pdf

Assessment:

Strategy that allows you to determine whether the participants met the objectives of the activity. Can be questions, a review of the products developed during the activity etc.

Assessment Strategies

• Directly ask the participant to answer questions related to the objectives for the activity. (This type of assessment can often be folded into your feedback/reflection)

• Assess a finished product to see if has met the designated criteria.

• Use KWL: a brainstorming process exploring what participants know prior to beginning an activity(s), what they what to learn about it, and after finishing what they have learned.

• Use a rubric to assess to what degree the participants has successfully mastered

the objective. This can be a time consuming process if you are going to assess individual participants’ efforts but provides a lot of information. If you want many examples of rubrics for different subjects and topics, check out RubiStar http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php. For full use you have to register for free but it has a lot of ideas and rubrics templates.

KWL

Rubric

Theme Planning Sheet