The Lesson Cycle

“The one who does the work does the learning.”

Consider as you design:

1. Maintain a laser focus on your goals and objectives; is the day designed to lead
exactly where you need it to lead?
2. The content is the vehicle. Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture of what the unit is
really about.
3. Where are you building the important “other stuff:” cognitive, non-cognitive, or
meta-cognitive skills, and community building?
4. Where are you building in or emphasizing autonomy, mastery, and purpose?
5. How are you building in differentiation? Put it in a different font color and include
an explanation.
6. Feedback is the key to great learning. Build it in everywhere. It can come from… the
teacher, peers, self-checking with an answer key, etc.
7. Don’t forget to put in transitions between stages or activities within a stage when
needed.
8. What are you personally working on right now to improve yourself? Incorporate
notes into your plan to remind yourself.
9. How are you honoring diversity?

Anticipatory Set: Hook/Warm-up/Do Now

 It activates the area of the brain that corresponds to the subject itself or related
concepts
 It helps you see where the students are. In order to connect new info to what they
already know, you have to know what they already know, right?
 It helps you see what the students’ misconceptions are so that they can be cleared
up and dealt with directly
 It helps the students fully recognize what their own preconceptions are
 It helps you decide if you need to “take the lesson up a notch” because the students
know so much more than you thought or it might help you realize that the students
don’t have even the basic understanding you thought they would.
 It gets students interested in the subject matter

Notes:
 Virtually every class period would open with this unless perhaps the class is in the
middle of a big project or something and you want them to just get straight to work.
 You might want to have more than one of these openers – perhaps something quick
to get them interested, settled, and thinking (a “do now”), but then you might also
use another to build interest, determine prior knowledge, etc. (a hook or warm-up)
 Is your anticipatory set(s) designed for total participation?
 The anticipatory set should also include a brief overview of the class period – goals
and agenda
 Any warm-up should generally be followed by some discussion.
 Warm-ups often uncover misconceptions. You may or may not want to provide
feedback to correct those misconceptions at that point. If you do not address them
right then, do perhaps jot them on the board so you can return to them later.
 You will also have to think about how you will find the time to look over what the
students came up with if you had them do something in a written format. Sometimes
 you need to do one warm-up the period before so that you can see their
preconceptions and then do another warm-up the next day that focuses more on
just getting the students interested.
 The warm-up you use at the beginning of a unit or investigation is particularly
important. At that point, you will be especially interested in finding out about your
students’ preconceptions and what they currently know. Warm-ups used in daily
lessons are likely to be shorter and more focused on stimulating interest.

Strategies:
 Journaling – connecting the topic to one’s own life, getting opinions (be sure the
prompt connects to the lesson)
 Anticipatory guides (H&H, 83)
 KWL (What they already KNOW, what they WANT to know, [and later] what they’ve
LEARNED)
 KNH (What they already KNOW, what they NEED to know, HOW they will learn it)
 TPS (Think, pair, share) “Write down everything you know about ______ .”/ share
your ideas with a partner/ have students compile what they know onto big sheets of
paper to share with the class
 Reading/ Writing surveys- Ask students about their reading/ writing interests to
better understand what books or stories they will respond to and to help them draw
from their own lives and interests to inspire their writing (Atwell 71).
 Learning contracts- Students take part in setting their own objectives for the unit,
and they indicate how they will meet both the class objectives and their own (do not
use on the first day of a unit) (Dean 10).
 Rule or criteria induction- Give students material and have them rank it from best to
worst (can be used at the beginning and then at the end of a unit) (Pinto 33).
 Four corners- Similar to Likert line-up… Label four corners strongly agree, agree,
disagree, or strongly disagree. Write a question on the board and have students
respond by going to the corner that aligns with their answer (Pinto 34).
 Thumbs up/ down vote- Can be used to gage students’ interests/ opinions/ prior
knowledge quickly before the start of a unit (Himmele and Himmele 47)
 Content knowledge boxes (Chapman 76)

From Alby’s On Warm-ups

 Pre-quizzes (un-graded multiple choice or true/false)
 Opinionnaires
 Free association
 A thought provoking quotation, photo, scenario, question, or song used with Think-
Pair-Share
 Experimental simulation – students try to demonstrate a skill before they’ve really
learned it
 Concept mapping or chalk talk
 Data or manipulatives for the students to grapple with
 Word Splash/Picture Splash
 Likert Line-up

