LESSON PLAN ASSIGNMENT



EPC 500

SP ‘03

LESSON ASSIGNMENT

Each member of the class will prepare and document a lesson using direct instruction. The primary purposes of the assignment are to learn how to plan and deliver direct instruction and to strengthen understanding of principles from educational psychology by applying them to an authentic teaching activity..

Procedures

As part of the lesson plan each student must explain how to accommodate special students and students for whom English is not their first language, what state content standard is being addressed, and how long it will take to accomplish each step in the lesson.

Each student decides on the context for the lesson, e.g., grade level, subject matter, learning objective, and characteristics of students to be taught (SES, ethnicity, language background, etc.). Members of in class groups help each other plan the lessons.

Use Chapter 7 in the Slavin textbook for guidance on direct instruction and Chapter 13 for guidance in stating objectives. Progress in planning the lesson can be guided by making a checklist of the questions in the Theory Into Practice on page 223 in Slavin’s book.

The lesson must be original. It may not be a lesson copied entirely from someone or from resource material, such as a web site. Each student creates learning objectives, designs learning experiences for students, and gets or makes needed teaching materials. Of course, when planning the lesson students draw on their past experiences and consult available resources to locate ideas to include in this original lesson being created. But, because an objective for this assignment is for you to experience the process of creating a lesson, the lesson should not be wholly copied.

During the semester you will study psychological principles that explain how students learn and why certain ways of teaching are more effective than others. You will draw from this body of principles to explain why you planned your lesson as you did. This explanation is called a psychological rationale and is formed by your responding to the set of questions given below.

For this assignment you will submit a portfolio composed of a lesson plan, a psychological rationale and a log/explanation of the processes and changes you went through to create this lesson. The log may include suggestions and critiques from classmates that you considered (or why you did not consider) from classmates, origins of ideas, first drafts or plans, changes and insights into the process.

Documentation

Using the form (“Lesson Plan Format”) given below, prepare a lesson plan that does not exceed two pages.

Instructions for writing the psychological rationale are given below.

Psychological Rationale for the Lesson

The most important part of your portfolio is a psychological rationale for your lesson. A rationale is an explanation of the reasons for something, in this case the reasons for what you do in your lesson. Using a psychological perspective, you give reasons that justify the steps you take in your lesson. Through your explanation you show that what you do in your lesson is well thought out, purposeful, logical and intended to have a positive effect on student learning through the deliberate application of psychological principles.

When you come to a decision point while planning your lesson you will decide to do something a certain way because it will make the lesson more effective; for example, you are careful that the examples of the concept you want to teach are already familiar to your students because you want to avoid confusion that will interfere with their new learning and slow the pace of your presentation. This kind of psychological reasoning used to make your lesson more effective is an example of a psychological rationale.

The emphasis in your psychological rationale should be on logical reasoning with the word “because” occurring frequently. A common form of a written entry will be the statement of an action in the lesson followed by a phrase introduced by the conjunction, “because.” Examples of reasoning in a psychological rationale are as follows: “Besides allowing them to manipulate the real geometric figures, a reason why I chose Task X was because third graders have developed adequate finger dexterity to construct the geometric figures. I made sure the task was well within the range of physical abilities of third graders because I wanted to avoid failure and frustration during the construction of the figures. If the task were beyond the physical abilities of many of the students, I was concerned their attention would be focused more on learning how to construct the figures than on their geometric characteristics.” “I used Exercise X because it elicits prior knowledge about carnivores and herbivores in mammals that, in turn, becomes a context for the new information in the lesson about carnivores and herbivores in birds. This is an application of the principle of meaningful learning, which states new information is more likely to be retained if it is learned in the context of existing knowledge.” “I decided on procedure X because I thought it would keep students engaged, focusing their attention on my demonstration. They must pay attention to my demonstration of how to solve this type of problem if they are going to remember how to solve these problems when we do problems for the probing phase of the lesson. Attention is necessary for new information to enter the sensory register, which it must do to be retained in long-term memory. Also, if students are paying attention to the demonstration, they will not be distracting other students from also attending to the demonstration. Thus, the engaging demonstration helps manage their attention.”

When I read your rationale I want to be able to see that consideration of psychological principles was crucial in planning the lesson and that your behavior was based on reason and intention. I do not want to get the impression the lesson was planned, and then to complete this assignment, you created a rationale to fit the already planned lesson. Evidence of Backward Planning should be apparent,that is, that you chose a skill or standard to teach and then developed appropriate experiences to obtain your stated objective.

Your psychological rationale will consist of answers to the questions and statements listed below and any additional rationale you wish to provide. I’m sure you will engage in reasoning beyond that covered by the questions listed below. Feel free to share that reasoning with me.

In writing your responses please be careful to include both a description of the action in the lesson and the psychological rationale supporting the action. The rationale is the most important part of your response, but I can not judge the soundness of your reasoning unless I have a brief description of the action in the lesson you are justifying. But keep your descriptions of actions brief. Giving only a description of actions in the lesson or unnecessarily padding your answer with description, leaves it unclear to me that you know why you are doing what you are doing. Do not unnecessarily pad you answer with descriptions of what you do in the lesson. The focus should be on your reasoning, not your descriptions.

