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Once you’ve written your outcomes and objectives and planned for the methods you’ll use to assess student learning, the next step in course design is to look at the entire body of knowledge you intend to cover over the duration of the class and to break it down into logical units spanning all your class periods. Even though our first inclination might be to let the class evolve organically, disciplining ourselves to make and stick to a sched- ule ensures that we can achieve all our objectives by the end of the course.

We can break the task of making a plan for our weekly instruction into two basic steps: (1) create a long-range plan and a (2) determine a day-by-day schedule of instruction, readings, assignments, and assessments.

LONG-RANGE PLANNING

Your first job is to map out a master plan of instruction for the entire course. The easiest place to start is to create a chart or calendar broken into the number

Chapter 5

Planning for Effective InstructionPlanning for Effective InstructionPlanning for Effective Instruction

CHAPTER SUMMARY

n Long-Range Planning

n Modules

n Building Your Schedule

n Your Turn: Writing Your Assessments, Revisited

n Lesson Planning

n Scaffolding Instruction

n Your Turn: Planning Your Lessons

Mackh, B. M. (2018). Higher education by design : Best practices for curricular planning and instruction. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('http://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='http://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;'>http://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a> Created from amridge on 2021-10-10 03:30:10.

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of weeks of the course. You can divide the week’s tasks into specific class periods later on, after you’ve decided what you’ll cover. As you create this master plan of instruction, always keep your outcomes and objectives in mind.

Remember, if you have an instructional unit on your current syllabus that doesn’t relate to the objectives you’ve written, you’ll either need to omit it or to revise the objectives to include it. A chart such as the one presented in Figure 5.1 is helpful in working through your plans.

MODULES

One of the best organizational methods involves dividing the course into modules, each ending in an assessment. Minimally, this would include a midterm and a final, as is common across the landscape of higher education. An even better practice would be to create four modules by dividing each half of the semester into two

FIGURE 5.1 Semester Planning Grid

Week Date Topics and Activities Assignments and Assessments

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separate modules, each ending in an assessment. For example, you could place an assessment for Module 1 at Week 4, an assessment of the content in Module 2 at Week 8 (midterm), an assessment for Module 3 at Week 12, and a final exam at the end of Module 4 in Week 16. Modules can be of any length, from 1 week to multi- week divisions of study. They can build upon one another or can present discrete topics. The midterm and final assessments need not evaluate student learning of the entire half-term—they can measure only those modules with which they’re asso- ciated, if that makes the most sense in your particular course. The point is to build periodic assessment into your course by creating conceptual groupings of instruc- tional content.

1. Consider the entirety of your objectives. 2. Determine an appropriate assessment for each objective. 3. Input these assessments into your long-range plan, creating module

groupings.

To illustrate this point, let’s return to Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs. This course blends lecture, discussion, and project-based learning. Assessments in this course include several assignments, quizzes, an extensive project, and a final exam. Modules were constructed around these course benchmarks, aligning with the steps of the design thinking process:

Module 1: Ideation (Weeks 1–3)

n Introduction to design thinking; Virtual crash course in design thinking

n Why? How? What? Human-centered design and social entrepreneurship n Wicked problems and systems thinking n Quiz 1—Design Thinking and Wicked Problems

Module 2: Innovation (Weeks 4–6)

n Problem solving and problem finding n Lateral thinking n Critical and computational thinking n Quiz 2—Strategies for Ideation

Module 3: Implementation (Weeks 7–12)

n Entrepreneurship n Business modeling n Failure and risk

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n Prototyping and project management n Information for innovators n Funding and regulations n Marketing, branding, and social media n Quiz 3—Business Basics

Module 4: Evaluation (Weeks 13–16)

n Leadership n Ethics, histories, and social context n Project presentations n Final exam

Modules in this course align with the stages of innovation that students will ex- plore in the course. As an instructor, you need to evaluate your own course con- tent to see what works best for you. No concrete rules govern the creation of modules within a course. Rather, these groupings should align with conceptual divisions in your course content and with your planned assessments. If you’re not used to this type of organization, beginning with two modules is a good choice, one ending at midterm and one ending with the final exam. You can always refine your plans later, once you’ve taught the course and see where the natural stopping points arise.

Materials Selection, Readings, and Assignments

Before you can create a plan of readings and assignments for your students based on the modules and assessments you’ve created, you must select the print mate- rials you’ll use in your course. Textbook publishers abound, and many offer fea- tures such as online resources, pre-made quizzes and exams, and student study guides, among others. Your selection of course texts and supplementary materials such as articles from professional journals, multimedia content, guest lecturers, and even field trips should be governed primarily by your outcomes, objectives, and assessments. If the book, item, or experience you’d like to include in your course doesn’t align with these overarching concepts, you should carefully con- sider whether it is beneficial. If so, you must revise your objectives to align the item with your course.

