I was sad to miss class today and miss my first attempt at lesson planning, one of the things I am most worried about getting right as a teacher! As a ESL tutor, I was not good at following my lessons plans, which were usually very broad and not as focused on the learner's goal as they should have been. Reading the Understanding by Design article helps me to conceptualize the process of lesson planning. I gave this article the greatest compliment I can give a document in CTools - I printed out a hard copy! I will reference it when I am creating lesson plans.
The concept of backward design makes sense because, as the authors say, it helps to prevent "activity-oriented" teaching. Although it is important to plan engaging activities, those activities must be tied to and advance a learning goal. Like Bloom's Taxonomy, which would fall under Stage 1, backward design keeps the focus on the big picture of identifying the learning goal, and then runs through the entire process of the lesson, guiding the teacher to identify evidence of learner success and plan activities closely tied to the learning goal.
Awesome! There is a thick book called Understanding by Design that is really awesome and in-depth about planning in this way. It's a head-buster because it is so comprehensive. Holler if you want to borrow it over your vacation.
ReplyDeleteWe're sorry you couldn't have joined us because it was a great experience. From our session, I would recommend holding out to the goals that you establish either on your own or with the help of the taxonomy because that seemed like the biggest thing in keeping our lesson plan on track.
ReplyDeleteI am with you on lesson planning! It wasn't as complicated as i thougt it would be when we practiced on Monday, though. It just took like one or two ideas for us to get into it and then it was a fun and creative process. I would not consider myself a planner, not of lessons, not of anything, but I do like being creative and I love big concepts. I'm sure you will do really great!
ReplyDelete