Archive for the 'Plan' Category

A Sign for Learning

Published May 31, 2008 Achievement , Curriculum , Formative , Formative assessment , Learn , learning , Lesson , Plan , Student 2 Comments
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Recently I had to put out a church sign.  I had to write out the sign so I knew what I wanted, find each letter  for the words, put the letters in the correct order to spell each word, and then put  the letters in backward order (last letter, next to last letter, etc.)  for each word on the sign.I constantly checked to make sure that the backward planning was resulting in the words being spelled correctly.

I realized that that is how good teachers teach. They figure out what they want their students to do, they make sure of all the skills involved, and they plan backward so that the students will learn letter by letter so they can be successful. They use formative assessment to verify the students learning

What learning sign have you put out this week?

Lesson Planning Based Only On the Standard or on Activities

Published September 18, 2007 Academic , Accountability , Achievement , Activity , Assess , Assessment , Curriculum , learning , Lesson , Plan , Standard Leave a Comment

Thinking person

I tried two different approaches to lesson planning. In the first, I thought of the topic and wrote the activities. In the second, I wrote the standard (or “be able to” and “understand” class goals for the class standards) and then selected my activities. When I looked at my activities from this first lesson planning way and checked to see if they directly lead to the day’s learning goal, I found that many were not critical. They were interesting, fun, and somewhat related to the standard.

However, when I used the second approach in which I wrote the standard first, the “be able to” and “understand” goals, and then selected an activity, I found myself creating activities that more directly lead to student success in the standard. Once I wrote an activity, I would ask myself “How well does this help the students be successful in this standard?” I found my activities to be much more targeted. In addition, my technology use changed to only doing things that purposely helped the students to be successful. I verified each activity against the test of “Will this activity help the students to do well on the day’s assessment of the standard?” If I answered “No”, then I would write the activity so that they could demonstrate their new learning.

So how do you write your lesson plans?

LifeLong Learning-Part 2: Students Plan Their Own Learning

Published July 7, 2007 21st Century , English , learning , Life-Long , Lifelong , Plan , Student Leave a Comment

Teacher or Student Selected

Another aspect of lifelong learning is for students to plan their own learning. This planning goes far from giving students choices of the teachers’ pre-selected activities in the class. A beginning step is for students to design their own activities for their learning of a topic. English students may select their own way of showing the differences between two pieces of literature as long as they show three differences with examples. They may decide to do a word processed essay, a PowerPoint presentation, an imovie, a podcast, etc.

When students set their goals for the course, they take a big step in being lifelong learners. As the teacher tells the major standards goals for the course, the students can decide on what particular areas they want to develop for themselves. They can monitor their process toward their own goals and decide if they need teacher mentoring, peer mentoring, web-based assistance, etc.

An even bigger step is for students to help set the goals for the course. Students can talk about the types of communication that they think are important in the business world and these can be incorporated into an English course.

Teachers may find it difficult to let go of the reins but the students will have to be in control of their own reins very soon and we are to help prepare them for their future.

 

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

 

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