Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teacher's Guide to Effective Instruction

To Raymond—for his support, enthusiasm, advice, and friendly criticism

Copyright © 2006 by Corwin Press

First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2015.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-353-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0121-2

Printed in China

Contents

Reproducible Pages Directory

Foreword

Charlotte Danielson

Preface

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

About the Author

1.   Basic Instructional Design

From Here to Intuitive Teaching

Experience and Practice

Professional Teaching Standards

Designing Powerful Lessons

Planning a Basic Lesson

Using the Basic Instructional Design Planning Guide

Reflective Practice: Inner Dialogue

2.   Integrated Instructional Design

An Integrated Approach to Learning

Why Integrated Instruction Is a Good Idea

Benefiting From Best Practice Models

What Gets Integrated?

Planning Integrated Instruction

Using the Integrated Instructional Design Planning Guide

Summary of General Planning Steps for Integrated Learning

Reflective Practice: Inner Dialogue

3.   Differentiated Instructional Design

The Many Facets of Differentiated Instruction

Why Differentiated Instruction Is a Good Idea

The Differentiated Classroom

The Role of Learning Standards in Differentiated Instruction

Teaching With a Differentiated Approach

Textbooks and Differentiated Instruction

Planning for Success in Differentiated Instruction

Designing Learning Activities to Differentiate Instruction

Planning Differentiated Instruction

Using the Differentiated Instructional Design Planning Guide

Summary of General Planning Steps for Differentiated Instruction

Reflective Practice: Inner Dialogue

4.   Problem-Based Learning Instructional Design

Problem-Based Learning Examined

The Role of Learning Standards in a Problem-Based Learning Classroom

Planning for Problem-Based Learning

Effectively Leading Problem-Based Learning

Planning Problem-Based Learning

Using the Problem-Based Learning Planning Guide

Summary of General Planning Steps for Problem-Based Learning

Reflective Practice: Inner Dialogue

Resources

Bibliography

Index

Reproducible Pages Directory

Basic Instructional Design Preliminary Planning

Basic Lesson Plan

Integrated Instruction: Overview of Learning Standards

Integrated Instructional Design: Planning Questions and Decisions

Integrated Instruction Plan

Differentiated Instructional Design: Planning Questions and Decisions

Differentiated Activities Planning Matrix

Individual Learning Activity

Learning Center Plan

Project Pack

Problem-Based Learning Standards Overview

Problem-Based Learning Assessment Plan

Problem-Based Learning Planning Guide

Foreword

Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teacher’s Guide to Effective Instruction is an important book, offering teachers essential guidance in the highly complex task of lesson planning. It provides four models: basic, integrated, differentiated, and problem-based. These models are progressively more complex and nuanced, providing teachers with guidance as they increase their lesson planning proficiency.

As I set forth in Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching, planning is one of the four essential domains of professional practice (Danielson, 1996). Further, planning is, of course, highly cerebral, requiring high-level thinking and decision making. And in this age of content standards and the high-stakes assessments of those standards, the teacher’s challenge in planning for instruction is more profound than ever.

Textbooks and other instructional materials provide teachers with learning objectives, activities, assessments, and of course, materials needed—all they need for instructional planning. Teachers have the option, if they so choose, to simply follow the directions and connect the dots. In many cases, the instructional suggestions offered by the textbooks and ancillary materials are as viable as those that many teachers (particularly novices) could create on their own. However, only teachers know their own students (and therefore how to differentiate instruction to assist them), and content standards are different in different locations. Therefore, if teachers can acquire sophisticated planning skills, they will be able to offer a richer instructional environment for their students than if they relied solely on their text materials.

Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teacher’s Guide to Effective Instruction works equally well for novice teachers and for seasoned professionals. The beginner will likely feel most comfortable with the basic model. With enough practice, this model becomes perfected to the extent that it can be built upon. The models described subsequently (integrated, differentiated, and problem-based) are advanced, requiring skills rarely demonstrated by those just entering the profession. The skills and practice needed to successfully implement these models are highly advanced, reflecting a sophisticated level of planning.