Every course will necessarily utilize different materials, and even parallel sections of the same course at a university may vary in their materials if taught by different instructors. Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs uses excerpts from 10 different texts, published in a course pack. Students are encouraged to read those texts in their entirety, but it would be unfair to burden students

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with both the reading load and the expense of asking them to read that many books in just one semester when the course project takes up the lion’s share of their time. Instructors must approach this topic judiciously, as we’ll discuss shortly.

Reading Schedule When planning readings and assignments based on the materials you’ve selected, remember to keep student workloads manageable. Consider the number of pages of required reading very carefully. An average adult can read about 300 words per minute, and typical page is about 250–300 words in length, (both of which can vary widely, of course) for a rough calculation of about 1 page per minute. Does this mean if you assign students 50 pages of reading, it will take about 50 minutes to complete it? Unfortunately, that’s not actually true because we also have to factor in the difficulty of the reading material. If you ask students to read some- thing that’s immediately understandable, like a novel or newspaper article, this might be true, but textbooks or dense academic language will require much more intensive cognitive activity, not to mention the time required for note-taking. This increases the expected time for reading, sometimes double or more what you’d expect. In fact, technical reading rates might even be as low as 50 to 75 words per minute.1 That means 50 pages of technical reading, or 15,000 words (at 300 words per page), could require as much as 5 hours for a struggling student to complete.

Even though it might sound too obvious to mention, it’s also a good idea for the instructor to read the same pages as the students each time she teaches the course. A colleague shared a story with me about a summer school literature course she took during her undergraduate studies. As we know, summer school classes generally condense 16 weeks of learning into 8 or fewer weeks of instruc- tion, making for a challenging workload under the best of circumstances. The reading list for this class was quite long, comprised of rather obscure works that were all unfamiliar to the students. At the start of a class period about 2 weeks into the course, the instructor asked the students if they were having trouble keeping up with the readings. Feeling self-conscious, none of them spoke up. The instructor was crestfallen. “Oh,” he sighed, “I was hoping that you were, because I’m having trouble keeping up with them.” With that, all of the students admitted that they, too, found the reading expectations too demanding. This instructor had undoubtedly already read all of these novels when teaching past sections of the course, but by reading along with the students, he shared in his students’ expe- rience and kept the novels’ content fresh in his mind, allowing him to be well prepared for their class discussions. As the result of this discussion, he cut some of the selections from the syllabus, making the remainder of the class a much better learning experience for the students.

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Assignment Schedule Besides scheduling your assigned readings, it’s important to make a reasonable estimate of the amount of time necessary for students to complete each assign- ment, project, or research paper. As a general rule, it ought to take an average student about an hour to write a page of text. For many students, however, this is only the time involved in the actual writing of the page, not in researching source material or creating correct citations or a reference list (if required by the assignment), nor does it include time spend to refine and revise the paper prior to submitting it. Some students write more quickly than others, just as some read more quickly than others. Allowing an hour per page is a reasonable rule of thumb, but you need to bear in mind that individual students may find the task of writing to be much more onerous than others. In fact, some of us (including me) will take 2 or 3 hours per page of text, including research, writing, rewriting, and re-researching until it begins to align with our personal expectations.

We usually presume that our undergraduate students should spend 2 to 3 hours working outside of class for each clock hour in the classroom. For an average 3-hour course, therefore, students should be expected to complete about 9 hours of work outside of class. Empathy dictates that we should remember that ours is not the only course in which our students are enrolled. If the average undergraduate student takes 5 courses for a total of 15 credit hours per semester, and if each of those five instructors assigns 9 hours of outside work per week, this expands the student’s workload to 60 hours per week. Furthermore, an opti- mal collegiate experience encompasses co-curricular involvement such as clubs, teams, performing arts groups, and so forth, each of which makes demands on students’ time. Our students can easily face 80-hour workweeks, on top of their social relationships and commitments to paying jobs.

None of this ought to prevent us from expecting our students to complete the work we assign. But it does mean that we should take the time to calculate the total hours it’s likely to take our students to read, write, research, or otherwise accomplish the tasks we require each week. If some weeks require more than 9 hours outside of class, trading off with weeks that require less is good practice. It’s also a good idea to keep major events in mind when planning students’ work. Homecoming, Thanksgiving, Spring Break, and other days off are scheduled years in advance and most of us already work these into our plans. However, major sporting events, national conferences being held on campus, and a host of other campuswide happenings can impact even the most carefully planned schedules. If your institution’s most popular sports team is playing a home game against its greatest rival, it’s best to expect that your students will be distracted and to adjust your plans accordingly.

