Questions about Lesson plans? This information was sent to OPS leadership September 30, 2014 CURRICULUM INSTRUCTION AND ASSESSMENT MEMORANDUM To: All Elementary Teachers From: Dr. ReNae S. Kehrberg, Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum Instruction and Assessment Re: Lesson Planning Update Date: September 29, 2014 This communication serves as a follow-up to the information that was sent to teachers and principals in May 2014 regarding the work connected to the OPS lesson planning process. This fall IMS and CIA have teamed together to support the fall and winter field testing of Learning Management Systems. The new Learning Management Systems that are being field tested by our teachers’ feature custom lesson plan templates that are web based with a variety of drop down menu options. Rather than require all teachers to use the existing district Word document templates for one year and then switch to the web based lesson plan templates we feel it would be better to wait and not require tenured teachers to use the district templates. Only new teachers that are not tenured yet or those teachers on a plan of assistance are required to use the district lesson plan templates. While we will not be moving forward with district lesson plan templates at this time, a revised lesson plan scoring guide and checklist will be utilized during the 2014-2015 school year. The revised documents are a reflection of the discussions that took place amongst teachers, principals and central office staff during District Lesson Plan Committee meetings. The insight and guidance from this teacher committee has been invaluable as we work to ensure that we are using best practices while at the same time simplifying the lesson plan review process into a “met or not met” scoring guide with a checklist instead of a rubric with proficiency levels. These new documents should make the writing of lesson plans easier for teachers and the review of those plans more efficient for building leaders. We know that having lesson plans is the key to being prepared and organized for instruction. Our goal by simplifying the review forms was to make sure the necessary instructional components were in the lesson while at the same time reducing the amount of time some teachers felt they needed to spend writing overly detailed plans in order to score at the highest proficiency level on the old lesson plan rubric. The 2014-2015 lesson plan scoring guide and lesson plan checklist are attached for principals to use and to distribute to their building teachers. Our district remains committed to providing a high quality lesson planning product for teachers in OPS and the next steps for lesson planning in OPS are as follows: Next Steps: • All teachers may continue to use the lesson plan template of their choice, provided that it contains the seven required components of lesson planning in OPS: 1) Anticipatory Set, 2) Objective/Learning Goal, 3) Modeled, 4) Shared, 5) Guided, 6) Independent (Components 3-6 represent the Gradual Release of Instruction), and 7) Summary. • All new teachers who are not yet tenured or teachers on a plan of assistance are the only staff required to use one of the district lesson plan templates. • It is not the expectation of Curriculum Instruction and Assessment that teachers spend extraordinary amounts of time on writing lesson plans. Rather it is the quality of the instruction that has the most significant impact on achievement, not just the writing of a quality lesson. • Remember it is acceptable to use short fragments or bulleted statements when writing lesson plans. As mentioned, the focus should be on the design of high quality instruction with descriptive feedback not the writing of long, scripted lesson plans. • The revised lesson plan scoring guide and lesson plan checklist are attached for principals to forward to their teachers for use in the 2014-2015 school year. • The lesson plan review process remains the same as stated in the OPS Practices and Procedures, “Lesson plans are required and should be outlined at least one week in advance. Plans may be requested at any time by the principal.” • If a staff member is using a section of a pre-developed lesson plan that is available through an OPS adopted curriculum resource, it is acceptable to cite the page number from the curriculum resource as opposed to retyping that content into their lesson plan. All required components of lesson planning must be evident.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:52:51 +0000
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