Differentiation is a powerful way to fix your lesson plans. What is differentiation in education? Differentiation simply means tailoring your instruction to meet the individual needs of all your students. A simple definition, but a potentially difficult challenge! Especially when you have 30 students needing 30 different things for each activity – Yikes! But providing differentiated tools can be incredibly … Read More
9 Ways to Fix Your Lesson Plans: Connect your Content
Does the content in your lesson plans have meaning? Learning must be a purposeful experience for students. John Dewey, a well known educational philosopher, felt all learning needed to be connected to the outside world. He argued content had little meaning if not connected to its real world application outside of the school system (Dewey, 1900, p.13). Dewey challenged learning … Read More
9 Ways to Fix your Lesson Plans – Ask Your Students
How do you fix your lesson plans? Ask your students! It is a well known quote spread throughout the educational community, said by the wonderful, education veteran Rita Pierson. “You know, kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Nevertheless, as we strive to do our best at reaching all of our learners, connecting individually with each student, and designing dynamic … Read More
9 Ways to Fix Your Lesson Plans: Scaffold Student Learning Opportunities
What’s the 3rd way you can fix your lesson plans? Create scaffolded student learning opportunities! Using the Content Break Down discussed in Fix#1, Fix #3 focuses on utilizing scaffolded targets to design meaningful learning opportunities! The most effective way to create strong, scaffolded targets is to utilize Webb’s Depth Of Knowledge (DOK). DOK allows teachers to build content knowledge in a … Read More
9 Ways to Fix Your lesson Plans – A Nine-Part Series
Why should you fix your lesson plans? It is important for us, as educators, to always work to be better and continue our mission of reaching all students! Why? Because reaching 70% of your learners is not enough! While reaching every single student might seem like an almost impossible task, it is one that we as teachers have dedicated our … Read More