We should also be mindful of the monetary costs of projects we ask students to do, if this will require students to acquire supplies off campus, and whether

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they have the ability to do so. These hidden costs can have a significant impact on students’ learning experiences, sometimes even prohibiting them from remaining enrolled in our courses. In Surveying the Landscape, a professor of architecture2 discussed this financial barrier:

We require these students to go buy and make stuff. We lose a whole percentage of population when we require them to buy materials. Some don’t have $50 or $1000! I’ve seen some projects cost $1000. And this causes problems in assessment—how to compare a $1000 dollar pro- totype vs a cardboard one that someone couldn’t afford. So this is an exclusive club; this is a real problem. It doesn’t affect retention, but af- fects engagement in first place. I’ve seen students walk in and then leave when seeing what they have to buy. Then we look around and say, ‘Oh, our diversity isn’t there. How do we become more inclusive?’ Well, that cost is a big issue.

Your syllabus should include a reasonable estimate of the cost of required materials and a list of sources where students can obtain them. You should also encourage individuals to meet with you if they have problems meeting these expectations. I formerly taught an online course that asked students to purchase the latest edi- tion of the course textbook. Every time I taught the course, panicked students would email me saying they couldn’t afford a $75 book, especially on short no- tice. The newest version of the book was good, to be sure, but in my opinion as the course instructor, any of the prior editions of the book could suffice if nec- essary. I directed these students to Amazon, where used copies of older editions were available for less than $5.

I sincerely believe that we should do everything in our power to make our courses accessible and to place the fewest possible burdens on our students. If these costs are unavoidable, we need to make this information known to students well in advance. I know a student who was informed that the cost of tuition and books for the first semester of a community college nursing program would be about $1,900. On the first day of class, however, students were informed that there would be an additional $1,000 program fee and books would cost $500 more than they’d been told to expect. This student was distraught, very nearly having to drop out of the program when faced with nearly double the cost he’d been told to expect. Would we react any differently ourselves? If you wanted to install new carpeting in your home, agreeing to an estimate of $1,900 for the project, but were told on the day of installation that it would actually cost $3,400, you’d be enraged, right? Clearly, education isn’t a commodity like carpeting, but unfair or inaccurate representation of costs and expenses are just as unethical, even if they’re inadvertent.

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Implicit and Explicit Expectations Every instructor holds a set of expectations for students, which commonly involve things like meeting deadlines, classroom civility, correct formatting of written work, and appropriate use of college-level English. These are sometimes published in the syllabus, but many of us believe them to be self-evident. Of course, college students should use college-level English. Obviously, an assignment with a stated due date should be completed by that due date. Whether or not these expectations are made explicit on a syllabus, many instructors simply assume that their students will understand these as conventions of academic life.

Problems arise when any of these implicit expectations carries a poten- tially negative impact on students’ grades. Therefore, best practice requires us to include these expectations in our course objectives and proactively provide explicit classroom instruction in these standards. If a student could be penalized for using an incorrect style guide when writing a research paper, such as format- ting the paper in APA when MLA was expected, then the instructor must address this expectation by overtly teaching a lesson about MLA formatting. If a student could lose points for submitting a project after the published deadline, then best practice requires the instructor to first clearly and directly address this require- ment in class, providing a lesson on why meeting deadlines is an important aspect of professional practice in the given academic discipline. We cannot assume our students will automatically understand why we require them to meet our expec- tations unless we deliberately teach them what we want them to do and how to do it. We need to show our students what success looks like and provide them with the tools to actually achieve this success.

Many instructors whom I’ve met, whether consciously or not, subscribe to the idea of in loco parentis. That is, they feel it is their duty to take on the role of parent with their students, guiding them toward correct adult behavior. State- ments in defense of late penalties such as, “I need to prepare my students for the real world!” or “In the real world, nobody is going to make exceptions for you,” are common. This belief is incorrect on at least two levels. First, our students are generally at least 18 years old, which legally makes them adults. It is not appropriate to treat them as children. Next, the “real world” does provide some exceptions or exemptions for deadlines. Mortgage payments, for example, are due on the first of the month, but most lenders include a 10-day or 15-day grace period before late penalties are assessed. In cases where no such grace period exists, failure to meet institutional or contractual obligations carries an intrinsic consequence. If we fail to renew our drivers’ licenses or vehicle registrations, we could receive a costly ticket. If we consistently arrive late for work, we’ll receive poor employee reviews or perhaps even face losing our jobs, as is also the case with excessive absenteeism or failure to complete work-related tasks according to schedule. Productivity, punctuality, and professionalism are worthy goals to communicate to our students, but they must also be made explicit in our syllabi,

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present in our course objectives, and the topic of direct instruction that not only explains our classroom requirements but conceptually links them to the type of workplace most of your students will enter upon graduation.

As you begin planning for instruction, make sure that you schedule class time for these lessons, including every expectation or requirement that holds the potential to significantly alter a student’s grade. For example, you might decide to include an objective related to professionalism that covers punctuality, use of appropriate professional language, and strict adherence to published deadlines. These expectations should be supported by explanatory material in the course syllabus and written into your grading rubrics, checklists, and assignment direc- tions. We’ll revisit this topic in subsequent chapters, but it should be part of your plans from the very beginning of the process.

