CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Lesson Planning
To effectively plan for instruction, the lesson plan actualizes the culminating work of a teacher's planning process to draw upon the knowledge of content, cross-disciplinary skills, and student's background to meet their rigorous learning goals
Table of Contents
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Introduction to Lesson Planning
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Informal and Formal Lesson Planning Overview
Grade 8 Informal Lesson Plan Sample and Student Work
Grade 8 Informal Lesson Plan Reflection
Grade 8 Formal Lesson Plan Sample and Student Work
Grade 8 Formal Lesson Plan Reflection
Introduction
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Lesson plans provide an opportunity for teachers to color in the picture that has been drawn through unit and long-term planning. As a final step of planning for instruction, lesson planning serves not only to synthesize long-term and unit plan learning goals, but also to provide a clear roadmap on the pedagogical practices that are essential for effective instruction. Lesson plans are the most visible form of planning for instruction through illustrating the day-to-day teaching and learning that is occurring. Often times, lesson plans are submitted to a range of leadership or administrative staff, such as a Content Team Lead, Assistant Principal, or district staff members conducting a school walk-thru. Regardless of its intent, lesson planning supports teacher growth as it builds structure and routine in the process of planning for instruction. Since long-term and unit plans occur prior to the year’s teaching, lesson plans allow teachers to adapt daily instruction to fit the needs of their students. The process is integral to planning for instruction as an intentional reinforcement of how to meet the needs of all students.
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As a teacher, I have gotten to a point in my planning for instruction that the meticulous lesson planning does not have to occur on a day-to-day basis. In addition, my school’s administration does not require a daily lesson plan but rather supports a more fluid approach through a week-at-a-glance model. Nonetheless, I most often lesson plan for formal observations, district visits, and new material and reteaching lessons. Since I have a variety of instructional routines and a weekly instructional schedule, I am able to mold most lessons through the consistent classroom structures and skills that have been integrated into instruction. While a skill may be consistent practices, lesson planning allows me to consider how I can present the content in different, engaging ways.
Informal and Formal Lesson Planning Overview
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To me, formal lesson planning is the process of writing out the step-by-step procedures of instruction through a structured template. While my school’s administration does not require daily lesson plan submissions, they do require that we utilize the school lesson plan template if you’ve been teaching 0-3 years. However, alongside a formal lesson plan, there are usually instructional support structures that bring the words off the paper and into the classroom for students. This manifests through a range of planning from lesson notes to student handouts to the PowerPoints. For me, this form of informal lesson planning can be just as effective planning for instruction as a formal lesson plan because it still demonstrates how I will address the learning needs of my students.
While I may not write a daily lesson plan, I always backwards plan daily instruction with the assessment and standards of the day in mind. From there, I evaluate what content and skills need to be taught or reinforced to move student achievement towards assessment and standard mastery. While I build lesson activities, I take note of how I will check for understanding throughout the lesson and draw connections to deepen student learning in meaningful ways. Through this process, I am able to effectively plan for instruction that best utilizes the depth of resources in the long-term and unit plans, to draw upon established knowledge and focus on how to bring this to life for students that moves them closer to a deeper understanding and content skill mastery.
The lesson plan template for new teachers that me and another ELA teacher adapted from the school's template on the left
Administration-created lesson plan with embedded standards-driven questions accompanying each component
These two lesson plan templates demonstrate how I plan for daily instruction 80 percent of the time. This past summer, I collaborated with a colleague to construct a more teacher-friendly lesson plan template that included all of the components identified by our principal, but also utilizes spacing and planning tools more effectively. The red boxes on each lesson plan template highlight two enhances we found beneficial for planning for instruction. For example, since the district's instructional framework is used to evaluate formal observations, the teacher-created template embeds a visual for teachers to track how they are building the effective and highly effective teaching standards while lesson planning. This ensures accountability that through planning for instruction with the evaluative rubric in mind, I am able to incorporate the necessary student engagement and instructional strategies. Likewise, instead of spending planning time writing in each student accommodation and modification, it was a better use of space and lesson planning organization to include a checklist of the most common strategies for accommodations.
Grade 8 Informal Lesson Plan Sample and Student Work
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Teacher resources such as the parameters of a core text and curriculum or lack of classroom technology can impact the context of lesson planning and instruction. Since the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) module is utilized to craft long-term and unit planning, it is also purposeful to understanding the daily scope and sequence. When I plan for instruction through informal lesson planning, it is often because the given LDC module's lesson does not meet the differentiated, scaffolding, or engagement needs of my students. As a practice to demonstrate my knowledge of my learners, I refer to the LDC module's lesson but focus on addressing the key learning standards and assessments of the day through the student handout, anchor charts, or PowerPoint.
