Planning for Instruction
InTASC Standard 7: The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
Introduction
Over the course of my years teaching, I have grown in the way that I plan for instruction. This includes creating long-term plans, unit plans, and assessments before I start planning my lessons. By forming these ideas and goals before I plan each lesson, I know the direction I want to lead my students. This gives me a foundation, so that I am able to spend more time planning differentiated materials that address the needs of Heritage speakers, students with 504s and IEPs, and high flyers. I am also able to plan to different learning styles, whether that be auditory, visual or kinesthetic. Within these lessons and units, I am conscious of the fact that I teach a subject (Spanish) that requires a great deal of cultural sensitivity. As a result, I work to include material that is both culturally relevant to my students but also includes authenticity to the millions of Spanish speakers and the 20+ Spanish-speaking countries. Here are the ways in which I address long-term, unit and lesson planning.
Conclusion
In order to best serve each one of my students, I need to spend ample time planning every element of my instruction. This includes referencing my textbook and suggested curriculum, self-made materials, past successes/failures, assessments, my colleagues/fellow Spanish teachers, knowledge and data about my students/school context, the ACTFL World Languages standards, and the best teaching practices. By planning backwards, I start with my long-term plan. I create a final assessment containing the elements that I want my students to demonstrate by the end of the year. After that, I begin to plan my units, creating summative assessments aligned with the long-term plan and final assessment. Finally, I am able to plan my individual lessons, aligning them with the unit plan and year-long plan. This allows me to create cohesive and relevant plans that support all of my students meet rigorous learning goals, while improving their speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cross-disciplinary skills.