Making Learning Visible: Lesson Planning for Virtualized Contexts

Initial Thoughts

Instructions: Reflect on your expereiences teaching and learning face to face and online and discuss the following questions.

• What challenges are present in BOTH face to face and virtualized classes?
• What unique challenges are presented by the virtualized format?
• What does "effective teaching" mean to you in a face to face context? In a virtualized context?

Demo Analysis

Instructions: Let's analyze the demo lesson you just participated in. Look at the pages from the unit and the PPT slides and complete the tasks below. CLICK HERE to access them.

Task 1: Discuss the following questions:

• What design features can you notice?
• What is the possible rationale behind them?
• How do they affect the learning experience from the student perspective?

Task 2: Read the list below and identify the points that seem most important to you. Discuss the questions from Task 1 regarding your chosen points.

Task 3: Synthesize your analysis and make a comment in the chat so you can share with your partners when you get back to the main room. In your comment, articulate at least three design principles that you have identified in the demo lesson. For each one, state a brief description of the principle and the rationale behind it. In other words, how does this design principle contribute to the students' learning experience?

Example: Principle 1 - State the instructions for the task in the PPT slide in student friendly language. Rationale - Students benefit from processing instructions in multiple modalities (spoken/written) The written instructions also serve as a referece point for students when they are working in breakout rooms, allowing them to work more independently.

Lesson Planning Task

Instructions: Now it's time for you to create your own lesson sequence using the Backward Design framework and the design features that you identified in the demo. You can choose to create your sequence for Lesson B or C of the same unit. CLICK HERE to access the unit PDF. CLICK HERE to access the PPT template. Be sure to download the template onto your computer so that you can edit it. You have 35 minutes to complete this task.