Creating your WIT Lesson Plan

This page describes the essential components of the web-based lesson plan you'll produce in WIT Basic.

What we normally think of as a "lesson plan" is essentially the same as what we call a Teaching Guide. The elements of a lesson plan vary, but for our purposes, your Teaching Guide should include all the elements listed in the Curriculum Terms and Concepts module:

• Aim:  one sentence (more or less) description of overall purpose of curriculum, including audience and the topic
• Rationale:  paragraph describing why aim is worth achieving. This section would include assessment of needs.
• Goals and objectives: list of the learning outcomes expected from participation in the curriculum. This section includes a discussion of how the curriculum supports national, state, and local standards.
• Audience and pre-requisites: describes who the curriculum is for and the prior knowledge, skills, and attitudes of those learners likely to be successful with the curriculum.
• Description of subject-matter:  designation of what area of content, facts, arena of endeavor, that the curriculum deals with.  (This is a further elaboration of the "topic" description in the Aim.)
• Instructional plan:  describes the activities the learners are going to engage in, and the sequence of those activities.  Also describes what the TEACHER is to do in order to facilitate those activities. (This is like the traditional "lesson plan" except for a curriculum it may include more than one lesson.)
• Materials:  lists materials necessary for successful teaching of the curriculum. Includes a list of web pages. Often, the web site will NOT be the only materials needed by the students. They may need books, tables, paper, chalkboards, calculators, and other tools. You should spell these additional materials out in your teaching guide.
  Also includes the actual materials (worksheets and web pages) prepared by the curriculum developer, any special requirements for classroom setup and supplies, and a list of any specific hardware and software requirements.
• Plans for assessment and evaluation:  includes plan for assessing learning and evaluating the curriculum as a whole. May include description of a model project, sample exam questions, or other elements of assessment.  Also should include plan for evaluating the curriculum as a whole, including feedback from learners.

In addition to the Teaching Guide (which will be a separate web page), your web-based lesson plan should also include web pages that organize the STUDENT's work, including a "home page" which gives them a starting point, any additional pages as needed to avoid making pages too long, list of links, worksheets (if used), and an assessment rubric for products (if used).

A simple lesson plan might have this structure (ovals represent separate pages; arrows indicate links):

The actual structure of your web-based lesson will depend on the kind of activity you want the students to do. Think of the web as providing guidance and instruction during the student learning, and the Teaching Guide as preparing the teacher to support the learning.

Let your mentor know if you have additional questions.