How do we design and plan instruction?

The key to being an effective teacher is to plan like a boss. It takes a lot of thought and effort to ensure that the course or unit is designed so that the students understand what they are learning and why it is important.

A key resource for designing lessons is the book, "Understanding by Design" by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). In the book they outline seven tenets of the design philosophy. The fourth tenet is that, "Effective curriculum is planned backward from long-term, desired results through a three-stage process (Desired Results, Evidence, and Learning Plan). So they way to look at planning the curriculum is what you want the students to know and what skills they should develop at the end of the course and then work backward from there to determine how they will get there.








To me this still seems a little daunting, but thankfully Fink (2003) breaks it down even more. Time is of the essence so we as teachers need to recognize that constraint and focus our energy on the knowledge and skills that are essential, or as Fink calls it, significant learning. Fink identified six kinds of significant learning that are not separate but interactive, at least that the goals is that they should be interactive. See the figure to the left.






 So now that we understand a bit more about design process and significant learning we can use a resources that we developed by Benjamin Bloom that is referred Bloom's Taxonomy. Basically, it describes a hierarchy of cognitive function.

The purpose is to help teachers design lessons that require students to use higher levels of cognitive function; to not just be able to regurgitate information, but to truly understand the material and be able to use it. From there the learner should be able to take what they have learned, break it down and increase their learning as the apply the knowledge in different contexts. See this article for more information about Bloom's Taxonomy and how it can be used in designing and planning effective learning experiences. Also, West Virginia University created an interactive circle diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy that is worth checking out.

Personal Reflection:

I feel a bit overwhelmed with information. There is so much research out there and I want to soak it all up, but there is so much! Thinking about all that I am reading and putting it together to help me develop as a new teacher will be a long journey for me, but I'm excited about for the day when I can have a strong grip on the basics and start to refine my techniques and become an increasingly effective teacher.