7. Planning for Instruction
“The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.”
Standard Components
Goals
What do I want my students to know and be able to do? Being clear about the standards I am aiming for students to master and breaking down the learning progression into an appropriate scaffold is foundational to my lesson planning.
Community
Who am I serving in this cohort of students? Meeting the needs of each individual learner is a necessary and transformative step in my planning process. Knowing my students well is key to addressing their needs, and by providing ample student choice and autonomy I can help them develop a toolkit specified to their own learning needs.
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Resources
What is available to us as a class that can make this a rich learning experience? Leaning on teachers in other endorsement areas, librarians, local museums, places of interest and specialists - taking an inventory of the potential assets to our group learning experience allows me to embed pockets of deep, experiential learning into my lessons.
meeting the standard
Stepping into my current leave replacement position has allowed me to design lessons within unique parameters. This opportunity to create multidisciplinary projects using a mastery-based framework is particularly rewarding, especially in a setting where students attend 12 hours a week. This experience in curriculum design has compounded all the learning I've done throughout this program and everything that initially inspired me to pursue it.
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Coming from a background in community planning, I approach lesson planning systematically and with great intention, care, and precision. I focus on integrating solid routines and procedures while also considering the unique needs of my students. I take a well-rounded approach to lesson planning and pride myself on creating holistic, hands-on, interdisciplinary lessons that engage learners and guide them toward mastery of the content.
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What matters most to me when planning how to spend my time with students is that they leave each lesson feeling empowered, confident, and more curious about the world around them.
