When planning for instruction, the teacher needs to create well-organized lessons with clear objectives that relate to state standards and take into consideration: differentiated instruction, multiple intelligences, higher order thinking, and effective and accurate assessments. Planning for instruction in this manner will ensure that lessons are engaging and challenging, and students have an equal chance to succeed despite varying backgrounds and cultures. I demonstrate this standard by using the Madeline Hunter format to organize my lesson plans, and incorporating Bloom’s Taxonomy and pre-and-post-assessments into my lesson plans.

Madeline Hunter Lesson Plan Format

The Madeline Hunter lesson format ensures that I am designing plans for active learning.  Included in the lessons are a compelling opening, direct instruction/modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and closure. In a three day unit I created for a kindergarten lesson, I used this format to design an active learning lesson the kids really enjoyed.

Planning with Bloom’s Taxonomy

When planning lessons for the George Washington’s Socks novel study I developed a project that incorporated higher order thinking. Students had to create a movie poster with an original title, cast, quotes, tag line, and drawing or collage. This project allowed students to reach the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy by creating original work.

Planning with Pre/Post Assessments

Pre/Post assessments are used to measure student growth. For my 4th grade ELA novel study I used a pretest to assess target standards. Then I used the data to guide me in teaching the upcoming lessons. When the unit concluded I gave a post test to evaluate what the students learned.  Comparing the post and pretest gave me a good insight into the growth and knowledge mastered on the subject.