Approach to Middle-Level Lesson Planning

 

“How does your new understanding of UbD, integrative curriculum, and young adolescent development affect your concepts of lesson planning?”

“Developing the ability to transfer one’s learning is key to a good education. It is an essential ability because teachers can only help students learn a relatively small number of ideas, examples, facts, and skills in the entire field of study; so we need to help them transfer their inherently limited learning to many other settings, issues, and problems.” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005)

 

              First and foremost, I think what is loud and clear about good lesson planning in the middle-levels (or in any grade for that matter) is that it is not a rinse and repeat activity. Last year’s plans can always act as a starting point especially if there are no major standard adjustments or curriculum changes in the content area, however, the needs and interests of the students, the makeup of the interdisciplinary team, and the overall goals and objectives are critical to individualize to that upcoming year.

              The idea of an integrative curriculum was a new idea for me in this module. I have learned about offering student choice through content or product but input into the curriculum and partnering with them on how to achieve mandated academic outcomes for the year was an interesting concept. I can see, especially with young adolescents, how “it challenges young people to think, learn, and tackle issues that are important to them personally.” (Patterson, 2003) while increasing motivation to do the work because there is an interest. Because the article we read seemed to show examples of teachers who taught in a classroom across the content areas, I would love to read more on integrative curriculum adopted by a team of teachers and see how they iteratively incorporate the input from students with the needs to address state standards interwoven with an interdisciplinary curriculum.

              Regardless of whether it is through choice or by following the integrative curriculum model, communicating to our students through lesson planning that we value their ability to drive their own learning is critical. I think that can be done in large part through assessments. In my own middle and high school experience, I don’t remember much student lead choice other than “We are doing a report on ecosystems… you may pick one discussed in class.” But the curriculum at Otterbein has really opened my eyes as to how powerful providing choice can be in my own learning. If you tell me, I have the choice to write a 5 page essay or create a visual representation asking me to reflect a similar level of understanding about a certain topic… I will choose the visual representation 9/10 times. Writing takes more thought and mental effort for me to choose the right words and so more creative visual projects allow me to do something I enjoy more and I can spend more time on expressing my understanding vs. finding the right word for a sentence.  I want to take this inspiration from these personal experiences and find more creative ways students can demonstrate their understanding in a math classroom. As Wiggins and McTighe wrote in their book Understanding by Design, “Getting evidence of understanding means crafting assessments to evoke transferability: finding out if students can take their learning and use it wisely, flexibly, creatively.” ( 2005) For me, math isn’t about memorizing math facts, it’s about understanding how to solve problems, sometimes utilizing tools from simpler concepts to solve more complicated ones. I want to know that a student gains more from my class than memorizing a formula to say, predict experimental probability.

              Finally, within that same vein is making room within your lesson plans for students and teachers alike to gain data on misunderstandings. I liked this quote from Wiggins and McTighe: “Thus evidence of misunderstanding is incredibly valuable to teachers, not a mere mistake to be corrected. It signifies an attempted and plausible but unsuccessful transfer.” (2005) In the spring, I took a class from Jeff Smith where we learned about identifying and categorizing mistakes within students’ math work. These mistakes were meant to lead us to understanding errors in thought pattern, or understanding, vs. becoming good graders. This skill is invaluable as it can help us recognize gaps in our lesson plans, make needed revisions and possible new methods of teaching. And because we will be working on interdisciplinary teams, these learnings can be shared to benefit all content areas, especially in those concepts that are being covered across courses.