Creating your Web-based Lesson Plan

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

A WIT web-based lesson includes both a teaching guide and the learning page or pages necessary to guide the students in their learning activities.

Think of your web-based lesson as including one or more learning page(s) to guide the student as they learn, as well as a teaching guide to help teachers support the students' learning.

Ideally, the teaching guide is developed first, as a plan is developed for the student learning. Then the student learning pages are constructed to support that plan.

The "plan" or teaching guide

In WIT, a "lesson plan" is another name for a "teaching guide." The plan for the lesson is a guide for the teacher.

The elements of a lesson plan vary, but for purposes of WIT, 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.

Learning pages

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 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 for the student as he or she learns, and the Teaching Guide as helping the teacher to support the learning.

Let your mentor know if you have additional questions.

For an activity designed to result in an engaging web-based lesson plan, see the WIT 2000 module Create Activities for the Web.