The snapshot to the left is a sample of a LDC module lesson for the Grade 8 Unit 2 text. As highlighted in red, the district provides a curriculum that implies that every ELA teacher has technology resources available in their classroom. Since I did not have a projector or wifi connection, I had to adapt the engagement activity for my students. In addition, as I planned instruction, I considered how I would not have maximized the learning styles of my students through this instruction. In terms of effective planning for instruction, page 2 demonstrates how I adapted the focus of this activity through planning a text-dependent scavenger hunt for students rather than a guessing game. Although I did not write a formal lesson plan for this instruction, page 2's answer key (Anne Serkey) indicates how I still spent intentional time planning and preparing for this lesson activity.
The sample to the right is the product of the informal lesson planning of this activity. The red box on the top left of the first page indicates my planning for instructional differentiation even though there was not a formal lesson plan written. As the page numbers were provided to students with disabilities and ESOL students, it was an additional support I knew to anticipate in understanding the needs of my students. Additionally, while the second student sample's work has more blank spaces as indicated by the red boxes, they provided a deeper understanding of the chapter through their written-response facts.
Grade 8 Informal Lesson Plan Reflection
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This lesson activity was successful in terms of engagement and standard and skill assessment of reading comprehension of informational text, citing textual evidence, and drawing inferences. As a scavenger hunt, students were required to close read and organize evidence across 59 domains and were responsible for citing 27 of those missing facts. Overall, over 90 percent of students completed the reading and activity with over 85 percent standard or skill mastery.
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In reflection, an area of growth for this lesson is to differentiate depth of knowledge and content understanding to support the varied range of student abilities. For my students whose i-Ready scores indicate that they are reading informational texts within 2 years of their grade-level, I can increase the rigor through a variety planning strategies such as a stricter time limits, increase the number of missing pieces of evidence, or require my students with higher-order thinking to construct the scavenger hunt from a blank template.
The document above shows my informal lesson planning for when I implement this activity again. Page 1's PowerPoint demonstrates how I can utilize the technology I now have to increase student engagement through the competition. Page 2's handout further the rigorous engagement for those students with higher mastery of reading informational text by increasing the number of missing pieces of evidence to synthesize. These two strategies allow me to integrate my reflections of this informal lesson plan and continue to evaluate, reflect, and adapt the effective planning for instruction through informal lesson plans.
Grade 8 Formal Lesson Plan Sample and Student Work
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I most often utilize a structured lesson plan template when the LDC’s module lesson has a skill-based learning objective that requires direct instruction or an introduction to new material. My process for formal lesson planning requires me to analyze the LDC lesson while actively considering strengths, background knowledge, and skill of my students. After reviewing their lesson, I include relevant standards-based activities that are integral to the lesson assessment. Therefore, when I lesson plan, I consider how my instructional strategies can be integrated into the targeted learning objectives and what engagement activities are best useful to push students towards standards mastery. When I know there requires an intentional gradual release model, I may also script the intended interactions between me, my students, and the content. Moreover, through a formal lesson plan structure, I held accountable to consider the scaffolding, differentiation, student choice, and text-dependent questioning that demonstrates effective planning for instruction. While my students’ engagement is consistent between informal and formal lesson planning, the structured written lesson plans allow me to ensure I am supporting every student in meeting their learning goals through explicit and rigorous planning for instruction.
This snapshot shows the standard learning objective and assessment for this day's instruction. Even though theLDC module provides an in-depth curriculum of daily lessons, I often have to adapt the content of the lesson to fit the learning goals of my students. The far-left red box indicates the standard and skill-based lesson objective, which requires students to analyze a text chapter and then write a persuasive essay. However, since my students struggle with essay writing and reading informational text comprehension, I had to plan for instruction that extends and engages my students in direct instruction and learning prior to this assessmnet. To effectively plan for instruction, I must utilize the district's curriculum but also make the necessary time to address gaps in grade-level knowledge to scaffold student learning and assessment.
