Title of Lesson: How do You Write A Lesson Plan Using the Five-Step Backward Design Process? Part One

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “How do you Write a Lesson Plan using the Five-Step Backward Design Process?” Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan we will divide this lesson plan into five parts. Here is the first part of this lesson.

Enduring Jewish Knowledge Rationale for the Lesson: Judaic lesson planning is a mitzvah in that the teacher is preparing a written and thoughtful strategy to engage students in the study of Torah, la’asok b’divrei Torah. The lesson plan itself is designed to motivate and empower students to acquire, apply, and create Judaic knowledge. The five-step Backward Design process is an approach for making certain that the Jewish knowledge learning outcomes or objectives, the assessments, the anticipatory set, the introductory activity, the developmental activity or activities, the guided practice, the independent activity or activities, and the closure activity are all aligned or connected together.

Essential Question/s: How do you write a lesson plan for students in a Jewish day or supplemental school classroom applying the five-step Backward Design process?

Assessment/s: (Initial, ongoing, and final activities designed to measure what the student has learned)

Students individually, in pairs, via classroom discussion and as a homework assignment discuss the answers to these questions. What is a lesson plan? What is the five step Backward Design lesson plan process? How do your write a lesson plan using the five-step Backward Design lesson planning process?

Objective/Learning Outcome: (What the student is supposed to learn from this lesson) In his or her own words, the student will be able to:

• Write a lesson plan using the five step Backward Design process

Name of the Active Learning Procedures: Team Projects

Team Projects

Team Projects is an elaborate cooperative learning procedure that includes these four steps: (1) The teacher assigns a topic for each quad or all the quads. (2) The members of each quad are given or choose a role to play in the project. (3) Quads complete the project. (4) Quads present the project to the entire class.

Ultimately, each quad creates and teaches its own lesson to another quad.

In the next post we will share the second part of this five-part lesson.