Day 21- Designing the Details

I am almost done with the 30 day challenge and hopefully I am starting to make some sense to everyone.  For this string of posts, I have followed a model of lesson planning and I am reaching the last two days of promised posts.  I am hoping that this was about a subtle as a brick through a window.  I developed a plan, set about a framework, and I am now filling in the details.  So four days in a row, soon to be a week, I modeled how to plan out a lesson.

Now to preface the rest of this post with something very important, I am not a doctor nor do I pretend to be one on TV.  While I might not be the smartest guy in the room (all the time) I do spend a great deal of time reading and observing.  So what follows are just some ideas and suggestions for how to fill in that template that was discussed yesterday.

Objective: Folks might disagree with me on this one, but in my experiences having an objective is a great way to summarize a lesson.  It is a brief statment that students can refer to or the teacher can ask them to refer to in order to keep kids on track.  It is also a very easy way to wrap up a lesson.  

Drill/Warm-Up/Do Now: An activity to get kids involved immediately in the lesson.  It can be a question, discussion, or any other activity that immediately grabs the kids and gets them thinking about the lesson.  I used them as the jump off point for almost every lesson.  A great idea is to create a discrepant event that challenges the typical way of thinking.  

Engagement Activity: I look at this as a continuation of the drill.  Keep the ball rolling with what you just had the students doing.  Make it as interesting as possible.  It can be as simple as continuing a discussion about the drill or as difficult as you want it to be.

Now where there is discrepancy and arguments.  For the next portion, the meat of the lesson, people make millions...and MILLIONS of dimes off of this discussion.  I don't care how you do this but include some of the following in some type of order:

Teacher Alone, Teacher with Student, Student with Teacher, Student Alone

Exploration activity, Explanation Activity, Extension Activity, Elaboration Activity

Together with You, Together Together, and All by Yourself.

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen

Each of the above is a way to get the the content to the students.  Except for the last one, that one is Vanilla Ice; but, it could be the new way to teach.  The point is to get the students working.  I don't care how you get the involved and working just get them doing something.  Try to provide some time for them to work together, work with you, and work alone.  But really that is up to you, far be it from me to tell you exactly how to do this as that is the BEST part of the job.  This is what makes teaching an ART and SCIENCE.  

After the students have been involved with doing work, it is important to SUMMARIZE.  Personally, I think the best way to do this is to have the students tell you what they did and how they did it.  Ask them if the met the objective and elaborate on how they did or did not.  Again, not a doctor, but I would think that this allow the information to go to a different part of the brain; you know short term versus long term.

Finally, it is important to assess the students.  Now please note that while I put this at the end, it is only because their needs to be an assessment at the end of EVERY lesson.  If one starts with the end in mind, this will be the goal for the lesson.  This will be the proof that the students met the objective.  I caution you that if this is the only time you assess during your lesson, you will be sorely disappointed in the results.  It is imperative that you assess throughout the lesson in order to adjust how you provide instruction and identify students that need more assistance in order to get them to the end point.  That is teaching.  Doing it all...every day...is teaching at your best.  

Keep up the great work that you do every day.  #wwmschat questions will be posted soon, thinking about swtiching something up for next week, but need to run it by the team.  

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment.

Day 20- Building the Frame

So yesterday and the day prior, my posts were spotty due to poor internet performance.  Today's post shall be much better but hopefully brief.  By better I mean some more resources, by brief I mean short.

As I mentioned yesterday, lesson planning is important.  It allows you as a teacher to create a map of where you want to head with your students.  We can't all just "wing it."  Some teachers can do this a few times over a year and get by; but, if you are really into teaching and learning, it is recommended to be well planned for the kids.

Once you have an idea, how do you put it onto paper.  There are several different models to follow: gradual release, 5-E, lecture and copy, etc.  You know the drill.  Every one has a different model that they prefer to use.  Personally, I don't care what model you use as long as you are writing something down in an understandable format.  Sticky notes could be used, if one places them in a specific order to show how the lesson will flow.  They won't work if you just jot them down and put them on the back of a worksheet.

