Well-Structured Lessons
According to DESE's Candidate Assessment of Performance, an educator is deemed proficient in creating well-structured lessons if they "adapt as needed and implements standards-based units comprised of well-structured lessons with challenging tasks and measurable outcomes; appropriate student engagement strategies, pacing, sequence, , resources, and grouping; purposeful questioning; and strategic use of technology and digital media; such that students are able to learn the knowledge and skills defined in state standards/local curricula."
As part of the Teacher Preparation Program, I used the backwards design process to create my lesson plans. Backwards design provides stages for teachers to develop well-structured lessons. Teachers first identity the desired results, such as what students need to be familiar with, what skills they should master, and what big ideas they need to keep with them. For instance, in my pre-calculus class, synthetic division is worth being familiar with because students might encounter it in future classes. Students should master graphing polynomials, because it allows them to understand more from graphs they view in the future. Students need to keep the underlying logic behind working with polynomials with them for life, as it occurs in nearly every aspect of living in a society.
Next, teachers decide what will be acceptable evidence for the desired results. This can vary wildly depending on the subject, grade level, and what the teacher feels the students will best be served by. Finally, taking all this into account, teachers then design activities around the desired results and the acceptable evidence.
2-3 day 2.pdf5.6.pdfTwo lesson plans I created for Pre-Calculus and Algebra 1.
When creating well-structured lessons, its important to take into account prior knowledge. When starting new content or a new unit, I would give students a brief, informal diagnostic assessment, to see how familiar they were with the important concepts we would need to build upon.
The backward design process ensures that students are learning what the teacher has planned, rather than taking other, perhaps not intended lessons from activities planned with education shoehorned in. It puts the learner at the center of instruction design immediately, as the first consideration is what the learner needs to learn.