Lesson design is something that’s extremely nuanced and many variables can determine whether a lesson is effective or not:

• Will my learners show up?

• Do they have support at home?

• Are my transitions smooth?

• Is Schoology/ Seesaw/ other LMS going to work?

What works for one person may not work for another. What works for you in one class may flop later in the day. Add these considerations into 1200-1500 decisions that teachers make in a day1 and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. You won’t find clear cut answers for lesson planning in the following article nor will you find a surefire Google search to find the absolute best distance learning lessons (I’ve checked; the search for “best lesson design for distance learning2” yields about 631,000,000 results). Not only this, but early research on distance learning3 has found that there is no “right” way to do this.

With so many things constantly weighing on their minds, what are teachers to do when it comes to lesson planning? One possible solution is to be imperfect. Yes, that’s right. It’s not a typo. Now, this imperfection doesn’t imply just “winging it” or “phoning it in,” what I mean is to be okay with less than 100% perfection and to embrace the necessary growth mindset that goes along with that. In the Calm Mind4 section of this month’s newsletter, Shelby Chollett offers some advice for “Cultivating Compassion & Empathy for Yourself & Others.” Shelby’s strategies for practicing mindfulness, such as getting rid of perfectionism, and explanations of why it’s vitally important to our work as educators is of high importance when it comes to the personal nature of teaching.

To accept less than 100% perfect might seem like we’re lowering our standards and advocating for churning out “junk”. This is far from the goal. To steal a phrase from product developers, the goal is to publish our work as the MVP, the minimum viable product5. Thinking of things in terms of the minimum viable product can allow us to seek and identify areas where the lesson can be improved or tweaked. In some ways, we need to build the capacity to be okay with doing something poorly at first (see number 4 here “Growth comes from progress, not perfection”6) just as our learners have to do. We need to plan with a reflective growth mindset. This is especially important with so many things out of our control (see previous list of worries above). To assist with the planning process, we need to think about lesson planning with the end in mind and work backwards from there. Backwards design is a complex process with entire books written on the topic, so at the risk of being overly simplistic, I offer these three steps to backwards design lesson planning derived from ShifteLearning.com7:

1. Identify what you want students to learn.

a. This can take the form of:

i. State/ district standards

ii. Essential Questions8

iii.Department-determined essential standards

2. Determine Acceptable Evidence

a. Before we begin, we need to establish what “good enough” is for a particular skill, standard, and/or knowledge level.

i. How will we know students have learned what we want them to learn?

ii. What will we do if they don’t learn?

iii. How will we extend the learning of students that already know or learn quickly?

iv. What form will our feedback take to assist students in their learning journey?

3. Design Learning Experiences

a. Careful planning and mapping of steps one and two can help this third step become simpler. Once we know to where we want students to get, it becomes more clear how we can help them get there through:

i. Focused lesson activities

ii. Intentional feedback

iii. Authentic opportunities for students to interact with each other

Lisa Paulsen-Trombley tackled game-based learning in her Language Arts class. Her students were reading the novel The Hunger Games and they used Minecraft Education to spark their interest. She planned lessons around what she wanted students to learn and used Minecraft to have students show that. Check out Glen Irvin’s article about her lesson and her willingness to try something new to grow her instructional capacity at the “Spectacular Staff Spotlight” page. Ultimately, our students are the primary audience for the lessons we create. For this reason, we may also want to do more than just show students what a growth mindset is through our lesson design.

If you’re looking to get students reading stories involving growth, be sure to head to the “Shelf Awareness” page this month. Sandie Lahr and Beth Lovdahl have put together an incredible guide for designing virtual book clubs. Whether we’re in a distance, hybrid, or in-person learning model, this guide can serve as a foundation for creating a book club for your students. Additionally, Crystal Davidson, Deanna Euteneuer, and Cindy Hiedeman have compiled some books that highlight having a growth mindset that serve as a selection for you or your students.

It’s no doubt that thoughtful lesson planning is a challenge in the best of times. In distance or hybrid learning that challenge is amplified. By giving yourself some flexibility to be imperfect and embracing the necessary growth mindset that goes along with that initial imperfection, you can expand your planning capacity and prepare for anything. As my dad used to tell me, “do something, even if it’s wrong.” Go ahead, model the art of making mistakes for your students and growing from them. Take some calculated risks and make some mistakes. It’s how our brains grow10!

Additional Resources / Further Reading:

• Understanding by Design Rubric

• Why you should be designing eLearning courses Backwards

• The Lesson Planning Process from The Pedagogical Refinery

• Good Teaching Is Not Just About the Right Practices

• Backward Design: The Basics via Cult of Pedagogy

References

1. https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/jazz-basketball-and-teacher-decision-making/

2. Google search: “best lesson design for distance learning” accessed 12-21-20

3. https://www.k12dive.com/news/study-schools-still-struggle-with-distance-learning-but-key-solutions-are/585720/

4. https://sites.google.com/isd47.org/coachescorner/the-calm-mind

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

6. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/10/30/things-that-are-worth-doing-are-worth-doing-poorly/?sh=78b1ef569314

7. https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/when-the-end-justifies-the-means-designing-elearning-courses-backwards

8. https://bit.ly/WhatMakesAQuestionEssential

9. https://sites.google.com/isd47.org/coachescorner/the-pulse

10. https://www.youcubed.org/evidence/mistakes-grow-brain/

11. http://www.arts-core.com/educational-art.html