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Planning to Facilitate Learning - Tool Box
The big picture of planning generally falls under the heading of curriculum development. General curriculum development references are linked here. The information referenced in this page focuses more specifically on teachers plan to facilitate learning. Still a broad area considering everything that could, should, or would happen in a classroom. Here that planning is also limited to what teachers do before they teach. Reflection and decision making information while teaching is in the Teaching section of Pedagogy.
All planning documents are for communication. To communicate to ourselves as memory devices, those who are interested in the education of students, those who desire accountability and assessment information, and communicate to students.
Planning documents can include: mission statements, philosophies, principled procedures, action plans, lesson plans, units, year plans, multigrade curriculums and assessment plans. They can be organized for different durations, grade levels, and information to learn.
Documents should be organization to communicate the relationships between the different elements of planning. Part one - beliefs, philosophies, rationale, mission statements, action plans, principled procedures... Part two - what students are to learn Part three - how learning might be facilitated - including activities... Part four - assessment. | general planning ideas | year plan outline | unit planning outline |
Information can be written in: lists, narratives, tables, matrices, webs, diagrams, electronic data ...
Decisions on selection of what to include is decided by the author's best guess, based on theories and considerations for Planning to Facilitate Students' Construction of Concepts and Generalizations along with other elements of planning each person believes are most necessary to prepare to provide the best opportunity of students to learn within your classroom organization.
Elements include a choice of procedure for each activity, which should be based on a learning theory (common knowledge construction model, learning cycle, cooperative learning, direct instruction), and developmental theory as appropriate for the students. Other elements include how to communicate what is to be learned: concepts and generalizations, objectives, and at what level Bloom's Taxonomy for planning objectives, questions, and activities and instructional strategies with in each plan along with good directions and good questioning and classroom management .
All of these ideas in one way or another can be combined into a plan. To assist in helping remember what is most important teachers can create an outline or framework to consistently organize their ideas, which can be very generic or loaded with details. Once a framework is selected, then information is added to it.
Below are frameworks for concept related planning information.
Concept related information and unpacking
- Planning Matrix for Bulbs and Batteries
- Planning Web for Mathematics Probability
- Map for classification
- Map for explanation
- Map for sound
- Map or matter
- Map blank
All of these ideas come together to create a plan. Plans can be for one activity or they can group different activities into longer units of study.
There are many plans on this site most can be found in the subject areas that most closely fit the main ideas of each. Below are some shorter plans to focus on single activities and longer planning ideas follow that list.
- Probability with one die - linear plan, plan on a chart
- Probability sum of two die - linear plan, plan on a chart
- Probability with tiles in a sock - combines activties
Walk through of some planning development
Thoughts and reflections for a study on:
All plans can have strengths and weakness. One way to assess then is to create an assessment list of quality attributes for lesson plans.
From single plans to sequences
Let's review and move to sequences - Planning learning sequences. One way to see an over all picture of a learning sequence would be to look at an outline or table of contents for one.
The following sequences offer a variety of ideas and are in different states of completness.
- Air Sequence - focused elements -physical science content, learning cycle (exploration, invention, expansion), grade range 2-5..
- Electric Current Sequence - focused elements - middle school or higher, content areas (inquiry, unified processes - model, and other science ideas).
- Reading and Writing Numbers with Numerals and Words - focused elements content (place value, patterns, and number communication)
- Card Trick Sequence - focused elements - content (problem solving, reasoning and proof, and patterns)
- Rounding Numbers - focused elements - content easurement and body proportion concepts of rounding.
- Mixing 4 different colored water solutions - focused elements -focus questions for content and processes. Discussion questions include questions for both.
- Animals and environments - Gerbils for kindergarten, grade one or two
Walk through of three sequences development
- Content Area Subject Plan - Light unit with discussion on its creation - grade four - six
- Walk through for Language Arts sequence that integrates the six elements of language with a book as the unifying theme "The Mitten"
- Sound unit with discussion on its creation for grade one or two
- Complete comprehensive science unit on matter - density.pdf and accompaning assessment data base .pdf
Integration - subject or real
Yearly - Parts and pieces for the development of year plans
- Year plan table of contents or outline
- Science
- Literature
- Math
- Directory of parts and pieces for curriculum development
Assessment
- Student assessment directory
- Creating rubrics simulation
- Sample checklist to use the National Science Standards to review curriculum
Strategies - Tools
Specific Instructional Methodology
Dr. Robert Sweetland's Notes ©