Others:
 Trigger letter (WAS, p. ?)
Discovery/New Information (+ Frontloading sometimes)
Notes:
 Do students need new information before they can continue on? If so, build in some
discovery here.
 Will students need background knowledge or motivation before they move into the
discovery? If so, include some frontloading.
 Build in frequent checks for understanding so you know if students are getting it or
not.
 How might it be possible to provide some feedback at this point?
 What have you build in so that students are connecting this new information to
what they already know or personalizing it?
 Is your discovery/frontloading designed for total participation?
 Students don’t necessarily need new information every day. If you have previously
introduced a lot of new ideas, this class period could be focused more on processing
or using the new ideas.
 When introducing new material, it is hard to keep yourself from just constantly
turning to lecturing. Sometimes lectures are the best route (if they are interactive),
but most of the time another strategy will be better. Don’t get caught in a lecture
trap!
 Whenever possible, the introduction of new material should be interactive and
include high quality, personalized feedback
 Don’t just guide your students in learning new information; they need skills too.
They need skills to help them do better research, work well in groups, etc. They also
need metacognitive skills.
 The biggest thing to keep in mind here is this question: Is there some way I can help
the students to construct their own knowledge or discover the information for
themselves rather than just handing it to them?
 Other important questions to ask are, “How have I addressed student
misconceptions? How have I linked the new information to their prior knowledge?

Strategies for exposing students to new ideas:

 Readings done in “jigsaw,” through literature circles, or guided reading in small
groups
 Demonstrations, modeling, think alouds
 Videos, audio, podcasts
 Information collecting field trips (could be virtual)
 Work with primary sources or raw data
 Inductive thinking/ you provide examples, they discover the rule
 Open ended interaction with carefully selected materials (often at stations)
 Students interview experts outside class/ or inside class – visitors, panelists
 Orchestrated discussions/ The Socratic Method
 Lectures with student interaction, visuals, and guided notes
 Writing territories- Students make a list of things they want to write about or things
they feel they could write about so they can come back to their list if they feel stuck
(Atwell 78).
  Debate dialogues- Have students write pro/con lists about a topic and then have
students respond in writing to each other’s list (Alby)
 Expository advanced organizers- describe or explain new information in written or
verbal form (Dean 57)
 Narrative advanced organizers- New information is presented in a narrative or story
form (Dean 58).

Strategies for building in total participation during the above:

 TPS, TS, PS, TPPPS (Alby, ?), (H&H, 32-33)
 Confer, compare, and clarify (H&H, 79)
 Quick draws (H&H, 35) or Picture pause (H&H, 85)
 Similes (H&H, 41)
 Voting
 “Show me’s” or “hold ups” (H&H, 51) sprinkled in
 graphic organizers/advance organizers/ guided notes/prepared packages
 Human fold, pair, and compare (Pinto 57) `
 Dialogue journal- Students read a passage silently, write their reactions, and share
their reactions with another student (Wink 133).

Processing: Practice, initial sense making, chewing – knowledge and comprehension

Notes:
 When students have just learned something new, they usually need some time to
make sense of that new information – begin to do something simple with it. They’ve
got the food in their mouths, but now they need to chew on it.
 If students didn’t learn new information today, you could skip this.
 Processing might not be a single activity but a series of activities. Be careful not to
turn rehearsals into overly lengthy drills.
 Is your processing time designed for total participation?
 How will you collect data during this stage to make sure all students are where you
need them to be? Re-teach or clarify where needed.
 How might it be possible to provide some feedback at this point?
 What will you do if only a few students are struggling?
 What have you build in so that students are connecting this new information to
what they already know or personalizing it?

Strategies
 Ranking, categorizing, sorting, matching (hopefully with manipulatives) (H&H, 42,
65, 74)
 Discussion (Alby, On Discussion)
o Pre-discussion:
o Discussion:
 Students create study tools such as foldables or flashcards and drill one another or
 Studio/workshop/lab – experimentation stage
 Find the error
  Problem solving (simple problems)
 Create analogies, metaphors, or “one word definitions”
 Role play (Alby)
 Debate (Pinto 76)
 Reading/ writing workshop- Students all work on individual books or creative
writing projects and share what they are working on with the teacher and
sometimes with classmates (Atwell).

Making this more participatory – Variations on TPS for brainstorming/initial processing

 Inside/outside circles (H&H, 60)
 Networking
 Appointment Agendas- Students make “appointments” with other students. This can
be used as a pairing technique and as a way for students to see a variety of work and
get feedback from several of their peers (Himmele and Himmele 66).

Making this more participatory – everyone will share final ideas (lower level questions)
 Chalkboard splash (H&H, 37) or gallery walk with H&H debrief
 Inside/outside circles (H&H, 60)
 Three 3’s (H&H, 61)
 Computer share using Pear Deck or Padlet
 Popcorn- Every student chooses a passage that they particularly liked or didn’t like.
One student stands and reads their passage then calls on another student to stand
and read their passage. When everyone is done, students share their reactions
(Wink 131).

Brief Brain Break

Notes
 The brain needs a little downtime for the neuronal connections to form. Ideally, this
will involve some movement as well.
 The type of movement you choose will be based on what it is you are trying to
achieve.

