Planning for instruction
InTASC 7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
Introduction
Backwards planning is essential to creating effective long term plans, units, and lessons so that each day can be capitalized on. It is important to have terminal goals in mind and to be a few steps ahead of the students so that instruction can be adjusted to be appropriate for every student.
My long term plan for Algebra II is focused on the underlying skills students need to master in order to be successful with grade-level content. The standards inform the assessment used, but my instruction is not singularly focused on them. Over the summer, I prepared a curriculum of cross-disciplinary skills and community centered projects and integrated it into my long term plan.
Unit plans provide more clarity on the standards students will master in each unit. They include breakdowns of specific skills and projects used to extend student thinking and help them master challenging standards.
Daily lesson plans are the confluence of broader goals and student needs. Understanding the learning process requires providing room for adaptation each day. It is important to be prepared to respond effectively to formative feedback from students.
Follow the links below to learn more about how I use planning to deliver impactful instruction.
Conclusion
Planning requires a belief that every student is capable of reaching rigorous academic standards and high expectations given the proper support. Clear and appropriate goals are vital for planning in any course, but it is especially important in a math classroom. Kentucky’s Academic Standards are the tent poles of my curriculum, but the content I teach in my classroom is more so focused on the skills that allow students to reach the standards and extend beyond them. Every goal consists of foundational skills and conceptual understandings that need to be built in students so they can generalize the content they learn. Planning with this in mind makes the most of the time students spend in my classroom.