Differentiated Lesson Planning
Lesson planning is an art form. Every teacher wants to use his or her unique talent or brush stroke when presenting and planning a lesson or a unit. However, many teachers must incorporate steps that come from their school district, principal, department chair and possibly a lead teacher from their grade level or team in the plan. Many teachers are required to divide up units and design lessons that they must follow. These parameters often squelch the unique talent that every teacher brings to the profession. How do teachers and parents who see each child as an individual follow the rules and still use their talents to reach all the unique needs of children?
There is no escape from the requirements of the school division or the school. Most teachers must follow the rules for the traditional lesson plan because it is part of their evaluation. The traditional lesson plan starts with an objective - which can be found in the curriculum guide for the district. There may also be a state guide with a larger blueprint for objects to be taught, as well as a timeline. Next, the materials are listed. Then the teacher must raise the interest of his or her students. Teaching the objective using multiple methods to reach all learning styles is next (visual, oral, and tactile). Next is practice while the teacher circulates to make sure the students have gotten the objective, sum up the material one last time and finally closure. Closure may be in the form of homework, a quick quiz or an exit pass question, but the idea is to give the student meaningful practice with the objective and the teacher a measurement of student knowledge.
Before school starts, creating a plan for the year teachers make sure that all objectives that will be on the state test will be taught before the test date and class time will be set aside for an in-depth review. Work sheets are pulled from workbooks that come from the text as class work and homework. Chapter questions are assigned from the textbook and tests from the textbook data base are used as well as other data bases. Films that show the content of the curriculum objective are used and children’s heads are filled with facts. Projects as usually limited to reflect the information being taught. There is some, but not much of an attempt to make the lessons or projects relevant to today’s world. There is little chance for a child to use his or her particular talent to present material. Teachers justifiably feel pressured and that they don’t have time for such activities.
THERE IS A WAY TO DIFERENTIATE YOUR LESSONS AND MAKE THEM RELEVANT!
1. Throughout the year when you are engaging student interest, teach a skill set
and use it in a cooperative practice follow-up. A lot of text books have these types of
lessons, but they may be too long or not have enough focus on the skill so be sure to
evaluate them :
For the little ones: Grouping like objects, Compare-Contrast, Simple Sequencing,
Reading a graph, Finding Opinion Words, simple presentations, simple outlining
For the older ones: Grouping like objects with a strategy for memorization,
Compare-Contrast for research/debate, Arranging Ideas for effective communication
(Outlining), Reading graphs – maps – identifying quality resources, bias, fact-opinion,
Critical reading of contracts and statistics, quality public speaking
*All teachers of every subject should be teaching these skills over and over again! Please realize is how hard it is to make informed choices without these basic skill sets. Our “A” and “B” students may come by them fairly easily. Our students who are having problems do not make the connections between different subjects. They don’t graduate with the necessary skill sets to read the fine print on contracts, fully understand the impact of our political system or move forward in reaching their full potential especially in the current drive to measure student learning in terms of baseline knowledge of facts.
2. Go global! When I taught my masters class, Foundations of Education, for Old Dominion University, my grad students had to do 30 hours of observation. Normally, the professors of the course just have students do journal entries. Instead, I modified a teacher evaluation form and added some of my own directions to focus my students on other areas that can make or break a classroom and had them make a PowerPoint on the best lesson they observed. It was a real eye opener for me. The lessons were well-developed, but were what I like to call, flat. They didn’t demand critical thinking. The lessons wonderfully reinforced the objective, but that was the end of the story.
Going global or avoiding flatness means: The lesson has to relate to some relevant issue in the student’s lexicon of knowledge or one that is currently in the news that you can share with the students. This is easier than you think. I read the newspaper everyday before heading to work or jumped on the computer. Luckily, I had live streaming video and a white board the last three years I taught – what a gift. There was always some story that had a connection with what I was teaching. I had a copier at home and bought some transparency film so I could make overheads. I used these to raise audience awareness. I was always on the lookout for graphs or something up-to-date to use in class.
This becomes easier if you have a theme for the unit or for the year – one year we were pirates (don’t ask). While teaching world history, it was always the haves against the have nots.
I had newspaper print in my room with markers and when it was time for the class to practice, I had them work in groups to complete an assignment and give an opinion about the current news article.
Additionally, I believe in teaching research skills. Opposing viewpoints is often a way to get students to avoid just repeating data. Also, designing projects that have choices and bonus points to encourage students to make their own plan helps students use their gift to surprise you with a better than expected outcome. It is in your presentation, student practice and project planning that you can truly differentiate your lessons. My next blogs will be examples of grading rubrics and after that some student projects I designed to meet the needs of my students.
I’d like to end with an example of just how hard it is to learn and retain knowledge and how a diverse group of students ends up learning a skill at different rates.
One night, I was teaching my graduate level class “Foundations of Education” and I asked them: “How do you know when somebody has really learned something you’ve taught them?” One person said, “A passing grade on a test.”
I said indicated we were going to do a little experiment. I used to teach folk dancing and so I brought along some music and taught them a folk dance. We did it several times until everyone seemed to have a pretty good handle on it. So I sat down and had them do it without me leading the way. Well, it was a disaster. Only two people out of twenty got it right.
So I got up and led them again – three more times and then sat down. This time when I had them do it on their own, five people were successful. I told them we were done for the night and I let them go home.
The next week, near the end of class, I put on the music. My two stars got it right and the other three can pretty close, but the rest were lost. I got up and led them three more times and again the group was looking great. I sat down and this time fifteen people got it right. I had them practice one more time and sent them home.
I’m sure by now you can see where this story is going. The next week ten people got it right. The week after that fifteen and the last week all but one person got it right and he was just not musically inclined at all. So it took five weeks for all but one of my students to learn a fairly complex folk dance.
Over my long teaching career, I have learned that depending on the objective/skill the teacher must find many ways to repeat important material for the students. Learning and retaining material is a long process for some people. This does not make them dumb or lazy it is just how learning a particular piece of information occurs for that person. If I had a magic wand, I would wave it over every school so that all teachers taught reading and the same valuable skill sets that I mentioned above. I would also have literature linked to social studies content. My intuition tells me this would improve learning by leaps and bounds. I know some systems do this, but wouldn’t it be grand if all school systems did?
