SBLAC 8: Lesson Planning
Lesson Planning is sort of like letter writing. Having received lesson plans from each teacher in my school as part of the classroom observation process, I can attest to the fact that while there may be two or three standard formats floating around the building, everybody has his/her own style. Some are short and to the point while some are verbose and detailed. Some use complete sentences while some reflect a more texting-like quality. Some serve the purpose of identifying the lesson, its objective(s), the instructional activities, required resources and anticipated outcomes while others do not. But I shall not go into standardization of lesson planning now (you can view a standards-based lesson template on the “wellspring” tab). Suffice it to say that lessons must be planned. Each lesson must have a lesson plan and each plan must include the Critical Benchmark Skill(s) being addressed in the given lesson. If there are no Critical Benchmark Skills being addressed within a particular lesson, consider tossing the document and finding a new lesson. Essentially, if what we do every day does not move us closer to our goal, we must somehow justify the activity or scrap it.
Thus, what we are discussing here is not writing lesson plans. We are discussing planning the lessons for which we will then write lesson plans. A few culminating ideas may be useful. In a standards-based curriculum, all instructional activities must focus on the standards being taught and learned. Students (and schools) will be assessed on skill proficiency based primarily on the known and published College Readiness Standards (ACT, SAT, etc.). Day Two of the Illinois PSAE includes two WorkKeys® tests, Reading for Information and Applied Mathematics, on which the students must, for all intents and purposes, receive a 5 or better to be considered as having met the Illinois state graduation requirements. In essence, kids need a 20+ composite score on the ACT (Day One) and a 5+ on WorkKeys® (Day Two) in order to meet the minimal state requirement. Currently, less than a third of our students do so. Until a school achieves a preconfigured percentage of students meeting the state requirement, it will not meet AYP and will remain caught up in NCLB “interventions” until you-know-what freezes over (global warming does not bode well for the “wait it out” approach). And this is not acceptable. But it is neither the scores nor the NCLB threats which make the outcome unacceptable. It is the failure to provide students with the tools they will need to be successful as adults, whether they go to college or not.
If our instructional activities are not directly focused on the skills our students need to be successful in life after high school, then we are merely running in place and we’re wasting their time. What we must do to the lesson planning process is to take the subject matter content out of the equation – for now. Lay out the curriculum map which is devoted to your 40 or so Critical Benchmark Skills (some of which may very well be purely subject matter depending on the department/discipline). Imagine what it takes to get every child in each class proficient in each of these benchmark skills. Remember, this is the long and short of passing your class. You will notice that some of these skills may not be primary level of complexity and you will have to ensure certain prerequisite sub-skills are mastered as well. You may notice that certain course content fits more perfectly with certain skills. You may discover in the course of departmental and/or grade level collaboration that certain skills can be taught in tandem with another class, or that a certain basic skill can be introduced as preliminary to a follow-on course. Remember the tool kit. We are adding tools to the students’ mental tool kit so that they may solve problems, make decisions, and think critically as adults. And remember that if a lesson does not advance that goal it probably should be scrapped.
Once we have a firm grasp of the Critical Benchmark Skills to be mastered throughout the school year, we must ascertain the reality of teaching school. Certain times of the school year are great for instruction, others are not so focused. The week before Christmas, the last two weeks before the end of each semester, PSAE week and Homecoming week are not good times to introduce critical skills for which there has been no preparation. Rearrange your CBSL if necessary. There needn’t be one per week. Some weeks will focus on two skills, and continue them through the next week or two. Some skills will be worked on throughout a quarter, which is fine as long as students achieve proficiency by the end of the semester. “Walk the dog” however you prefer. Just remember that each batch of Critical Benchmark Skills must be wrapped up at the end of each semester. These grades, as everyone knows, are permanent.
As the plan for instructing the Critical Benchmark Skills is established on the curriculum map, the final big push will re-insert disciplinary content. Used sparingly, as an emulsifier, content becomes the means to an end. We want students to identify plot, theme, subject, and cause-effect relationships as skills. We use literature of all types, fiction and non-fiction, classical and modern, plays, poems, historical texts and op-ed pieces to illustrate and instruct. The editing requirements of the English assessment of the ACT should be fundamental to all Social Studies (art and music, too) writing assignments whether we are analyzing the fall of a great civilization or investigating the causes of social reform. Basically, we should not teach the subject but use our expertise in the subject to teach the skill so that the student can manipulate the subject him/herself. We want to make them better than we are. We all know the cliché of “being the sage on the stage.” Knowing more than they do does not impress children. Teaching a child the skills you have opens interesting doors and causes even more interesting conversations in and out of the classroom. “Walk the dog” with your specialized subject as the medium.
Perhaps the greatest frustration lies in the standards-based instructional cycle. Once the necessary skills are identified, i.e., the critically important skills which are to be instructed as course objectives, the task for the teacher is to determine how they will be assessed. What constitutes proficiency? What constitutes mastery? How will a teacher know when a student has achieved proficiency or mastery? Once these standards of performance have been established a teacher will then determine how to get students to these levels. The assessments must come before the lesson planning. A cynical teacher cannot dissociate the “teaching to the test” mantra humming through his/her brain by the idea of creating an assessment or test for which students are prepared to do well. But there is no other way to fairly judge a student’s learning than to establish known objectives, how and to what standards of performance they will be assessed, and conduct instruction designed to meet course objectives. Planning a course to simply cover an expanse of material is plainly and simply nothing more than story-telling.