BUILDING YOUR SCHEDULE

Now that we’ve established our baseline expectations for what should be included in our courses, we can turn our attention toward mapping the structure of the course itself.

Step 1: The first step in building your schedule is to block out any scheduled time off, such as Thanksgiving or Spring Break. Then input your planned assess- ments for each of the modules you’ve created.

Step 2: Next, think back from each assessment to the teaching and instruction that should precede it, filling in the schedule with the specific topics and activities for each week of each module. You’ll need to anticipate:

n Lectures, demonstrations, work time, readings, and discussions that must occur before students can complete a project or take a written assessment

n The amount of time you feel is reasonable for students to complete a task, such as a creative project or research paper

n The number of in-class and out-of-class hours available to deliver requi- site instruction or complete these tasks

n Instruction in important classroom policies or assignment expectations

This schedule of assignments and assessments is just a skeleton, which you’ll flesh out with additional planning later on. Upon further analysis, you might want to re-order assignments or make any number of other changes depending on your previous experience with the course content or teaching in general. Making a plan for instruction doesn’t mean that it’s set in stone. Every syllabus is a work in progress, subject to continuous development. The point is to exercise your best judgment as you formulate a plan for your instruction, but then to use your professional knowledge and disciplinary expertise to make the plan work, imple- menting changes as necessary.

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Figure 5.2 shows a partial course schedule for Design Thinking for Entrepre- neurs. The grid has been divided into two class periods per week, with the first class of the week designated as a lecture section, and the second class dedicated to discussion and active learning.

FIGURE 5.2 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Schedule Excerpt

Week Date Topics Assignments

MODULE 1—IDEATION

1 Course introduction Introduction to design thinking

Read Brown Ch. 2 & 4; Kelly Ch. 4

Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking

2 Why? How? What? Human-centered design and social entrepreneurship

Read Brown Ch. 9; Collins; Liedtka et al. Assignment 1: 30 under 30

Discuss relationship between design thinking and social entrepreneurship based on students’ responses to Assignment 1 (due today)

3 Wicked problems and systems thinking

Read Cabrera Quiz 1: Design Thinking and Wicked Problems

Complete “Draw Toast” activity

MODULE 2—INNOVATION

4 Problem solving and problem finding

Read Michalko—all Read articles: “Sitting is the New Smoking” and “The Best Chair is No Chair” Assignment 2—The Chair Problem

Problem-solving activity Discussion of “the chair problem”

5 Lateral Thinking Assignment 3: Easy Company Tea—a Rube Goldberg Puzzle

Discuss student results on “the chair problem” Share Assignment 3, Parts 1 and 2; complete Part 3 in class. Assignment 2 due

6 Critical thinking and computational thinking

Assignment 4: Strategies for Ideation Quiz 2: Strategies for Ideation

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YOUR TURN: WRITING YOUR ASSESSMENTS, REVISITED

Before we move on to developing individual lessons, this might be a good oppor- tunity for you to write the assessments you’ve scheduled. Remember: Every- thing that happens in your classroom should lead directly to student learning, and all learning should be measured. It is your responsibility to ensure that your assessments fairly and accurately reflect your students’ accomplishments in your course. This necessarily varies between disciplines, topics, focus areas, and even individual instructor’s preferences. Furthermore, it’s best to use a variety of assessment mechanisms rather than relying on two high-stakes tests administered as midterm and final exams.

You should also develop detailed student resources with specific instructions and expectations for all projects, papers, presentations, or other product-based assignments and assessments. These resources should be attached to your course syllabus so that students can prepare to meet these expectations from the very first day of the course, including any rubrics or checklists you plan to employ when evaluating their work, clearly indicating all criteria that could result in penalties to a student’s grade and linked to the course objectives and program expectations.

Creating a large number of related documents can complicate the task of course planning. I’ve discovered that it helps to create a course map that lists everything needed for each week of the course, with columns for Readings, Assignments, Assessments, Student Resources, and Instructor Resources. I keep this document open on my computer as I’m planning, listing each item in the correct column by week. Of course, not every assignment needs a separate doc- ument for instructions, nor does every assignment necessitate creating a student resource such as a note page or instructor resource such as a grading rubric. I’ve found, though, that these documents tend to pile up and become disorganized as I’m planning, especially if I start rearranging the course content as I go. By keep- ing track of them on something like a spread sheet, I can be more productive. It’s also a great tool while teaching the course because it provides both you and your students with a quick reference guide for where to find the materials or informa- tion planned for each week.

Creating a well-planned course seldom progresses sequentially. We begin with our outcomes and objectives, and then we envision the assessments we’ll use, but once we go deeper into the actual planning and developing of readings, assign- ments, and resources, we engage in a process of iteration, revision, research, and creativity that moves between and among these steps in order to arrive at the final design of the course.

