PLANNING FOR INSTRUCTION

 

 

While planning for instruction, I blend content standards with student's individual interests, assessment data and personal pedagogical style. Planning in an effective manner is critical to ensuring students reach learning goals that are aligned to curriculum standards. In my class I begin by planning for the long-term before honing in on unit plans and ultimately lesson plans. Throughout the process I help my students to set and reach rigorous goals along the way so that they can measure their growth throughout the course of the year. I am intentional with bring the content to life for my students and making it accessible through their cultural lens. Having an understanding of what makes my students tick allows me to create lessons that they will find engaging and informative. Incorporating cross-disciplinary skills to connect content areas further invests students in their education as a whole and in the concept of self-growth. Indeed the better I know my students, the better I am able to break down content and differentiate to their varied academic levels and needs. 

Long-term planning is created before the start of the school year to pace out unit standards and benchmarks and structure them into a logical sequence for my students. The long-term plan outlines content and allows for me to plan ahead for certain activities, guest speakers, field trips and other resources. 

 

From long-term planing, I break the year down into unit plans. Unit plans are made up of multiple benchmarks and standards and are organized based on commonalities in content. Each unit plan is composed of broad essential questions,  individual benchmarks, end goals and assessments. It is important to "unpack" standards at this point and build out aligned units. Backwards planning allows me to build out assessments first, and then developing a plan for students to reach necessary understandings and aligned goals. 

Ultimately planning is broken down into lesson plans. Lesson plans typically cover one day and are scaffolded to cover all material outlined in the unit plan. Finally, I create daily lesson plans. Daily assessments are built out first, with activities and resources being implemented afterwards to ensure that students meet learning targets and are prepared for success. ​​