Questions to answer: Following or within some of the questions below there are parentheses in which there are references to locations in Slavin where you can find information related to the question. You will, of course, be able to locate information in other places in Slavin and in sources other than Slavin.

1. What techniques were used to create, maintain, or increase motivation to participate in the lesson? At a minimum address learning goals, praise, intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, and difficulty level. For each motivation related technique you describe, explain what student behavior are you trying to evoke and why the target behavior contributes to the achievement of the learning objective for the lesson. (Ch 10)

2. What are at least three things did or had students do that were intended to establish and maintain memory? (Ch 6)

3. Using the methods explained by Slavin (p. 372-377), explain at least three steps you took to keep students engaged during your lesson. Why were these steps important for your lesson?

4. How did you make learning meaningful? Why did you do this? (Ch 6)

5. At what points in the lesson did you plan for practice/rehearsal? Why did you do this? (Chapters 6 & 7)

6. How does your lesson accommodate different way of knowing, e.g., verbal, auditory, tactile/motor, social, individual? (Chapters 3 and 4)

7. Identify and explain at least five ways you adapted your lesson to fit the psychosocial, physical, and cognitive development of the students? (Chapters 2 and 3)

8. In your lesson are you teaching any concepts? What are they? From Slavin what principles of concept teaching are you applying? (pages 239-244)

9. In your lesson what steps are you taking to increase the probability of transfer of the learning? (pages 241-244)

10. Identify and explain at least three ways you maintained group focus during the lesson (Slavin, p. 375)? Why is group focus important for the success of a lesson?

11. Identify at least three transitions in your lesson, including how you transitioned from probes to independent practice in your lesson. Why is the management of transitions important for the success of your lesson? (Ch 11)

Assessment

Although the quality of the plans and presentation of the lesson are important parts of this assignment and you must show they are well planned, because this is a course in educational psychology and you are a beginning teacher, the psychological rationale is the most important part of the portfolio and has the greatest influence in determining the grade.

When assessing the portfolio I will apply the following criteria:

1. The portfolio contains each element: lesson plan, psychological rationale, and planning log..

2. The lesson plan is understandable, original, professional, identifies the grade level and subject taught, states the learning objective(s) and state standards, lists materials used, accommodates language and learning differences, and describes the seven steps used in delivering direct instruction.

3. Criteria for assessing the psychological rationale are:

- Reasoning is sound and clearly explained

- Shows accurate understanding of principles and terminology

- Thoroughness of response to prompts

- Shows psychological principles were crucial to planning

- Descriptions of actions have accompanying rationale. No padding with description.

4. The planning log should briefly and clearly document the process of creating the lesson.

Due Dates

Your portfolio is due at the last class meeting. Due dates for parts of the lesson, such as the lesson objective, are listed on the semester schedule.

Lesson Plan Format

Title:

Grade level(s):

Subject area(s):

Key CA Content Standard(s) Addressed:

Learning objective(s):

Materials:

Procedure:

1. State learning objectives and orient students to the lesson (# minutes)

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-

2. Review prerequisites (# minutes)

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3. Present new material (# minutes)

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4. Conduct learning probes (# minutes)

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5. Provide independent practice (# minutes)

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6. Assess performance and provide feedback (# minutes)

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7. Provide distributed practice and review (# minutes)

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-

Modifications for special needs, including ELL and exceptionalities:

Logical follow-up lesson: < An idea for the lesson that comes next, as lessons are not taught in isolation.>

CHECK SHEET FOR ASSESSING PORTFOLIO

Directions: Please place this blank check sheet at the beginning of your portfolio so I may use it when assessing your work.

1. Elements Submitted? 2. Lesson Plan

Yes No Yes No

___ ___ Lesson Plan ___ ___ identifies grade level

___ ___ Psychological Rationale ___ ___ identifies subject taught

___ ___ Planning Log ___ ___ state content standard

___ Description clear ___ ___ lists materials used

___ Description unclear, skimpy or inauthentic ___ ___ learning objective

___ Evidence of collaboration ___ ___ explains sequence & time

___ ___ accommodates spec. stud. & ELL

___ ___ identifies follow-up lesson

overall quality low |____|____|____|____| high

3. Psychological Rationale

below average above

average average

________ ________ ________ Reasoning is sound and clearly explained.

________ ________ ________ Shows accurate understanding of principles and terminology.

________ ________ ________ Thoroughness of response to prompts.

________ ________ ________ Demonstrates psychological principles were crucial to planning.

________ ________ ________ Descriptions of actions have accompanying rationale. No padding.

4. Quality Points

Element Possible Points Earned Points

Psychological Rationale 50 ________

Lesson Plan 35 ________

Planning Log/reflections 10 ________ ________

Collaboration 5 ________

TOTAL __________

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