Supporting Collaborative Planning: Using LBD as a Resource for Teaching

Part 1: Before Planning

  1. Begin with the Essential Learnings and become familiar with them. This is what youare responsible for teaching to mastery.
  1. Consult the Language Arts Curriculum Framework when in doubt about the details regarding the Essential Learnings.
  1. Consult Creating Readers when you need a clear picture about what students should be expected to know and do at specific points in the year. Creating Readers elaborates even more upon the curriculum framework and offers a month-by-month scope and sequence of teaching and learning in grades K-3. There is also support for planning interactive read aloud and shared reading lessons.
  1. Observe what your students know during guided reading, and then in reading conferences:
  2. assess your students’ use of strategies to comprehend and depth of comprehension
  3. take running records and analyze your students’ strategic reading behaviors
  4. use sticky notes to jot down your thoughts and avoid having to rethink your analysis to share in Part 2

Part 2: During Planning

  1. As a team, share what you’ve discovered about your students’ strengths and areas for growth. It may be helpful to chart these so you can refer back to them as you plan.
  1. Review the Rigby Theme Overview to see the literacy objectives and standards that have been identified by Rigby for a teaching focus. Note: This is not the only teaching in this theme.
  1. Determine, in general, how well Rigby’s objectives and standards support mastery of the Essential Learnings for your grade level. In particular, consider your team’s understanding of the focus comprehension strategy. Do you share a clear vision for 1) what this strategy is—how proficient readers use this strategy to make meaning, 2) how to model this, 3) what the think aloud might sound like, and 4) how to assess whether students are getting it? You may require additional resources to help you reach common understanding (e.g., Reading for Meaning, Strategies That Work).
  1. For theme specifics, look at Day 1. Identify what’s being taughtthrough the day.
  2. Do my students need to know that (based on the Essential Learnings)? Is this teaching target a building block for mastery of the Essential Learnings?
  3. If yes, include the lesson in your plans. If not, omit the lesson and/or substitute it with something that your students do need to know.
  4. What else do my assessments tell me that my students need to know and do (based on the Essential Learnings)?Since the Essential Learnings are outcomes for the end of the year, consider, What do I need to teach now that will build toward this outcome?
  5. Add this instruction to your plans.
  1. Construct the lesson.
  2. Consider instructional support you may need to provide to set students up for success. Do we need to build background knowledge or clarify vocabulary? How might we do that? Which vocabulary?
  3. Write a clear objective. How will we communicate to students what the teaching target is?
  4. Create a hook to grab the attention of the students. How will we communicate that this lesson is relevant and important to students?
  5. Decide how to monitor/check for understanding during and after the lesson.
  1. Continue this process for Day 2. In the future, each team member may want to take responsibility for previewing a different day of the five-day week and come to your planning session prepared to share how the teaching targets match/don’t match the Essential Learnings.
  1. When you have a five-day plan, look back across the week. How well have the Essential Learnings been addressed? Make revisions to your plans based on what you notice.

Part 3: After Planning

  1. Use the gradual release model to deliver your planned instruction.
  1. In reading conferences, assess what you’ve taught. What do students know and what can they do with support? independently?
  1. Analyze your assessments. What will students continue to need modeled? What will students need more practice with? When they are independent, what’s the next step? Use this information to guide your next planning session.

DLT, 2009