For instance, I determined that students’ first assignment in Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs would be to read an article I’d found on the Forbes website called “30 Under 30”—the magazine’s yearly list of notable young entrepreneurs. Then I set up an assignment grid for the syllabus titled “Written Directions for

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Assignments” dividing it into three columns: when the task would be assigned, when it would be due, and a short set of bullet-point instructions, entering this assignment as the first item in the grid, along with a hyperlink to the article, as shown in Figure 5.3.

Because this first assignment is relatively simple, I decided that I didn’t need to provide a template or a separate set of written instructions that students could download from the course web page.

Later in the planning process, I wanted students to complete a short reflec- tive summary of the strategies for innovation we’d been studying. I find it’s easier to grade students’ work if their papers are substantially the same, so I created a very simple template for them to use for that assignment. I also cre- ated a quiz covering the content of that module and an answer key for the quiz. Week 6 of the course also marks the beginning of the course project. Figure 5.4 is an excerpt from the course map, showing each of the items for the week. (Note: the “Readings” cell is blank because I didn’t assign any new readings for this week. Students had quite enough to do without reading added on to their workload.)

Students have access to the Project Documents folder from the first day of the course, but we explain the relevant documents during our discussion section in Week 6. The project has been thoroughly resourced in an attempt to eliminate as much confusion and ambiguity as possible and to maximize students’ successful completion of this task. Therefore, the Project Documents folder contains (1) a blank business canvas document; (2) detailed written instructions; (3) a grading rubric for the project; (4) a form that students will complete when they submit their project, summarizing their work; (5) instructions for creating and uploading the required video documenting their work on the project over the duration of the course.

FIGURE 5.3 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Week 2 Syllabus Excerpt

Assigned Due Description

Week 2 Class 1

Week 2 Class 2

Assignment 1: 30 Under 30 • Read “30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs, 2017”

www.forbes.com/30-under-30-2017/social- entrepreneurs/#4a368d385752

• Choose one of these social entrepreneurs: what was most remarkable about this person?

• Write a short (150–200 word) statement. • Be prepared to discuss this person in the Discussion

Group this week. Submit written response to instructor at the end of Week 2, Class 2

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http://www.forbes.com/30-under-30-2017/social-entrepreneurs/#4a368d385752

PLANNING FOR EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION

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LESSON PLANNING

Instructional planning begins with the broadest strokes, working backwards to the finest details. Once you’ve determined what your students must learn during the course you’re planning and how you will measure their acquisition of this knowledge and skill, we turn our attention to what we, as teachers, will do during each class period. This, too, begins with planning.

Mentioning the phrase lesson plans conjures up the notion of K–12, something faculty tend to meet with indifference or even disdain. Nevertheless, skillful instructors in higher education can benefit from planning their teaching activi- ties beyond the general weekly level, determining the specific activities that will occur in each class period.

While I’m planning each week of a course, I create the PowerPoints for my lectures. These don’t provide a fully formatted script for what I’ll say in the class- room, but they give me a conceptual framework that allows me to make sure that my instruction aligns with the assignments I’ve planned. It also reminds me of

FIGURE 5.4 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Course Map Excerpt

Wk # Readings Assignments Due and/or Project Task to be Completed

Assessments

(in Assessments folder)

Student Resources (in Student Resources folder) A = Assignment ** = must complete using document provided SR = Student Resource

Instructor Resources (Instructor Resource folder also includes copy of all items in Student Resources and Assessments folder, including answer keys)

6 A4: Strategies for Ideation ** Form project groups

Quiz 2: Strategies for Ideation

• A4: Strategies for Ideation**

• SR6-Critical Thinking

• SR7- Computational Thinking

• Project Documents Folder

• Week 6 Lecture

• Week 6 Lesson Plan

• Quiz 2: Strategies for Ideation

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resources I might want to create for students, and it helps to ensure that students will have been exposed to all of the relevant course content prior to administra- tion of the planned assessments.

As I mentioned previously, Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs is held twice a week, with the first class period devoted to lecture and the second to discussion and active learning. My lecture PowerPoint sets out the main ideas I want to high- light, drawing from or building upon the assigned readings or prior assignments. I don’t create a PowerPoint for the discussion sessions, but I do write an outline for myself that includes questions I plan to ask and basic directions for any student activities.

Crafting a lesson requires thoughtful preparation resulting from working knowledge of good teaching. It’s likely you’ve already addressed these key con- siderations while you completed the overall design of your course, but they apply equally to the plan for an individual class period as they do to the map of the entire progression of study. In all you do as a teacher, keep the following points in mind:

A. Rationale and Objective: What’s the point of the planned instruction? In other words, why is it important, how will you convey these ideas to your students, and what do you expect your students to know and be able to do after they’ve received this instruction?

