The purpose of the instructional planning standard is to help teachers develop effective and time efficient instructional plans that address the varying needs of students while also coordinating with the school or district’s curriculum. Creating a successful instructional plan may take time and hard work, but is necessary to ensure that all students have the ability to learn to their fullest potential. Following the instructional planning standard can help teachers focus on creating lesson plans that meet school objectives while also using student progress as a benchmark for future planning and goals.
Virginia Standards of Learning
The Standards of Learning (SOLs) define expectations for student learning and achievement and should be incorporated into a teacher’s lesson planning.
Virginia Standards of Learning
Below are several samples of lesson plans that I created. All of the lesson plans align with Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs), incorporate several of Gardner’s multiple intelligences, and aim to touch on all six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
3D Printing Lesson Plan – Simple Machines (VA SOL – Science 3.2)
States of Matter Lesson Plan (VA SOL – Science 2.3)
Barter System Lesson Plan (VA SOL History & Social Sciences 2.8)
Differentiation
Having a solid plan for differentiating instruction is one of the most important things a teacher can do to properly implement lessons that meet the varying needs of today’s diverse classroom population. Here is an example of how I differentiated instruction for a second grade lesson on bartering:
Text Sets
A text set is a collection of books and other classroom resources that all have a common theme or topic and cover a range of reading levels. Text sets are designed so that any student in a class or school can choose a book that matches their reading level and contains similar content to other books within the set. Using text sets in the classroom allows all of the students in a class to cover the same topic, but at their own level. Below is a sample of a text set and curriculum guide that I created based off of the children’s book “Marvelous Cornelius” by Phil Bildner. The theme of this text set was resilience.
Marvelous Cornelius Text Set & Curriculum Guide
For further information, please see my Professional Practice Standard Paper on Instructional Planning.