Guidelines for Lesson Plans

Guidelines for Lesson Plans

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Basic Guidelines for Lesson Plans

  • The primary purpose of EDSITEment lesson plans is to introduce teachers to high-quality web-based reviewed resources, and to give them ideas for using these resources in their classrooms.
  • Lessons are to be centered on EDSITEment-reviewed online resources, which are listed at the EDSITEment web site:
  • The lessons should provide teachers with substantive background information and links to online resources, particularly primary sources such as documents, photos, maps, charts, and graphs, from EDSITEment-reviewed sites.
  • In many cases sites that are linked from EDSITEment-reviewed sites may be used; however, judgment needs to be exercised. Sites with advertising should not be used; nor should sites maintained by amateurs. The question that ought to be asked iswhether this site will still be around in five years. See EDSITEment review criteria:
  • Student activities should involve significant interaction with EDSITEment-reviewed online resources.
  • Lessons should be interactive, not lecture-based, or a substitute for the textbook.
  • Lessons should not attempt to offer comprehensive coverage of a broad area, but to explore in depth issues of particular importance.
  • Each lesson should aim to occupy between one and three classroom periods.
  • Each lesson should include a separate document consisting of all worksheets and other handouts in PDF format, or as a rich text or Word document.
  • Outlines and lessons are to be submitted on disk or as e-mail attachments in Microsoft Word or RTF (rich text format).

Template for Lesson Plan Outlines

Outlines should include the sections described below.

I. Introduction

A sentence or two outlining the following:

  • A “hook” to pique the teacher’s interest in using the lesson, including how it will engage students.
  • A very brief summary of the scope and content to be covered; i.e., what historical events, issues, etc., will be examined?
  • A very brief summary of the kinds of activities that will be used, and what students can be expected to learn from them.

II. Guiding Question

What is the single overarching question that students should be able to answer as a result of having completed this lesson? The question should be open-ended, and should take teachers and students to the heart of the lesson; it should help them to grasp a difficult, interesting, challenging concept. (Example: was the use of the atomic bombs a wise decision on Truman’s part?)

III. Learning Objectives

Describe the specific facts, ideas, etc., that you want the students to learn from this lesson. Each objective should be viewed as a stepping-stone toward answering the guiding question. Each should be phrased as a completion to the sentence, “Upon completion of this lesson, students should be able to....” (Continuing the above example, a few objectives might be: explain Truman’s reasons for dropping the bombs; list the effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; describe the strategic situation in the Pacific in 1945; etc.)

IV. Background Information for the Teacher

Describe briefly what kinds of information you will provide to enhance the teacher’s knowledge of the topic, i.e. an overview of the main issues, links for further reading, references to other lesson plans or texts.

V. Preparing to Teach this Lesson

Summarize here the steps a teacher needs to take to prepare for teaching the lesson, i.e. downloading or printing text files, creating bookmarks of links, etc.

VI. Suggested Activities

Each lesson should include between two and four student activities. At the outline stage it is not necessary to provide a step-by-step description of activities. It is important, however, to make clear how the activities will accomplish the stated learning objectives (each activity should address at least one of the objectives).

Activities should be meaningful and inquiry-based, emphasizing understanding rather than memorization of facts. Remember that each student activity should include meaningful use of EDSITEment-reviewed resources; however, they may be combined with more traditional approaches. For example, students might be asked to read a series of documents that are available online, and then engage in an in-class debate on the subjector synthesize important issues covered in a written assignment.

For this section of the outline, provide a paragraph or two for each proposed activity that includes the following:

  • Examples of some resources (documents, maps, charts, etc.) that students will encounter in this lesson.
  • A brief description of the nature of the proposed activity (i.e., is it a debate, a DBQ, a document or map analysis exercise, etc.?)
  • A brief explanation of how these resources will help students to achieve one or more of the learning objectives for the lesson.

V. Assessment

Suggest specific ways in which teachers can determine whether or not the learning objectives for the lesson have been met. One example might be a list of short essay questions directly related to the learning objectives, or a longer essay that addresses the guiding question.

VI. EDSITEment-reviewed Web Resources Used in this Lesson

In this section list the internet resources that will be used in this lesson. In cases where non-EDSITEment-reviewed sites are used, show how they are linked to an EDSITEment-reviewed site, using this format:

NavalHistoricalCenter:

Oral Histories of World War II:

Hyperwar: World War II on the World Wide Web:

The Potsdam Declaration, 1945:

The Imperial Rescript of 15 August 1945:

Interrogation of Adm. Toyoda Soemu:

JCS 287/1, the Strategic Plan for the Defeat of Japan:

In the above example, the NavalHistoricalCenter is an EDSITEment-reviewed resource, and “Oral Histories of World War II” is a specific page on that site. Also at that site, however, there is a link to Hyperwar (which is not EDSITEment-reviewed, but an excellent resource nonetheless), and the four specific documents that follow are found at that site.

