When I first started lesson planning I had no idea where to begin. I had no template and no one had ever really told me what was supposed to go in a lesson plan. The joys of being a forgotten about BEAD student. Everyone else went into this year with at least some idea of “planning a lesson”. Needless to say, my first lesson plan was not very good. Since then I have been introduced to a few different templates for planning a lesson. I can definitely say that the Backwards by Design template is my favorite. Whereas before I was searching Pinterest and the internet to find the coolest activities in a given subject and then trying to match them up with the Saskatchewan Curriculum, now I start with what I want to teach, figure out how I will assess that they know what I have taught them, and then find a cool activity for the students to do. Lesson planning used to take me a couple hours per lesson and now I know I can complete a lesson in under an hour and have it be really good. It seems as if less is more, which is wonderful for me!
This week we were given the task of rewriting a not so hot lesson in the Backwards by Design template so it taught and assessed what it was supposed to teach and assess with a group of our colleagues. We decided to keep the activity fairly similar to what the original writer was trying to do, but make solid connections between curriculum and assessment. The lesson we created is available here. We decided to shave the indicator down to just one aspect and teach the students about what the different climates are in the regions of Canada. We have learned that we do not need to try to teach everything in one lesson, which I know was something I struggled with in the beginning. From our narrowed down indicator we determined what it was the students would be able to know and do after the lesson and then developed a lesson to teach those things.
Group work has both positive and negative aspects for me. For one, it is great to get feedback from others and to see how they interpret a project. It is great to see how others work and to bounce ideas off of each other. A drawback for me is that I like to work at a certain pace and I like things to be done a certain way. That is definitely a drawback of my own work style. Being able to adapt and work with others is a great skill to have and I will continue to work on it to get better.
Mrs. Chyz's Classroom 