Lesson/Unit Planning: a guide for quick review of the essential points

Posted in 4-7, 8-12, Active Learning, Blog Posts, Elementary & Middle Years, K-3, Learning Design & Planning, Resource, Secondary | Tagged with , , , , ,

This is a quick guide with questions you might ask yourself about your lesson/ unit plan to check that are considering the most essential points while planning.

1. Why do we teach..?

Let’s start with this video to help us understand why thinking about the goal of your lesson/ plan is the first step to achieving students’ learning. Please click to view.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan and ask yourself:
    • Why do I teach? Is this reflected in my planning?

2. Goal vs. Activities

One way to start planning is to select several cool activities and then try to organize them together around lesson/ unit plans. The problem with this is that we can lose the focus, and move too far from what the goal of all these activities actually is. Moreover, choosing activities first rather than learning goals tends to not allow for differentiation, as these activities generally require all students to show their learning in the same way. See the difference between both process:

Source: https://teaching.cambriancollege.ca/studio/backwards-planning/#1532372758719-5b1d9546-624f

In this situation, a “backward design” process is recommended for planning because it allows both more flexibility and focus. The video explains the step-by-step process of planning using backward design.

Do you want more examples? This blog post gives more examples and details about the difference between both.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Did you plan by using a backward design?
    • Did start by choosing the activity or the learning goal?
    • Can you identify pieces of evidence that your lesson/unit is focusing on learning goals rather than activities?

3. Write good learning goals (Part 1)

Defying learning goals is essential to achieve. The image below describes the features and brings some examples of what a well-defined learning goal looks like:

Source: https://citl.illinois.edu/docs/default-source/online-course-in-a-box/good-vs-bad-learning-objectives.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Is your learning goal…
      1. Clear and specific?
      2. Measurable?
      3. Concise?
      4. Tied into course objectives?

4. Write good learning goals (Part 2)

When we are choosing our learning goals is essential to pay attention to the ones that are similar to each other because they tend to make us lose our focus without us realize. Look at the three learning goals from the BC Math Curriculum (grade 3):

  • “Fractions are numbers that represent an amount or quantity”.
  • “Fractions can represent parts of a region, set, or linear model”.
  • “Fraction parts are equal shares or equal-sized portions of a whole or unit”.

Even though they are similar, teachers should probably plan different activities and assessments to achieve each one of them. In this sense, is important to pay attention to similar learning goals that may make us lose focus.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Can you think about close learning goals?
    • Are your lessons developing your goals or similar ones?

5. Connecting the why and what

In the BC Curriculum, we can interpret the Big Ideas as the “why” we teach and the content and competency as the “what” we teach, or in other words, the learning goals.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Do your curricular competencies and content work together to support learning around the big ideas?

6. Who are my students?

We do not plan for imaginary students but for the ones we have in our classes. Thus, it is essential to think about the features of your students and how to adapt your lessons to their interests.

Tomlinson (2001) proposes a model to think about different student features we can consider while planning our lessons:

Source: Tomlinson, Carol A (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Have you thought about specific features of your students?
    • Have you planned for all your students?
    • Did you have more than one way/ activity to achieve the same goal?

7. Class instructional arrangements

Our lessons happen in a space (physical or online). Thus it is important to think about how we will organize this space for each moment of your lesson. Tomlinson (2001) gives some ideas of how a teacher can organize the space of the lesson:

Source: Tomlinson, Carol A (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Have you planned the space for each moment of your class?
    • Behavioral expectations. How can different class instructional arrangements be used to deal with students’ behavior?
    • How can different classroom arrangements support your learning goals and students’ behavior?

8. Time

Our lessons also happen between some time frame. In this sense, it is not reasonable to plan the best lesson/ unit if they can not be implemented within the time limit you have.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Are your learning goals achievable within the time limit you have?
    • Do you have suggested times for each moment?
    • How many minutes are teacher-focused
    • How many minutes are student-focused?

9. What is next?

The last step in planning a lesson/ unit is to think about what is my next learning goal and how I can connect it to the current one. In other words, is essential to think about the learning trajectory of a student and how I will support through my lessons their progression.

In this sense, it is important to understand how each learning goal is connected with the others, building a large coherence map. Achieve the Core is a website showing these connections for the American Common Core, supporting teachers to visualize how the progression between learning goals can be used to design lesson/ learning goals.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • Have you planned the progression of your learning goals?
    • Do you know your next goals and how they are connected to the current one?

10. Warm-up and end-up moments

Now that you have a good notion of your lesson/ unit, you can use the warm-up and end-up moments to create coherence throughout your whole lesson/unit.

Now it is your turn:

  • Look at your lesson/unit plan:
    • How do you start this class?
    • How did you choose to close this class?
    • Why did you make these choices?
    • How do they connect to the rest of the lesson?
    • Can you think about ways to use these moments to start and finish a cycle of learning?

More resources to support your lesson/unit plan

Guest post by Peer Mentor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Aug. 2024.

 

 

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