The Planning for Instruction standard requires teachers to plan instruction that makes rigorous learning goals accessible to all students. The standard expects teachers to achieve this by utilizing their content knowledge, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and knowledge of learner differences and development. This standard is important because synthesizing knowledge, skills, and pedagogy can be challenging, but it is vital for effective instruction that supports all students’ ability to meet developmentally appropriate learning goals.
When planning instruction, I utilize Bloom’s taxonomy and Gardener’s theory of Multiple Intelligences in order to ensure that my instruction is engaging and meaningful. In my two-week poetry unit, all of my instruction uses higher-level thinking skills and each of the Multiple Intelligences. Additionally, the activities move up the Bloom’s taxonomy pyramid as the unit progresses, culminating in a project-based assessment that requires students to analyze poetry, evaluate the characteristics of different poetry styles, and compose poems about a variety of topics using their knowledge of poetry elements and styles and genres.
During the COVID-19 school closures, my supervising teacher and I were faced with the challenge of creating 9 weeks of instruction for all of our students. In order to meet learning needs and promote instructional continuity for all of our students, we designed two sets of choice menus: one set for students with internet access and one set for students without internet access. For students with internet access, we utilized FlipGrid as a tool through which students could engage with the content through charades, Pictionary, and authentic skill practice activities such as writing letters and delivering brief presentations about books.
In order to align instruction for all students, we adapted the activities we designed for our students with internet access in order to accommodate our students without internet access. We wanted the paper-and-pencil activities to be just as engaging as the internet activities, so we planned activities that were similar or the same. We gave all of our students the resources they needed in order to participate in engaging, authentic activities regardless of their internet availability.