Lesson Planning 101

Prepared for LS 5443: Librarians as Instructional Partners

By Judi Moreillon, Ph.D.

Texas Woman’s University

Before you begin viewing this presentation, think about:

What has been your experience with lesson planning? When did you learn it? Who taught you? What have been the requirements for formal lesson

plans at the schools where you have taught? Are formal lesson plans important to students’ and

teachers’ success? Why or why not? How do you think a formal lesson plan supports

effective classroom-library collaboration?

Note: You have now activated your background knowledge. This is an important reading comprehension strategy (RCS).

These are the educators and researchers who have influenced by model for lesson design and planning:

Violet Harada and Joan Yoshina Madeline Hunter, the Essential Elements of Instruction

(EEI) Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock,

Research-based Instructional Strategies (RbIS) Ross Todd, Evidence-based Practice (EBP) Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by

Design (UbD)

Your district may use a different model, or you may have used a different model in the pastfor lesson planning and design but…

I am requiring that you follow the template in CRCSESL (page 15) or CRCSSSL (page 17). Here’s why: The format was created specifically for school librarians based on

Hunter, Wiggins & McTighe, Marzano et al., and on the work of reading comprehension strategy (RCS) instruction educators.

Our collaborative lesson plan involves teaching RCS, RbIS, classroom curriculum standards and AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner.

You will have become familiar with this comprehensive format through deconstructing a lesson plan that uses it.

If we all use the same format, we can compare apples and apples and use the same vocabulary.

Effective, Collaborative Instructional Planning

Begins with educators determining what skills and strategies students need to be taught. They ask and answer these three questions:

What do students already know about this topic, these concepts, or strategies? (prior knowledge)

What do we want students to know at the end of this lesson/unit? (content knowledge)

What do we want students to be able to do at the end of this unit? (process or product)

How will they, and we, know whether or not they achieved these objectives? (assessment)

Effective, Collaborative Instructional Planning

What do we want students to know at the end of this lesson/unit? What content knowledge should they have gained?

The answer to this question is based on a combination of things: curriculum standards that need to be taught and mastered, observation and evidence, such as pretesting or previous learning experiences that show learners have not yet retained or are not able to use, and/or a concept/idea/problem the students and teacher have negotiated as a next step in their curriculum.

Effective, Collaborative Instructional Planning

What do we want students to be able to do at the end of this unit? What process or product should they have experience/mastered/created?

The answer to this question is based on the process students will engage in and the product educators expect students to produce to demonstrate their learning. Although this answer comes from the same sources as the answer to the first question, the process and product are important in framing the learning event. They must be negotiated early in the collaboration.

Effective, Collaborative Instructional Planning

How will they and we know whether or not they achieved these objectives? What assessment tool or tools will we use to measure student outcomes?

The third question involves determining what type of assessment will be created and used to measure student achievement. Will there be a pre- and post-test? Will students’ previous essays or research papers be compared with these? Will students be offered a choice about how they will demonstrate their learning? Will the assessment be differentiated for learners with special considerations? What technology tools will students be offered to help them demonstrate and share their learning? What self-assessment and assessment tools will be used - a rubric, checklist, graphic organizer, or other instrument?

Before the lesson is designed, before the resources are gathered…

The answers to the three previous questions should be negotiated and agreed upon by the classroom-library collaborators.

For Hunter, EEI, setting the objectives and determining “the test” are the first decisions teachers make in planning.

For Todd, EBP, this sequence is critical to providing evidence: Evidence FOR practice - Why should we teach this? On what research is

this instructional decision based? What do students need to learn? How do we know this?

Evidence In practice – What formative assessments will we administer while students are learning? How will these assessments guide instruction? What kinds of locally-produced data will they generate?

Evidence OF practice – How will we use this evidence to guide further instruction? Who needs to see this evidence? How will we share it?

Before the lesson is designed, before the resources are gathered…

For Wiggins and McTighe, this is Understanding by Design, UbD. It involves setting the goals, objectives, and assessment instrument at the outset of planning. Wiggins and McTighe use the term “backward planning” to describe these first steps in the planning sequence.

Effective educators begin with the end firmly in mind.

What next? Review the Collaborative Planning Forms on the Course

Wiki:http://ls5443.wikispaces.com/Collab_Plan_Forms

Which of these forms support the “backward planning” model?

Is there a better classroom-library collaborative planning form? What/where is it? Should you create it?

What are your questions about lesson planning and planning forms? Bring them to the online discussions during Module 2.

Works Consulted

Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina, eds. Assessing Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2005.

Hunter, Madeline. Essential Elements of Instruction. Everything2. 19 Aug. 2009 <http://everything2.com/title/essential+elements+of+instruction>.

Marzano, Robert, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock. Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001.

Todd, Ross. “Evidence-based Practice and School Libraries: From Advocacy to Action. School Reform and the School Library Media Specialist, Eds. Sandra Hughes-Hassel and Violet H. Harada. Westport, CN: Libraries Unlimited. 57-78. 2007. (EBP)

Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998.