Planning: A Must-Do Move!
Keeping Students at the Center of Unit, Weekly & Daily Plans
The standards tell us what to teach, but we still have to do the work of putting it all together to design the how. Thank goodness because the authors of the standards don’t know our students. By accepting the responsibility of designing the how, we give our students opportunities to wrestle with the content, work to make meaning, and potentially create something new that can be added to the world’s knowledge. In this workshop, participants will learn how to create year-long plans, units of study or learning progressions, and a calendar for weekly and daily lesson plans.
The standards tell us what to teach, but we still have to do the work of putting it all together to design the how. Thank goodness because the authors of the standards don’t know our students. By accepting the responsibility of designing the how, we give our students opportunities to wrestle with the content, work to make meaning, and potentially create something new that can be added to the world’s knowledge. Planning, using backward design principles, is the key to designing instruction and assessment that focuses on building students’ knowledge, skills, and understandings in authentic and meaningful ways.
In this workshop, participants will experience an overview of how to create yea-rlong plans, units of study or learning progressions, and a calendar for weekly and daily lesson planning that prioritizes what’s most essential. Participants will name their beliefs about planning and then have opportunities to explore one or more of the following sub-topics.
Developing a year-long plan
Developing a unit of study or learning progression by using a 6-step process
o Define the what & why (big ideas behind the unit)
o Use the standards
o Outline essential questions
o Write learning targets
o Curate key resources/mentor texts
o Determine student work products (assessments of and for learning)
Creating a calendar for weekly and daily lesson planning using a 6-step process
o Create a calendar plan for each week
o Outline any schedule implications
o Plan assessment
o Plan whole group instruction and its outcomes
o Make plans for small group learning opportunities
o Create shared agreements