The five-phase lesson plan is a standards-based format for planning lessons. A template can be found on the Wellspring page of www.sblac.com. The five phases are; Inquire, an introductory phase of skills-based instruction; Gather, an opportunity to discuss what we know and what we need to find out; Process, the discovery by students of various methods of problem-solving using the Benchmark Skill in question; Apply, a facilitated classroom workshop wherein students apply the skill in a variety of content-centered contexts; Assess, the conclusion of the lesson where students demonstrate proficiency of the Benchmark Skill through analysis, evaluation and synthesis.
Inquire. When planning lessons teachers must be aware of sub-skills and other prerequisite skills necessary for students to fully comprehend the concepts involved in the lesson being planned. We must also be aware of preconceptions and naïve theories. When a new skill is introduced in the Inquire phase of a five-phase lesson, diagnostic assessment has to be paramount in order to ensure 1) that students have the conceptual capacity to move to this next higher level of complexity, and 2) that students will not be confused by conflicting assumptions and suppositions. Another good reason for diagnostic assessment is to ensure that you’re not wasting everyone’s time on a skill at which the students are already generally proficient. But basically the need for the early assessment at the beginning of a lesson helps the fidelity of the lesson, itself. There are few teachers who have not had to stop a lesson (whether content-based or standards-based) because the majority of students were incapable of prerequisite skills necessary for the task at hand. The lesson, needing to be interrupted in order to go further, has now been lost. The prerequisite skill is given short shrift and not really “learned” while the main lesson is impeded by the interruption. I’ve been there myself. It’s always a bad scene, particularly when you discover the blank spot in your students’ conceptual understanding actually happened a couple days earlier.
Gather. While gathering information in the Gather phase, we assist students in determining what we need to know about completing the task at hand. Because most (if not all) standards of CRS, CCSS, ILS, etc. can be converted into “I can” statements, the discussions with students should focus on questions like, “What do I need to know about a situation if, at the end, I can . . .” and “What earlier skills and knowledge which I already possess will help me if, at the end, I can . . .” It is important to keep in mind that our goal is to further expand a student’s skill base. We will, of course, utilize course content as the means to accomplish our goal, but the goal is for the student to be able to implement the skill independently. Because many of our students (and some teachers) operate in a selectively concrete operational realm, the Gather phase is where we introduce critical thinking characteristics into the learning process. Students must discuss the information available and determine its value relative to the task at hand. Not all data is usable data. Not all written articles are valid. Not everything we hear, see, or read can be taken at face value and/or be of equal importance or relevance. The focus here is on what we know for sure and what we need to know to accomplish the task.
Process. When we process the information we’ve received, we apply the skill as a way to solve a problem using that information. In the sense of Bloom’s Taxonomy, we accumulate knowledge of the skill and conceptually relate it to what we know and need to know (Inquire). After gathering relevant information about the problem or task at hand (Gather), we discuss various methods for accomplishing the task. In discussing various processes we allow students to delve into a problem or situation which will require the skill being addressed. This is where student comprehension of the standard (CRS, CCSS, ILS, etc.) takes hold. It is crucial during this phase (and all phases, really) that students be allowed to discuss methods, points of view, abstract reasoning and a variety of approaches. Telling students how to solve a problem in a sterile high school classroom environment does not deep seat a skill. Students must come to internal conclusions about applying skills as problem-solving tools.
Apply. Having crawled through a situation wherein a particular skill (or skills) has been demonstrated, discussed, and practiced in a prearranged, content-centered context, the Apply phase allows students the opportunity to demonstrate, to themselves and each other, that they have internalized a process for accomplishing the task at hand. Benjamin Bloom calls this Application, as well. This is a critical learning stage wherein students are presented, as a class, in groups, and individually, a variety of situations in a variety of contexts which require application of the new-found skill with content-centered circumstances but which present new angles, different information, or information presented in a different manner. The complexity level of these various applications should be minimally at the level of the Benchmark task, but should present challenges which, when completed successfully, demonstrate mastery of the skill at a particular level. This provides students the opportunity to not only deep seat the skill a one level of complexity, but prepares them for continued work using the same skill at the next higher level of complexity.
Assess. Assessment is much more than test-taking. Assessment should never consist merely of a teacher testing whether or not students “get it.” The Assess phase provides students the opportunity to analyze, evaluate and synthesize. Analysis of a situation, wherein their own work and the work of others is scrutinized to determine validity of arguments and conclusions, is central to critical thinking. Evaluation of their own work and the work of others provides tremendous insight into reflection and self-efficacy. Synthesis of processes and conceptual understanding gives students access to creativity within the classroom. Techniques for assessing are as varied as a teacher’s imagination. Rubrics for assessment should offer students clear expectations of what right looks like. There is little worse than an assessment, exam, quiz, assignment, or worksheet for which a student is not made aware of the performance standards beforehand. Not far behind are the assessments which are “graded” but do not allow a student to learn from errors, as if a students made mistakes and must live with these learning flaws forever. Assessments should be designed so that students learn. And the Assess phase should provide students an opportunity to do that. If we simply assign a grade to a test for which a student did not demonstrate proficiency (or mastery) and record it as summative, we have certainly missed the point of standards-based instruction, indeed, of secondary education.