Tag: lesson plans

Essential Questions

The questions we ask set parameters for learning and can open and close possibilities for learning. Wiggins & McTighe have a great article, What Makes a Question Essential? that discusses what does and doesn’t qualify and the specific considerations to be made in order to form good essential questions for lessons and units. Check it out!

Click here for a Teaching Channel Video on Essential Questions.

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Microteaching + Lesson Planing

The first round of Spring microteaching calls for you to submit either a written or electronic lesson plan (via email) before you teach. The lesson plan doesn’t need to follow a specific predetermined format, but it must include:

1. A RATIONALE
2. PRACTICAL GOALS/OUTCOMES
3. MATERIALS REQUIRED
4. CONTENT STANDARDS MET
5. SPECIFIC PROCEDURES
6. ASSESSMENT

Again, feel free to utilize this Common Teaching Strategies document to give you ideas.

AND, here is your 408 Microteaching Rubric: note what will be expected of your content knowledge, skills, and professionalism and plan accordingly!

*Note that your plan must include at least 1 explicit state or national standard that you are meeting: Michigan Social Studies Content Expectations — National Standards for Social Studies Teachers.

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Planning a Lesson on the Political Spectrum

You are tasked with planning -and then teaching- your first lesson plan and it is to be a 15-minute lesson on the political spectrum. The main focus is NOT so much on the ‘what’ (the content), but rather the focus and purpose is on the ‘how’, the process of developing and executing a lesson plan. Thus, we won’t fixate on the content knowledge, but rather concern ourselves with the procedures of pedagogy. Your lesson plan must include:
1. RATIONALE
2. PRACTICAL GOALS/OUTCOMES
3. CONTENT STANDARDS MET
4. SPECIFIC PROCEDURES
5. ASSESSMENT

Feel free to utilize this Common Teaching Strategies document. For starting places with content, because we don’t have a physical textbook, you can use the “Political Considerations” post (from below) to give you information.

(Quick) Timeline: in our PLC’s, we will plan a bit in class on Wednesday, and then teach a draft version of the lesson on Thursday… That means you will have some work to do if you’re going to make a slide show, bring in props, or develop another activity.

DO THIS!

  • Fill out an index card w/feedback for each person’s lesson & pass it off to them.
  • Post your revised lesson plan, after getting feedback from peers, to your personal site by class on Monday!

9/9: Ugly Politics, Instructional Strategies, & Ice-Breaker Sign Up

Ugly Politics.jpgBy Monday, please read this poignant article, Have Politics Become so Ugly that Teachers are Afraid to Teach Civics? about teaching politics in today’s tumultuous climate. This will give us lots to think about and interactive with.
For Wednesday, please read the instructional-planning reading which will be immediately useful in lesson planning, and we will soon have a post relating to it.
Also, sign up for at least 2 spots on our class Ice-Breaker document; y’all will soon be starting (many of) our class periods!

Fendler Reading & Classroom Strategies (for 9/7 & 9/8)

For next Wednesday, please read the Edwin & Phyllis’ Conversation piece (by MSU’s own Lynn Fendler) and by Thursday, complete your student page.

Also, as we consider what it takes to teach a lesson plan well (not just talk about what you know), you may want to survey different ways of teaching and some resources: