Putting Educational Innovations into Practice.

Lesson Planning

What information is necessary in order to have a lesson plan that is clear and ready to use? Obviously, the content standard is a given because we are not going to spend time on something that doesn't register on the standard scale.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Frank on March 24, 2009 at 7:39am

Here is my lesson plan for the Drosophila fly lab. Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

Attachments:

drosophila_virtual_lab_copy13.doc, 80 KB

Permalink Reply by Frank on March 24, 2009 at 11:13am

I forgot to mention that Chris Borquez and I worked together in the development of the lesson plan linked in the post above.

Permalink Reply by Gayle Spencer on March 24, 2009 at 2:45pm

Nice beginning Frank and Chris. First, check your spelling ; ) Next, Think about having some written explanation of their understanding in the evidence section; it makes for a much stronger connection. During the opening, what exact prompt will you use to spark student thinking on a deeper level? In the extension activity area, what about those students who excel at the content and finish early? Modifications: EL--what visual aids? RSP--be sure to stay in general proximity for assistance...

Permalink Reply by Frank on March 26, 2009 at 9:38am

Thanks for the suggestions Gayle, I'm not sure whats wrong w/ my document, I've made spelling changes and even you made some changes during the seminar but for some reason the changes are not being saved. My visual aids come in the form of pictures I use in my power points. For my more advanced students I usually have an extension activity where I ask students to make predictions on possible outcomes rather than ask the basic what, where & how questions. The course ware program even allows the students to try a dihybrid cross in place of a monohybrid cross, which is a bit more challenging for most 7th graders.

Permalink Reply by Claude Phan on March 26, 2009 at 4:42pm

My first lesson plan.

link to the march 14th workshop
http://www.cfkeep.org/users/psychomantis125/march workshop

link to my keeptoolkit
http://www.cfkeep.org/users/psychomantis125/

Permalink Reply by Gayle Spencer on March 27, 2009 at 10:20am

Very nice Claude, et. al. I'm impressed with how thorough your lesson plan is and how much thought you put into it. Further, I like the connections made and the extension activity for accelerated learners. Any ideas on how to continue to reinforce the academic vocabulary in subsequent lessons? (I'm just differentiating my instruction to meet the needs of my students... ; ) )
Nice job!

Permalink Reply by Jessica on March 27, 2009 at 3:54pm

We are starting the Disease and Immune System section. Students are extremely interested on the symptoms of diseases and so used the material found in the Prentice Hall's Biology text to do an activity. In the beginning of the class I passed out slips with symptoms and transmission. Next to these symptoms were numbers. Activity: students are infected with this disease (disease on slip) and will find out what disease they have once the lesson is complete. This hook provided the engagement i was looking for. During the lesson we talked about bacteria and virus characteristics.

Attached are the slips and key to the activity. I had students share their symptoms with the rest of the class as I read the key out-loud.

Attachments:

Disease Activity_Hook.xls, 18 KB

Permalink Reply by Frank on March 31, 2009 at 1:23pm

Jessica, LOVE that hook! Anything you can do to grab their attention is going to pay off tremendously in the end. I will be starting this unit soon and would love to try this same hook, thanks for the idea.

Permalink Reply by Steven on March 29, 2009 at 4:56pm