Teacher's Net
Lesson 3: Instructional Design, Part One
The 'Net as a Free Resource
Lesson Banks
As far as online free resources go, the Lesson Bank has to be the most valuable resource to teachers. Literally thousands and millions of really good lesson plans have been created and placed online for the use of any teacher anywhere.
Your best use of lesson banks is going to be as a starting point. You know your students better than anyone else, and you know better than anyone what it is that they most need. So you're going to benefit them the most by grabbing a really good lesson plan that suits your needs almost perfectly, and then adapting that plan- don't worry, that's what we're going to do this week.
To familiarize yourself with some of what's out there, take a look at these lesson banks:
Generators of All Kinds
I say "Generators of All Kinds" because that's literally what's out there - crossword puzzle generators, essay plan generators, test generators, worksheet generators... So- what, exactly, is a generator?
A generator, in this sense of the word, gives you options or asks for input and then formats that data into a complete piece. If I were to decide that one of the components of my lesson plan should be a word-search puzzle, I would be able to plug in the words that I wanted my students to find, click "Go", and print out a completed word-search... In under 5 minutes.
Here are a few starting points to get used to what you can do:
Discovery School's Puzzle Makers
The Search Engine
While not the most time-effective way of searching for lesson plans, the search engine is nonetheless your constant companion in the search of All Things Teacherly. The most common way of searching for anything is to simply type the phrase into the search box... but we will cover some Advanced Techniques in lesson 5 of this course, to boost our Search Savvy.
Some search engines to begin perusing:
Lessons
Latest Articles