B. Instructional Context: Where does the planned instruction fit into the overall design of the course?

C. Learner Support: What common student misconceptions or errors can you anticipate?

D. Enrichment: How might you extend student learning or challenge your higher-achieving students?

E. Assessment: How will you know if your students have learned what you intended to teach them during the class period?

Instructional Components

Good instruction usually includes five components: (1) the lesson objective; (2) a “hook” that grabs the students’ attention; (3) teaching, including both lecture and active student participation; (4) checking for understanding; and (5) independent practice.

(1) Objective: Just like the course as a whole, each lesson has a unique ob- jective. In other words, we need to ask ourselves what’s the point of what we’re teaching? What should students know and be able to do by the end of this class period, not just by the end of the course or program of study?

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Even if it’s strictly for your own reference, it’s helpful to create an outline of the major points you want to address during each class period. You might decide to provide these outlines to your students, freeing them to participate actively rather than focusing their attention on taking notes. This also serves to keep the day’s instruction on track. Instructors who use presentation software such as PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi (and so on) can create a note-taking copy for students or they might post an electronic copy of the lecture to the course website. That way, students who are absent can make up for the missed lecture, or students can review it to remember key concepts prior to an exam.

The day’s objective can be stated on the outline or course notes for the indi- vidual lesson, and it should also clearly relate to the outcomes and objectives of the course, as stated on the syllabus. Remember: every lesson and every assignment and every assessment should clearly and specifically relate to the outcomes and objectives of the course, and these should all be evident on the course syllabus.

The lesson outline should include key vocabulary terms and definitions appropriate to the day’s discussion. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it took us years to acquire the level of knowledge we now possess because the language of our disciplines has become second nature to us. I’ve spoken to many faculty members who hold high expectations that their students use correct disciplinary terminology from the first day of class. This is logical in an upper-division course. However, the instructors of intro- ductory courses, even those designed for majors, must deliberately teach the language of the discipline in order for students to be successful in the course.

(2) Hook: An excellent lesson should begin with a “hook” that captures the students’ attention. If you view any TED Talks on YouTube, the most effective and engaging speakers use this technique. The hook should only take the first 5 minutes of class and can include (among other things): – Alarming statistics – An interesting fact (related trivia) – A story or anecdote – Personal experience – Literature – Exaggeration – An image, artwork, a map, or other visual element – Audio recording/media clip – A graphic organizer (Venn diagram, concept web) – Questions – An example – An artifact – A riddle, joke, or funny anecdote

Note: Distributing copies of the lesson outline does not count as a hook, nor does saying, “Okay, Class, today we’re going to talk about ________.” That said, if

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you’re continuing the discussion from a previous lesson, you can just remind stu- dents of where you left off and then proceed. But, if you’re presenting something new, a hook is highly recommended. It establishes the tone of the lesson and puts students in a receptive frame of mind.

(3) Teaching: Once you have the class’s attention, you can begin your lec- ture or instruction. Instructional activities can include, but are not lim- ited to, lecture, discussion, demonstration, active student participation, project-based learning, or a combination of these and other approaches. (In-depth discussion of such pedagogical activities will be the subject of Chapter 8.)

(4) Check for Understanding: It’s not enough to end your daily instruction with, “Any questions?” A student who’s confused won’t usually speak up, and students might not realize they’ve failed to grasp the material until the test. One simple method of checking for student understanding is to use an exit slip: a half-sheet or quarter- sheet of paper containing one or two questions that students must answer prior to leaving the classroom. The same purpose could be accomplished by requiring students to post a response to your class web page or to send you a quick email. You don’t have to grade these exit slips (although you do have to read them), but they allow you to see what your students know or don’t know, guiding your plans for the next lesson. If many students exhibit the same lack of understanding, you can adjust your plans to address the problem during your next class period. This technique is especially valuable in courses where the day’s instruction contains pivotal concepts that students must grasp to understand subsequent course content, as frequently occurs in science and mathematics. Any time you intend to hold students accountable for any content, or when that content is foundational to subsequent learning, checking for understanding is definitely a best practice.

(5) Independent Practice: This is the purpose of assignments. Make sure that the tasks you ask students to do – relate to what you’ve taught in that class period, – touch on one or more of the course objectives, and – are within the students’ ability to accomplish independently.

Timing

Although you’re not required to plan your lessons down to the minute or script your lectures and questions ahead of time, it’s good to get a rough idea of how long you intend to spend on each part of your lesson.

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n Hook: 5%–10% of class n Lecture or Demonstration: 25%–50% of class n Active Student Participation: 25%–50% of class n Guided Practice: 25%–50% of class n Wrap-Up/Assignments: 5%–10% of class

Example 1 Given a 90-minute class period, the distribution of time might be scheduled in this way, but many variations exist.

n Hook: 5 minutes n Lecture/Demo: 45 minutes n Student Participation: 30 minutes n Wrap-Up/Assignment: 10 minutes

Without a doubt, it takes some work to develop strong lesson plans for an entire course, but the time you invest is well spent. You’ll not only create a working doc- ument that you can reuse each time you teach the course in the future, but you’ll be engaging in professional practice exceeding the standards of a typical course.

