Lesson Planning- What I’ve Learned So Far

From my limited experience with lesson planning this far, I can confidently say that this task is much easier said than done. Initially, I had multiple ideas for a prepared lesson that I was almost certain would meet the requirements of the ISTE and the Common Core State Standards. In hindsight however, I was definitely missing some fundamental components of both, in my lesson’s rough draft.

During my beginning of my journey to “perfect” my lesson, I began to become somewhat overwhelmed and even a bit frustrated when I began looking at all the criteria I needed to be meeting when presenting my lesson in the classroom. With so many standards, I felt a sense of uneasiness and questioned the lack of balance I foresaw in being able to hit all the targets I was aiming towards. After searching the web for a dose of empathy and encouragement, I came across I really great article that provided me with just that! In the article Every Teacher Can Meet the Common Core: Simple Tips, I found various practical ways to easily approach Common Core in my state, and how to make the process implementing these criteria, a little bit more do-able. This text gave several overarching ways that teachers of all grade levels can mix things up in their classroom. In addition, each sub-text included several hyperlinks that focused on other documents and videos, specific to the point being highlighted. This article really help me put my ideas into perspective and even helped me brainstorm several different ways to maximize the impact of my lessons, all the while meeting the standard criteria of ISTE and Common Core.

Another gold mine that I came across during my research was an article written by the University of Oregon, Ways to Access Student Learning During Class. I really got excited about reading this article due to it’s being written by a school in my home state, but also because it plainly listed thirteen different ideas on how to access student learning. With the demands of Common Core, assessment is a huge component to measuring the learning and growth in our students. As much as I get excited about learning, my opposition to content testing as a means of measurement, is extremely limited. This article clarified that traditional testing isn’t the only way for teacher’s and administrators to collect meaningful data to promote stronger and more effective ways of learning. Many go the concepts presented in the article were based around the students showing what they knew, paired with a wide margin of freedom for the student to preform while incorporating their creativity. The limits posed by traditional testing is another blog post for another day, but I really appreciated the practicality and diverse brainstorming of this article on how to access student growth in the classroom.

Both of these articles of truly left me feeling encouraged and even, better equipped to prepare lessons that are meaningful and relevant to my  class of students, while at the same time, merge with and meet the criteria of ISTE and Common Core standards.