The document to the right is the sample formal lesson plan constructed from the LDC module lesson. While I focus on a similar lesson objective, I intentionally plan instruction to integrate a mini-lesson or guided skill practice of persuasive writing. As indicated in the prerequisite skills bolded in red on page 2, in order for my students to demonstrate mastery of this LDC lesson, there are prerequisite skills and standards I must address. Therefore, throughout this lesson plan, I integrate checks for understanding and instruction focused on identifying author's purpose through diction so that students can move closer to skill mastery on the formative writing assessment. The effectiveness of my planning for instruction through this lesson plan is evident in how I construct the guided student handout found on pages 12-15. Through the student handout, I plan how I will increase student engagement and checks for understanding throughout the lesson so that students are not simply addressing a writing prompt without rigorous, engaging text comprehension and analysis.
This student sample shows an above average completion of the lesson for a student whose i-Ready scores are at an eighth grade level. She did not have to complete all parts of the graphic organizer, as it serves as an accommodation for students with IEPs, 504s, or low reading and writing mastery. As indicated on pages 4-5, this student received feedback on her essay and re-wrote a final copy the next day. She demonstrated that she is moving towards mastery with a score of 16/20, because she did cite text evidence but only provided 2 instead of 3 reasons to support her claim.
The document above illustrate the product of two students' work who did not complete any of part of the handout. While the student's work on page 1 demonstrates that she is moving towards comprehension mastery, she struggles with writing in general. Alternatively, the second student's work demonstrates a lack of focus to the given prompt as well as improper citation of text. While their lack of progress towards standards mastery (R.I.8.1, W.2) can be a direct reflection of them not completing the planned instruction, it also demonstrates my areas of growth to develop instructional plans that engage all learners.
Grade 8 Formal Lesson Plan Reflection
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This lesson plan was successful in terms of introducing several new skills to the majority of my students. Many of my students was not familiar with identifying author’s purpose or integrating thinking prompts to consider during reading. It seems that regardless of level of mastery, all students engaged in the persuasive writing prompt, which served as exemplar formative assessment data. This data showed that the graphic organizer was an effective instructional strategy to include to support students in practicing a new skill. Additionally, the formative assessment data highlighted gaps in knowledge and skill mastery as most students demonstrated 40 percent mastery or less on the persuasive writing. Likewise, while students could differentiate between the type of author’s purpose, this did not translate into their own persuasive writing.
In reflection, an area of growth for this lesson is to provide additional writing scaffolds for students to practice their own persuasive writing before the major formative assessment. As the teacher, implementing multiple forms of formative assessments will allow me to reteach specific skills to build student mastery. Additionally, since 2 out of the 3 student samples shown for this lesson demonstrate that students are moving towards standard mastery of R.I.8.1 (Cite textual evidence). A next step is to engage students in direct instruction on citing strong text evidence. Again, since I did not have a projector during this unit, another layer to constructing more effective lesson plans for my students will be integrating PowerPoints to accompany their handout to present content more clearly during instruction.
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This lesson plan sample serves as a template to how I can effectively engage students in meeting their learning goals and standard mastery. Although the sample presents the content through the seventh grade curriculum, this demonstrates how I am effectively planning for instruction by understanding common trends in my eighth graders and reinforce these same skills in my seventh graders. Likewise, since over 60 percent of my students do not properly cite or identify the strongest textual evidence, this lesson plan builds from their content knowledge of the seventh grade LDC curriculum to focus on skill mastery rather than content knowledge. After demonstrating that students can identify the best text evidence then I can scaffold learning for integrating this evidence in writing.
Reteaching Informal and Formal Lesson Plans ​
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As demonstrated in reflection of both informal and formal lesson plans, I can support my students in meeting their learning goals by constructing follow-up instruction that address gaps in knowledge and skill. Since teacher-constructed instructional time is limited in a LDC module, instances of reteaching content or skill often occur as I continue through the curriculum or as a supplemental assignment for those students.
The lesson plan shown above is a direct result of my implementation and reflections of the formal lesson plan sample. In understanding that my students struggled to identify specific literary evidence connected to author's purpose, I constructed a reteaching lesson that considers what skills and content knowledge were necessary for the previous lesson's formative writing assessment. To effectively plan for instruction to meet the needs of all my students, there is more engaging content and differentiation in this reteaching lesson. For example, as shown on page 7, I reference a popular children's movie to model my analysis and skill application for students. Through utilizing reteaching opportunities in my process of lesson planning, I am able to effectively plan instruction that addresses how to meet students where their are and build towards achievement of their learning goals.
The document above represents the student handout that I created to accompany the reteaching lesson plan.