Strategies from Alby’s On Movement

Other strategies

Check for understanding/ Review

Notes
 If you don’t’ think you’ll able to gather enough data during the processing time, build
in a quick formative assessment here so you know if your students are ready to go
on to the application or not.
 How will this check also provide great feedback to students?
 Some strategies will be better for review, some for checks for understanding, and
some for both

Strategies
  Show me – hand signals, white boards, mouth it, air write it (H&H, 70)
 Pear deck, Padlet (these are eSlates and require a device)
 Choral response/ call and response (Lemov)
 Small group Jeopardy
 Clickers – Kahoot, Poll Everywhere
 Individual online quizzes (they get immediate feedback and you see results)
 Anecdotal assessment- Notes that record data to assist the learner (Chapman 84).
 Response cards (Chapman 86)
 Color coding- Have students use different colors to identify parts of the
material/assignment so you can quickly and easily check for accuracy (Chapman 91)
 Assessing with a blank page- This should be given as an addition to an assessment. It
is an opportunity for a student to write everything he or she knows about the given
topic for extra points or simply to show what he or she knows (Chapman 114).
 Chalkboard splash- Pair with debrief and discussion of student understanding to
make it a formative assessment (Himmele and Himmele 105).
 Comparing- Explain how items are similar or different in a venn diagram or graphic
organizer (Dean 122).
 Classifying- Organize items into groups based on their similarities (Dean 124).
 Storyboarding- Students create a storyboard to show their understanding of the
events in a work of literature (Pinto 145).

Application – apply, analyze, synthesize, critique

Notes
 Once new information is fairly well cemented, students have to do something with it
– apply, analyze, synthesize, critique, etc.
 Application might not be a single activity but a series of activities
 You may want to make the instructions for getting started on the application super
self-explanatory so that if you need to, you can re-teach to a small group while the
rest get started.
 On an average day you might do a smallish application, but after several days of
building up knowledge, students should be ready to put it all together into
something bigger, possibly a performance task.
 How might it be possible to provide some feedback at this point?

Strategies
 Debate team carousel (H&H, 95)
 Working on performance tasks or other projects (Wiggins & McTighe handouts)
 VALUE rubric activities (Alby)
 Pose a complex problem for students to solve
 In-depth discussion
 Social networking virtual role play- Have students create a social media page for a
writer, character, or historical figure (Pinto 65).
 Thinking hats (Pinto 74)
 Portfolios (all types) (Chapman 118)

Making this more participatory – sharing ideas toward the end (higher order questions)
 Chalkboard splash or gallery walk with debrief
  Three 3’s (H&H, ?)
 Blogging and responding to blogs (H&H, 97)
 Socratic role play (Pinto 63)
 Bounce cards- Students take what their classmates say about a given topic and
“bounce” of them by saying “I agree because,” “That reminded me of,” etc. (Himmele
and Himmele 68).

Closure
Notes
 Set a timer to remind you to take at least 5 minutes at the end of the period to tie
things together and hopefully review a little. This can also be a good time for
answering student questions, setting the stage for the next day, etc.
 Set the timer for 10 minutes if there will be significant clean up involved in the
closure or if you have a more in-depth closure planned.
 What makes sense as a closure today: tying the day up, a review, answering
questions, setting the stage for tomorrow, a CAT, an SSE, or pre-assessing?
 You can also use this to collect data for the next day, “Tomorrow we are going to be
learning about X, and I want to take a minute to see what you might already know
about that.” This kind of thing gives you time to modify tomorrow’s lesson if you
need to based on the data you collect.

Strategies
 Wrap up writing/Show what you know
o 3 sentence wrap up (H&H, 89)
o A-Z Sentence summary (H&H, 90) – “Raise your hand if you want a tough
one”
o A “Write About” summary (Alby, On Wrap Up Writing)
o Picture notes- Have students draw pictures that illustrate key concepts from
the lesson (Himmele and Himmele 85)
o Mind map- Students organize what they have learned into a mind map that
starts with big ideas from the lesson and gradually goes into more detail
(Pinto 138)
o What’s the big Idea?- Students identify and name big ideas from the class
with justifications (Pinto 146).
o Note comparison- Students compare notes with a partner or group to fill in
any gaps and identify any misunderstandings (Pinto 155).
o Assign well-designed homework or practice (Dean 115)

Some days…
Notes
 You don’t need to include student self-assessment and classroom assessment
techniques into every day, but do at least one of those every week.
 What kind of goals do you want students to set for themselves? It makes sense to
have students set goals on Monday and review how they did on Friday.
 What would you most like some feedback on? Strategies, texts, the unit as a whole,
the classroom community, yourself, the environment, the resources…
  Occasionally you will have summative assessments that do not fall into the category
of “application” such as tests.

Strategies for more specific tasks

Strategies for reviewing vocabulary/terms:
 Guess the meaning using context clues, TPS, show actual definition
 Word wall- Students skim a passage and identify words that they would like defined,
or the teacher gives students words to look for and define (Pinto 41).

Strategies for teaching writing:

 Treat your class as a writing workshop (Atwell 77)
 Daily journaling with feedback

Key to the referenced texts

 H&H = Himmele and Himmele (2011) Total Participation Techniques