This section should also include some brief discussion of how each internet source will be used in the lesson—for example, are they meant to provide background for the teacher, or are students expected to read them as part of an activity? Your comments in this section will be useful when you come to write the “Preparing to Teach this Lesson” section in the actual lesson plan.

Template for Actual Lesson Plans

Lessons should include the sections described below.

I. Introduction

Same as for the outline template above, expanded to a paragraph or two outlining the following:

  • A “hook” to pique the teacher’s interest in using the lesson, including how it will engage students.
  • A summary of the scope and content to be covered; i.e., what texts, materials, historical events, etc., will be examined?
  • A brief summary of the activities that will be used, and what students can be expected to learn from them.

II. Guiding Question

Same as for the outline template above.

III. Learning Objectives

Same as for the outline template above.

IV. Background Information for the Teacher

Each lesson should contain a few paragraphs that provide background for the teacher, both factual and interpretive, on the subject covered. Such information should be provided in summary form, along with links to EDSITEment-reviewed resources that contain more detailed material. This section should cover the standard scholarship on the topic, but go beyond the teacher’s version of the textbook to better inform the teacher.

V. Preparation for Teaching this Lesson

This section informs teachers of what they will need to do in advance in order to teach the lesson. Examples include instructions to download and/or print necessary materials and links to bookmark. You may expand here on the scope and content to be covered; i.e., what texts, materials, historical events, etc., will be examined?

Also, since many students will not have had much previous experience in dealing with primary sources, there should be a paragraph in this section that directs teachers to EDSITEment resources that will help students to interpret such sources. Some of these sites are:

The Learning Page, located at the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress:

Document Analysis Worksheets, located at the Digital Classroom of the National Archives:

Making Sense of Evidence, located at GeorgeMasonUniversity’s “History Matters” site:

VI. Suggested Activities

This section describes in detail the activities that will be used in this lesson plan and how they address the guiding question and learning objectives. Student activities should include meaningful use of EDSITEment-reviewed resources, although such resources may be used to supplement more traditional classroom activities.

For each activity, there should be two or three paragraphs describing:

  • What the students should be expected to get out of this exercise.
  • The online resources that will be used.
  • What students are expected to do after they have studied the resources (answer questions, debate an issue, write an essay, etc.)

N.B. When using online primary documents, choose the most significant ones that best elucidate the topic, and provide guidance for reading documents or excerpts of documents to focus students’ reading and understanding. Fewer, clear, and concise documents work better than an abundance of complex documents. Alternatively, break students into groups and assign each group one or two documents, giving them specific issues to look for or questions to address.

VII. Assessment

This section should provide one or more suggestions for tasks that teachers might assign in order to determine whether students have mastered the material and concepts covered in the lesson. Such assessment methods should always remain focused on the learning objectives for the lesson.

VIII. Extending the Lesson

This section should include suggestions for further study, including additional activities (although these do not have to be developed in detail), and other EDSITEment-reviewed web sites that are worth visiting. This would be the ideal place to include a subject that, while relevant to the overall topic of the lesson, does not address the specific learning objectives for the lessons. For instance, in the earlier example about a lesson plan on the use of the atomic bomb, there might be a link and a suggested activity dealing with the firebombing of Tokyo. This section could also include suggestions for expanding the activities and/or research on the lesson topic.

IX. Selected EDSITEment Websites

This section simply lists the EDSITEment-reviewed internet resources used in the lesson, including specific links within those sites. If any non-EDSITEment-reviewed sites are used, it should be demonstrated specifically how such sites are linked to ones that are EDSITEment-reviewed.

X. Additional Information

Finally, each lesson should include the following information:

  • Grade levels (6-8 or 9-12)
  • Subject areas (choose from the list found at note that more than one may apply)
  • Time required (number of classroom periods)
  • Skills (a few examples are: analyzing primary source documents, interpreting written information, making inferences and drawing conclusions, etc.)
  • Standards Alignment (select from the list of “thematic strands”outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies: note that several are likely to apply)
  • Author’s name and affiliation
  • Teacher/Student Resources (see section on “Text Documents” below)
  • Related EDSITEment Lesson Plans

Text Documents

Each lesson should be accompanied by a separate document (if used by EDSITEment it will be converted into a PDF) consisting of student handouts. In most cases these will be worksheets for students to complete. Generally speaking, for primary source materials, teachers can print from the site where they are found or, in classrooms that are sufficiently “wired,” teachers can direct students to these resources. However, if a lesson plan writer believes that a certain document is critical for the lesson, and is unavailable at an EDSITEment-reviewed resource, he or she may choose to put material the writer has created into the text documents and have teachers circulate it in that fashion. Also, in cases where a document may be available at an EDSITEment-reviewed resource, but where students are only expected to read a small excerpt, or where the lesson plan writer has made considerable annotation of the text, these documents should also be included in the text documents. N.B. Please consider copyright constraints when using text from existing published documents. All reproduced text and images should be cleared for copyright before submitting to EDSITEment.

11/12/2018

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