Therefore, by mastering the ideas presented in Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teacher’s Guide to Effective Instruction, teachers can advance their practice and demonstrate skills I have identified as proficient and distinguished (Danielson, 1996). And if teachers can develop these skills in collaboration with their colleagues, their professional experience will be doubly rewarding.

—Charlotte Danielson

Author and Educational Consultant

Preface

Do you remember your first teaching assignment—the first day you entered your new classroom and thought about the students who would soon be there? For me, it was a combination of pride and anxiety. I was proud that I had finally attained what I had prepared for over the last several years. I was also extremely anxious about the first day with my students. What would they be like? Would they like me? And most important, how could I best teach them? Sure, I had been in classrooms before. I had planned and taught lessons. But this was different. This was no short-term assignment with someone to guide me along the way. I was on my own. I had signed the contract, and I was expected to be a professional.

The first few days of my teaching assignment, I was overwhelmed with information about school rules and regulations, extracurricular assignments, curriculum requirements, and schedules. A kindly colleague offered the advice to always have something for them to do. So I studied all the curriculum guides and teachers’ manuals (I had never seen them before!). I made sure I had enough worksheets. I decorated my classroom with bulletin boards and attractive displays. I worked from dawn to midnight for weeks to get ready for the first day. When it arrived, I was exhausted. Somehow my students and I survived that day—I’m sure I learned more than they did. What I learned was that I needed a plan. If I was going to be any good at all at this teaching thing (and I desperately wanted to be), I was the one who had to make it happen. Certainly I could make sure I always had something for them to do, but I wanted to make sure I always had something for them to learn.

It is interesting the way competence and confidence go hand in hand. After several years, I felt more competent and at ease—but I was still very much a beginning teacher. As I came to know more about how learning happens, I tried different instructional designs. I put several objectives into the same lesson; I tailored lessons for different students; I let students take the lead, not only in what they learned but in how they learned. There were successes, but there were also disappointments. Not everything worked. But my teaching evolved and my students progressed.

Looking back over my early teaching years, I wish I had had more guidance. I read professional journals and learned a great deal about theory and philosophy, what to do and what not to do. But there was very little on how to actually do it. I wish there had been some models I could have used rather than trying to reinvent the wheel; it would have made teaching easier. I did not realize it then, but this is where the ideas for Powerful Lesson Planning models took root.

Over the years, I have played many roles in education—classroom teacher, reading specialist, administrator, university professor, and consultant. As I listen to and talk with classroom teachers from kindergarten through high school and in graduate programs and school districts throughout the country, I am taken back to my early experiences as a classroom teacher. I listen as teachers express their concerns and frustrations as well as their joys and desires about teaching. In very candid moments, when expressions of doubt sometimes surface, teachers question their practices. Many realize that the approaches they have used for many years no longer work as well as they once did. Their students have changed—and they have changed. Many are willing to try new approaches but simply don’t know how to go about it. So, for lack of information, they go on doing what they’ve always done. As one veteran teacher said, This year we’re supposed to differentiate. We had a big meeting where we heard why it’s a good idea. But no one told us how to do it. We’re left on our own.

Not surprisingly, even experienced teachers who are familiar with basic instructional design may find it difficult to implement more complex instructional approaches. The planning procedures for different approaches involve asking different questions and making different decisions. Experienced teachers, regardless of content area or grade level, need models as they plan more complex instructional designs. Models provide a focus and common language for discussion and understanding.

Learning to plan effective lessons is part of the preparatory coursework in teacher education programs. Preclinical and student teaching experiences provide opportunities for the preservice teacher to observe and discuss lesson plans with experienced practitioners. Initially, preservice and beginning teachers focus on a very basic form of lesson planning that includes defining the learning standards to be achieved, selecting the activities to facilitate learning to meet the standard, and developing an appropriate assessment of student learning. At this stage, practicing more complex planning for diverse classrooms is not the norm (Tomlinson et al., 1997). Unless basic instructional design is understood and practiced, there can be little understanding of how to plan more complex instructional designs. With proficiency in basic instructional design,