1. EFFECTIVE LESSON PLANS Virginia Rose EDU650 Week 4 Dr. Jackie W. Kyger, Ed.D. BACKWARD DESIGN Insert your picture Here!

2. PART 1: EFFECTIVE LESSON DESIGN AND BACKWARDS DESIGN Important Elements of Effective Lesson Design Deciding on and pinpointing the Learning Objective or what the student should learn from the lesson. Identifying how the student’s understanding of the lesson will be assessed or how will the student’s learning be confirmed. Provide activities for the student that reinforce understanding of the learning objective or what will the student do to learn this lesson. Establish what the student already knows about the topic to be studied. The theory of constructivism advises that acquiring new knowledge is built upon knowledge one already has mastered and teachers must recognize what students already know about a subject when designing a new lesson (Alber, 2011).

3. Learning Objectives are Critical to Planning Effective Instruction Learning Objectives are important so the teacher planning the lesson is clear and stays true to course as to what they are trying to teach the student. As stated by Kizlik (2005), “Poorly written objectives lead to faulty inferences” (para 3).

4. Example of Good Learning Objective Aligned with Common Core Standards: The student will be able to identify a story’s theme and be able to use details from the story to support the theme. The Common Core State Standards (2014) for 5 th grade students in the section Reading Standards for Literature in the Key Ideas and Details section states: “Determine a theme of a story, drama or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text” (p.12). Why this is an Example of a “Good” Learning Objective: In this example the learning objective clearly states what needs to be accomplished by the lesson design. The learning objective is clearly aligned with the CCSS.

5. Common Pitfalls in Planning Effective Lessons: Two common mistakes made by teachers when designing a lesson plan as noted by Newman (2013), Creating engaging activities for the students but the students are not essentially learning the lesson’s objective. Attempting to cover too much material in one lesson rather than getting deep into the given single objective. How to Avoid those Common Pitfalls: Stay focused on the learning objective and do not create activities just to keep students busy or entertained. Stick with just one learning objective and make it clear and concise.

6. What Does Backwards Design Mean? Quite simply Backward Design means starting with the end result and working backwards or start with what you want the student to learn and work backwards from that point. Backwards Design planning uses the understanding by design idea or use the desired learning outcomes for the main ideas for planning a specific lesson.

7. How the Common Core State Standards Play a Role in Designing Effective Instruction: The Kane County Regional Superintendent of Illinois, Patricia Dal Santo remarked The Common Core State Standards are not a curriculum, but as the name implies they are a set of standards and teachers may create their own curriculum to meet the Common Core Standards (as cited in Schory, 2014). Common Core State Standards are a guideline as to what needs to be learned by students by a specific grade level. In essence, the standards are the learning objectives and so they may align easily with designing effective instruction. Common Core State Standards use constructivism by clearly showing how learning objectives build upon the knowledge learned by the previous lesson. As an example; students should master number one in Key Ideas and Details in the Literature section before moving on to the number two objective; themes, and so on through number 10 (CCSS, 2014).

8. PART 2: BACKWARDS DESIGN V. TRADITIONAL MODEL Backwards Design PlanningTraditional Model Planning Step 1. Identify and define the learning objective. Step 1. Plan engaging activities for students. Step 2. Choose a method to assess that the learning objective has been mastered. Step 2. List materials you will need for the lesson’s activities. Step 3. Establish students’ prior knowledge of the subject. Build the lesson upon what students may already know and what they need to have already mastered. Step 3. Discover what students have learned from the lesson. Step 4. Plan activities that reinforce and explore the identified learning objective.

9. PART 3: BACKWARDS DESIGN ACTIVITY Subject: Language Arts Topic: Themes Grade Level: 5th

10. Stage One: Goals to be Established Students will be able to… Identify a story’s theme. Provide evidence, by using details from the story to support the idea of the story’s theme. Write a short essay summarizing the story’s theme supported by details from the story.

11. Stage Two: Assessment Evidence The student will write a 2-3 paragraph essay identifying and clearly supporting with details the theme of the story. The student will share this theme essay with the class. Before beginning the planning of the following lesson, existing knowledge of number one from the Reading Standards for Literature in the Key Ideas and Details section from the CCSS must be established and assessed as mastered (CCSS, 2014).

12. Stage Three: The Learning Activities Put away all items and listen to the reading of “Click Clack Moo” by Doreen Cronin for young readers ages 3-7. This is an easier book for 5 th graders because I want to be able to read it to them in a short time so we can discuss the story in class. Ask students to write down 1-2 words that describes the story for them. They may not use the words: Cow, Farm, Farmer or Typewriter. I will encourage students to use words they cannot see and I will give some brief examples. Round Robin style I will write each students word(s) on the Promethium Board, repeat words get a check mark. As a class we will choose 3 words that best describe the story. Each student will then write each word in a phrase or sentence that tells the ideas in the story. They may not use the off limit words (Cow, Farm, Farmer or Typewriter). When they are done they may share with their neighbor.

13. STAGE THREE LEARNING ACTIVITIES CONTINUED Each student will then share their best sentence or phrase with the class. As a class we will choose 2 sentences that work best to describe the story. I will then ask the class to give examples from the story that prove or support the statements. We will have 5 examples for each statement. Students will pick one and use the statement and examples as an outline for their short essay on the theme of the story. This may be done in class or as homework (Gorence, 1995).

14. References Alber, R. (2011, July). Are you tapping into prior knowledge often enough in your classroom? Edutopia What Works in Education The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior-knowledge tapping- into-often-classroom-http://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior-knowledge tapping- into- rebecca-alber. Common Core State Standards Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org. Gorence, M. (1995, April). Theme Seeds. English Journal, 84(4), 65-66. Retrieved from ProQuest Central database ISSN: 00138274 and Retrieved from Master FILE Premier Database. Kizlik, B. (2005). Five common mistakes in writing lesson plans and how to avoid them. Education Oasis. Retrieved from http://www.educationoasis.com/instruction/bt/five_common_mistakes.htm.http://www.educationoasis.com/instruction/bt/five_common_mistakes.htm Newman, R. (2013). Teaching and learning in the 21 st century; connecting the dots. San Diego, CA: Bridgeport Education, Inc. Schory, B. (2014, August 25 th ). Hultgren roundtable covers pros and cons of common core standards. Kane County Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.kcchronicle.comttp://www.kcchronicle.com