I have worked at several schools that have asked teachers to use a certain template.  I like that idea.  Being asked to use a template provides a challenge.  Take what you know and show it in a different way so if someone wants to read it they can understand your thinking for the lesson.  I used to grumble, "I am a science teacher and I need to use the 5-E model...blah, blah, blah."  Then I realized that the template I was asked to use could be made into a 5-E model by moving some parts around.  When I asked if I could do that, my principal gave me the go ahead and it worked.  I never looked back.

Planning lessons is important for multiple reasons.  First and foremost, it is fair to the kids that depend on you to give them the knowledge they so yearn for each and every day.  Two: it will help you, the teacher, think things through so when something goes wrong with the lesson you have a way to think through to fix it.  Three: it will keep you the teacher happy.  As you progress from year to year, you will have an encyclopedia of work that you have accumulated and you can easily pull from and change in order to meet your students' needs.  You can then start your own blog and share that information with educators around the globe. :)

For some related articles and resources, I created a Symbaloo webmix.  If you have not tried this tool yet, I recommend you check it out.  It is a great way to organize websites in such a manner that it is easy to access.  It is easy to update and share websites.  We are using it in our school to provide professional development, so why not use it here in the same way.  Think flipping your classroom.

Check it out here:
Lesson Planning Tips and Resources

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment.

Day 19- Begin with end in mind

For the second day in a row, I am having difficulty utilizing the internet with my laptop.  It is frustrating.  My other device is currently updating its operating system so I am once again posting from my phone. Again...awesome.  While this is a hiccup at least there is some access. More on that next week.

Today's lesson tip is to begin with the end in mind.  Think about what you want your students to achieve and then work backwards from there.  A teacher can start with the unit assessment, look at state standards, or even create a project.  But in order to get where you want to go it is important to start with a destination.  If not, how will know you got where you wanted.  Mind blown?  Try typing that. ;)

So once you have your destination start planing the best route to get there.  Sometimes the route can be long and have plenty of interesting stops.  Other times the route needs to be short and to the point.  That is the beauty of planing the lesson.  You get to pick the route depending on your students.

Finally, follow the route to reach your destination.  Then start planning for your next adventure.  I am not sure if this is analogy or allegory, but I hope it is easy to understand. Watch your passengers to see if you need to go faster or slower and once you get there... see if they actually came with you and plan form the next stop or figure out short cut to get back to where you need them.

I will find some proof this week. Enjoy your night. BTW: #wmmschat tomorrow

Day 18- Plan the Lesson, Teach the Plan, and then adjust...

As we continue down this road together, I would like to take a moment to thank you for still reading...if you are.  I have repeatedly talked about the purpose of this blog and how I will continue to grow and change this blog.  The next step, as I mentioned, is to dial in on how this blog needs to be run.  The idea behind this blog is not just to cover topics related to education but to also demystify the process of blogging for everyone.  So forgive the rambling at the beginning of most of these posts but I figured explaining the process might in some crazy way help you the reader at some point down the road.

Anyway, I digress.

The focus of this week shall be on lesson planning.  While the twitter chat this week will be about student engagement, what better way to keep the conversation going then by talking about a major factor to that...the lesson plan.

(FYI: Glad I had a plan for this week as my interwebs is throwing fits and I could not get the links posted.  Always have a plan in order to work through any problems.)

Planning a lesson is so much more than opening a guide and jotting down some words in a blue spiral book.  It is more than creating a neat powerpoint or flipchart.  It is bigger than that.  I often look at lesson planning as the most difficult part of the job.  Planning a lesson is taking your thoughts and ideas and putting them onto paper in order to convery those thoughts to a whole bunch of other little people.  It is the idea; the art and science of teaching on paper in a well thought out manner.  Your vision for each day written out.

So this week we will discuss the idea, the concepts, the way to start, the way to end, and most importantly how you like to plan.  One might view it similarly to building a house. :)

Monday- Introduction (Plan the lesson, teach the plan)

Tuesday- Begin with the End in Mind (Using Assessment, guides, and curriculum to plan)

Wednesday- Twitter Chat.  Building the Frame (Types of Lesson Plans)

Thursday- Designing the Details (Filling in Your Template)

Friday- Rearranging your Furniture. (Making adjustment without having to start from scratch.)