Lesson Planning Tips

Guiding Questions for Planning

Think about the following:

1. Where do you take your students? That is, what is the topic (theme, content, issue, or problem)? What is (are) its source(s)?
2. Why is this topic (theme, issue, problem) important? Why should students learn this? What, if any, influence will it have on their lives?
3. What do the students already know? How do their explanations or beliefs differ from those of the scholarly community?
4. What knowledge will students construct? What “big understanding(s)”? What major concept(s)? What important facts?
5. What processes and skills will students develop? What knowledge acquisition skills, thinking processes, manipulative or social skills?
6. What “habits of mind” will students develop? What attitudes and dispositions, what values? 
7. What other parts of the curriculum can be naturally integrated with this content? 
8. What resources are available?
9. How will students be engaged and stimulated to investigate the topic(s)? 
10. What can be done so that students share their knowledge with peers? 
11. How can students be motivated to apply and extend what they know?
12. How will I assess what they learned?
13. How will I evaluate my teaching? (Powell, Needham, & Bentley, 1994)