Example 2 Figure 5.5 is a sample lesson plan for a week of Design Thinking for Entrepre- neurs. I created a lesson plan template and then used this tool to plan each week’s instruction.

Lesson plans such as these don’t require the level of detail expected in K–12, where many teachers must script their every question and tie instruction to state-mandated standards. Most fortunately, we in higher education retain our academic freedom in this regard. However, creating lesson plans remains a best practice at every level because it helps us to anticipate the actions we’ll take, and subsequently allows us to develop or gather any resources, materials, and equip- ment we’ll need.

Lesson planning requires a substantial investment of time and energy, without a doubt. Once the task is completed, though, the semester is likely to go much more smoothly. You’re also moving beyond common practice, taking your teaching to an advanced level, which is definitely an admirable and worthy goal.

If you’d like to learn more about how to achieve excellence in teaching, I rec- ommend George Kuh’s High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them and Why They Matter (2008). The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) offers an excerpt from this pivotal resource, including a chart of these high-impact practices.3 Kuh echoes many of the ideas we’ve been discussing, including

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FIGURE 5.5 Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs—Lesson Plans Week 6

LESSON PLAN—WEEK 6

LECTURE CLASS 1

Week Number/ Topic

6—Critical Thinking and Computational Thinking

Lesson Objective Students will acquire new strategies for innovation through deeper understanding of critical thinking and computational thinking.

Materials and Equipment

Computer Projector/projection system/microphone PowerPoint presentation Internet connection

Hook Visual example—is the glass half full? (Slide 2 of ppt)

Instruction Compare critical thinking and computational thinking Critical thinking as a life skill Steps to critical thinking Define computational thinking Turn and Talk: High school track repair scenario Preview: Quiz 3 due before the Week 7 lecture Assignment 4—Strategies for Innovation due in this week’s Discussion class period.

DISCUSSION GROUP

CLASS 2

Materials and Equipment

Print out and make copies of the project requirements and grading rubric. Distribute to students.

Questions for discussion

What might you be interested in working on for your course project? What are the requirements for the course project?

Guided Practice Review the project requirements with students Emphasize the requirement that groups document their process. This could involve appointing a note-taker, using video, taking still photos, etc. Remind students that they may work alone, but that those choosing this option will be considered a group during discussions and worktimes even though they’re pursuing different projects. Allow student time to walk around and talk to each other freely, discussing their preliminary project ideas. By the end of the period, students should have determined their groups and begun to discuss possible project topics. Group members should exchange contact information so that they can confer outside of class.

Independent Practice/ Assignment

Students may conduct some independent, exploratory research in order to decide on their project topic.

Assessment Quiz 3 should be completed on D2L prior to the Week 7 lecture.

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n First-year seminars and experiences n Common intellectual experiences n Learning communities n Writing-intensive courses n Collaborative assignments and projects n Undergraduate research n Diversity and global learning n Service learning and community-based learning n Internships n Capstone courses and projects

Several of these topics will be examined at greater depth in subsequent chapters.

SCAFFOLDING INSTRUCTION

Most instructors have encountered situations where we notice that our students dis- play misconceptions or lack basic disciplinary knowledge, hampering their ability to learn what we’re trying to teach. For instance, university faculty members frequently mention that their students don’t know essential disciplinary vocabulary or complain that students lack basic skills or subject-area knowledge they “ought to know.” But how can we hold students accountable to know what they’ve never been taught? Students attending a live theatrical performance, for example, may lack basic knowledge of polite audience behavior simply because they’ve never been in this situation before.

Therefore, no matter how obvious or basic they may seem to us, we must systematically and deliberately teach these fundamentals regardless of whether we believe that students should already possess this foundational knowledge. We also need to deliver direct instruction in necessary skills, providing concrete examples and incorporating opportunities for students to practice these new skills before expecting them to perform at a level of mastery.

This may necessitate building additional lessons into your syllabus beyond the specific content you intend to cover. Such lessons might address

n Essential vocabulary n Instruction in new or foundational skills n Overt instruction in appropriate behavior during discussions, presenta-

tions, performances, and in laboratory or studio activities

Furthermore, it’s usually not enough to simply tell students how to do something. We need to provide deliberate, systematic, concrete instruction, building in op- portunities for practice, for everything we expect students to know or be able to do. This is sometimes called scaffolding instruction, which can be understood to occur in three phases.

