Vanessa M. Johnson
Introduction
Planning for instruction requires that I plan with the end goal in mind. What is important about TASC Standard #7 is that it requires for students to reach learning goals, which means that I have to organize a plan to get my students to meet the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills
expectations outlined in the standards. Here at my school, I teacher English, Reading, and an End of Course State preparation course which requires me to meet with a team to discuss the standards, map out what is tested, and to plan accordingly.
In this section, I have first included a long term plan, unit plan, and lesson plan that represent how I effectively plan for instruction. I have also included student work samples that support each individual students’ ability to achieve rigorous learning goals. With the additional push for technology use within the classrooms and because the students are provided with laptops, I have also included technology resources that increase students engagement in the learning process, which helps me to assess mastery for future planning. My experience in the planning for instruction module has helped inform my practice and has enhanced my knowledge of the content area.
Table of Contents
Long Term Plan
The Long Term Plan outlines classroom vision that I have for my students. I have outlined goals for my students to thrive academically in and beyond my classroom. I chose to discuss my strengths and long term aspirations for my students which include having a growth mindset and to become critical thinkers. The plan includes my knowledge of the English and Reading content and community context which helps to inform my planning. The long term plan first is divided into 6 units. Each unit has an overall theme and essential question that students are asked to answer throughout a 6 week period. I chose to include this in my long term plan because informs what I need in order to plan for my students. I site description is also included within the long term plan to address the community context to best meet students where they are in the learning process.
The students learn a variety of standards that are spiraled throughout the year so that they can have opportunities for consistent practice. The plan includes reading and writing focuses for each unit that students use the unit’s theme and essential question. The outlined Texas Essential Knowledge and skills/expectations prepare students for end of the year course exams and the following grade. The timing of the units matches the instructional calendar and pacing calendar as outlined by the state scope and sequence.
Pictured to the right is the course overview and timing needed to spend on each unit. With this included in my Long Term Plan , I am able to create unit questions that I want them to be able to answer at the end of the unit and helps me to set long term goals for myself while planning.
Unit Plan
Unit Plan
The Unit Plan that I have included deeply describes my plan for instruction for the first six weeks. Following the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Expectations, this unit plan outlines specific objectives that students need to learn. I use the standards to develop lesson plan focuses, to collect resources, and to create assessments which align to my overall class vision and goals. The unit includes what the students will understand, essential questions, instructional strategies, texts, and assessments that will be spiraled through daily lessons. Developing the unit plan helps me plan with the end in mind. Ultimately it helps me to dive into the standards, pull out the necessary elements I need to teach my students to help them achieve their goals through purposeful lessons and activities.
Pictured to the right is snapshot of our Unit 1 Benchmark assessment. In this assessment, students read and respond to text questions, and are evaluated on vocabulary. I chose this specific screenshot because it asks the students to use the text to make an inference about a character. In this unit characterization is what the students are expected to understand by the end, so it is important for me to use this benchmark data to inform instruction.
Lesson Plan
The Lesson Plan incorporates the objectives addressed in the Long term and Unit Plan. By the end of this lesson, I wanted my student to understand characterization, to be able to make connections to the text, and to summarize. This lesson draws upon knowledge of a text and media to assess multiple standards at once.
To meet the targeted learning goal, I first have my students answer the question, “How do we characterize people?” I discussed how we judge others, and had students answer via Padlet, which is an online discussion based learning tool (pictured below). Having the students discuss and share what they thought characterization and displaying students responses helped engage students in the topic. A sentence stem helped struggling students to formulate answers in the discussion as well
Lesson Plan Materials
To meet the targeted learning goal, I first have my students answer the question, “How do we characterize people?” I discussed how we judge others, and had students answer via Padlet, which is an online discussion based learning tool (pictured to the right). Having the students discuss and share what they thought characterization and displaying students responses helped engage students in the topic. A sentence stem helped struggling students to formulate answers in the discussion as well.
The lesson plan includes a screenshot of the characterization notes (pictured to the right) where students took Cornell Notes and discussed the types of characterization.
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In my long term plan, one of my goals is to get my students to take ownership of their learning and to become independent critical thinkers. In doing this, I had the students watch the video on characterization (pictured to the right) in pairs, and compose their own notes to learn about the new strategy called STEAL. After giving the students time to watch the video and compose their own notes, they were required to teach it to me and their classmates who didn’t understand. I then reviewed the notes whole group. To me, the video helps visual learners understand the content, and helps them take notes which is a cross-disciplinary skill that the students can take with them. I also have found that students who learn concepts on their own develop a sense of confidence to teach the learned concept to others and establishes a growth mindset when learning new content.
Stathulis, Catherine. “STEAL Method of Indirect Characterization.” YouTube, YouTube, 17 Nov. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHt8RjkFs98&t=3s.
After watching the video, the students write down the STEAL strategy using the Cornell Notes to create a graphic organizer. To better understand what the STEAL strategy is, I have included a screenshot of what they wrote down (pictured to the right) to better understand what the STEAL strategy means as it applies to characterization.
Student Work Samples
Sample A.
Conclusion
To ensure understanding, the students completed a graphic organizer using the STEAL strategy notes and sticky note annotations. On the graphic organizers students had to provide the STEAL elements, textual evidence, and characterization commentary (pictured to the left). I have included two student samples of this graphic organizer below
Sample A included does give textual evidence but lacks commentary. When providing feedback to the students, I marked for areas that they needed to fix. I also circle words that properly demonstrate characterization to help assist where commentary was needed. I like that the student knows the story, but based on that I asked "what can you infer about Angela based on the elements to STEAL?" to make corrections.
Sample B includes both the evidence and commentary and properly demonstrates understanding of characterization. I circled key words that properly characterize the person in the story to help for additional writing activities.
Conclusion
When I am planning for instruction, I always have the knowledge of the content area and the standards in mind when creating learning goals for my students to master. In going through this module, I was able to collaborate on a long term and unit that addresses the standards and the diverse learning styles of my students. This forced me to reflect on my current practices and to adjust plans based on students need and work samples.
I truly value the amount of time it takes to plan for instruction and through it, I discovered how to strategically plan for my students misunderstandings. Meeting the students where they are was a huge part of my reflection in doing this section because I now know how to modify and accommodate the students especially when analyzing the student work samples.
Collectively, these pieces of evidence demonstrate the effectiveness of Planning for Instruction. I am able to consider a variety of instructional practices, observe student data, and collaborate with my team to inform future instruction. Learning about how planning, goal setting, and purposeful assessments truly drives effective instruction has helped me to plan with the end in mind. Incorporating instructional and technology based strategies and content that they can relate to has truly transformed my approach to teaching and learning.