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Task 3: Peer Tutorial
- 1. STRESS-FREE LESSON PLANNING: BACKLOADING MINI-UNITS AND MINI-LESSONS FOR STANDARDS-BASED INSTRUCTION RATIONALE: All experienced teachers know how overwhelming it is to plan lessons and units. This tutorial will help you break planning down into manageable pieces. The planning process presented will make planning more efficient while making content more accessible to you and your students. BEFORE BACKLOADING MINI-UNITS AFTER BACKLOADING MINI- UNITS ● Applying three content standards and ● Having clear learning objects that are seven benchmarks for one offshoots of standards ENORMOUS six-week unit plan ● Knowing what you want students to ● Planning lessons and then tweaking accomplish because you have them so they fit the content standards objectives based on your learning objects ● Being unsure of what to teach because you don't know what you WANT your ● Designing lessons around standards students to be able to do ● Organizing content into small, digestible units and lessons (known as “chunking”) so neither teacher nor student get overwhelmed KEY PRINCIPLES: 1. Standards form the basis for instruction. 2. Learning objects and objectives are guideposts for teaching according to standards. 3. Students remember content best when it is taught in small pieces. 4. Teachers need to assess student interactions with content IMMEDIATELY after instruction. 5. Mini-lessons and mini-units are the best strategy for putting these principles into effect.
- 2. PROCEDURE: Follow these five steps in order. Each step will give you information and an activity that will help you in the planning process. You will start by focusing your unit as a whole, and gradually you will break information down into mini-lessons. *** STEP 1: CHOOSE A STANDARD AND A BENCHMARK WHY? ● Your whole unit will revolve around the standard and benchmark(s) you choose. ● Schools require you to follow them. ACTIVITY: ➔ Choose one standard and one or two benchmarks to provide the backbone for your unit. P.S. If this sounds overwhelming and excessive to only have one standard to rest your whole unit on, rest assured: don't want your unit to be more than ten days long anyway. A five-day unit is perfectly acceptable. STEP 1B: IF YOUR STANDARD DOES NOT GIVE YOU A TOPIC FOR YOUR UNIT PLAN, CHOOSE ONE. For most subjects, the actual content for your unit will be contained within the standard you chose in Step 1. If you teach literature or art, though, the standard most likely gave you skills but not topics. Choose a topic, theme, literary work, etc. now, and move on.
- 3. STEP 2: CREATE LEARNING OBJECTS WHAT IS A LEARNING OBJECT? A learning object is a piece of knowledge or a skill that students must get from your course. Common learning objects might be a skill, a key concept, or an important fact. EXAMPLES OF LEARNING OBECTS: ● manifest destiny ● how to take notes for research using index cards ● the order of operations in math WHY ARE THEY USEFUL? ● Each learning object will be the foundation for a different lesson or mini- lesson. ● Because you base them on the standard you chose in Step 1, you can forget about the standard after you complete this step. ACTIVITY: ➔ Write down at least five learning objects that MUST be a part of your unit. STEP 3: WRITE OBJECTIVES WHAT ARE OBJECTIVES? Objectives are the activities students must be able to do to show that they have mastered the learning object. They can be as simple as defining vocab words or as involved as involved as evaluating ethical dilemmas found in a case study. EXAMPLES: ● Students will explain how the concept of manifest destiny impacted American expansion. ● Students will format notes properly on fifty index cards. ● Students will be able to solve math problems using the correct order of operations without cues. WHAT DO THEY DO? Objectives are learning goals. They determine what students must be able to do at the completion of your unit.
- 4. ACTIVITY: ➔ Write one objective for each of your learning objects. STEP 4: ASSESSMENT WHY DOES ASSESSMENT COME BEFORE LESSON PLANS? You have to determine what students need to be able to do in order to know what you are going to teach them. ACTIVITY: ➔ Determine what assessment you will use for each of your objectives. STEP 5: INSTRUCTION AT LAST: Now that you've figured out what your students need to know and what they need to be able to do, you can choose your instructional methods. ACTIVITY: ➔ For each learning object/objective/assessment, choose the instructional methods that will best help them accomplish your learning goals. *** CONGRATULATIONS! If you followed these directions, you should now have an overall unit plan with five lesson outlines to go with it. Have fun teaching! OTHER CONSIDERATIONS: ● You will want to choose a final assessment for the entire unit. You can build this using the assessments you have used for your lessons and mini-lessons. ● Just because you're breaking learning down into bite-size pieces doesn't mean you can let your students forget content from units past. You'll want to give comprehensive assessments periodically to keep the material fresh.