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n Demonstrate: Direct instruction using models and examples of the skill students must acquire

n Facilitate: Guided activity, often in a group setting, involving supported student practice of the skill

n Evaluate: Independent practice of the skill, assessed separately from a content-area assignment

Example: Let’s say you’re teaching an introductory film course in which students will be expected to write a critical analysis of a particular film. You decide to plan a lesson teaching students how to meet this expectation successfully.

n Demonstrate: Provide explicit instruction in how to write film criticism by giving students step-by-step directions, sharing examples of professional criticism, and clarifying the specific criteria you’ll expect the students to meet.

n Facilitate: Divide the class into small groups and give each group a different prompt featuring a film that most students are likely to have seen in the past, such as Star Wars, along with the step-by-step directions you demonstrated in the first part of the lesson. Walk around the room, helping groups as they work together to complete the task. At the end of the allotted time, have groups share their critical analyses with the class, while you provide commentary and immediate feedback.

n Evaluate: Allow students to choose a film they’ve seen before and ask them to write their own critical analysis as a homework assignment. This is a formative assignment, so it should have a low-point value and be graded only based on the student’s demonstration of skill rather than the broader criteria you’ll use in grading more important student work.

A simple way to understand how to scaffold instruction is to think of it as:

Walk through: Walk students through the skill by demonstrating how to do what you expect them to do (demonstrate).

Talk through: Guide students as they practice the skill together under your supervision (facilitate).

Drive through: Independent student practice (evaluate).

Scaffolding is sometimes also shortened to: I do (demonstrate); we do (facilitate); you do (evaluate).

This approach is especially helpful for instructors teaching beginning-level courses or those open to non-majors, providing essential vocabulary, back- ground knowledge, or disciplinary skills through the course’s plan of instruc- tion. Admittedly, this seems very basic, and instructors often resent having to

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spend valuable class time teaching things they think students “should already know.” Think, though: How often have you been frustrated at students’ apparent lack of crucial knowledge and skills? Didn’t you wish someone else had taught them the things they need to know to succeed in your class? Whether or not this should have occurred, it clearly did not. That’s why it’s up to you to step in and provide this important learning experience, thereby enhancing your students’ chances for success in your classroom and in their subsequent coursework as well.

YOUR TURN: PLANNING YOUR LESSONS

Before completing this chapter, you should verify that you have accomplished the following tasks:

1. Aligning your outcomes, objectives, assessments, and assignments 2. Selecting instructional materials and experiences such as textbooks, sup-

plementary readings, field work, trips, guest lectures, etc. 3. Creating modules organizing your course content, each ending in an

appropriate assessment 4. Preliminary planning of individual lessons, including lecture, demonstra-

tion, and/or active student participation 5. Completing the assessment mechanisms such as quizzes, exams, projects,

presentations, or written assignments that you’ve planned and creating written student resources such as directions or expectations for each task that your students will be asked to do during the course

The time we invest in planning our instructional activities is never wasted. The more organized we are, the more deliberate and informed our pedagogical choic- es, then the better prepared we are to meet our students’ learning needs and to enhance their opportunities to acquire the skills and knowledge we intend to teach them to meet both our course objectives and our program outcomes.

Remember:

• Planning for effective instruction increases your potential success in meeting your course outcomes and objectives and helps to ensure continuing accreditation and strong instructor evaluations.

• A plan is always a work in progress. Each time you teach the course, you can modify and adapt the plan to reflect your growing expertise as an educator.

• Planning begins with the development of assessments, working backwards to the level of individual lessons. Know where you want your students to go, and then plot the course that will best help them to arrive at your destination.

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Notes 1 Thomas, M. (2017). What is the average reading speed and the best rate of reading? HealthGuidance. www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading- Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html 2 Interviewees in the Mellon Research Project were not identified by name in compliance with the University of Michigan’s Institutional Review Board protocols for the project. 3 Kuh, G. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. AAC&U. Excerpt available at www.aacu.org/leap/hips

Identify Ideate

Why do we need to create a comprehensive plan for our course instead of allowing it to evolve organically? Since our first priority is to ensure that our students will meet our course objectives and program outcomes, we need to plan and organize our instruction so that all of the content we plan to cover is addressed by the end of the semester and everything we do supports that priority.

How can we possibly plan everything before the course even begins? We need to take a strategic and systematic approach to our teaching, creating a plan of instruction and then digging deeper into each week’s planned content to anticipate our students’ learning needs, then developing each of the resources we will need in order to support them in achieving our outcomes and objectives.

Iterate Implement

When you teach, keep track of the times when you notice that an additional resource would have helped your students to be more successful, where you need to change the schedule, or noting any other changes you should make prior to teaching the course again.

What resources do we need to develop? Minimally, every assessment needs a rubric (or other grading tool) and a set of explicit written instructions. Each class period should have at least a rough lesson plan outlining what you intend to teach, along with any materials or resources you’ll need to do what you’ve planned.

FIGURE 5.6 Chapter 5 Design Connection

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http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13263/1/What-Is-the-Average-Reading-Speed-and-the-Best-Rate-of-Reading.html

http://www.aacu.org/leap/hips