Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Teachers: Subject:
Sarah Jones Science, 6th Grade
Jane Dowel
State Standards:
Concept 2: Earth’s Processes and Systems Understand the processes acting on the Earth and their interaction
with the Earth systems
PO 6. Create a weather system model that includes:
• the Sun
• the atmosphere
• bodies of water
Objective (Explicit):
 Students will be able to analyze a map containing isobars and intuit what the weather is for areas within the
map.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable):
 Include a copy of the lesson assessment.
 Provide exemplar student responses with the level of detail you expect to see.
 Assign value to each portion of the response

Students will create isobar maps given templates of varying difficulties. They will be able to draw isobars along
lines of barometric pressure that do not touch and then label high- and low-pressure areas. They will also label
what types of weather may be occurring in each area. Maps will be turned in at the end of the class period.
Students can earn 1 to 2 points per label type (high/low pressure, sunny, rainy, wind arrows) on each map and 1
point for drawing non-touching isobars, with a limit of 8 points per map.
Sub-objectives, SWBAT (Sequenced from basic to complex):
 How will you review past learning and make connections to previous lessons?
 What skills and content are needed to ultimately master this lesson objective?
 How is this objective relevant to students, their lives, and/or the real world?
SWBAT:
 Define isobar
 Define air pressure
 Compare and contrast weather that occurs in high- and low-pressure areas
 Interpret an isobar map using the knowledge that they learned in the lesson
Key vocabulary: Materials:
Isobar Science notebooks
Trough Isobar worksheets
Ridge Colored pencils
Barometric
Low air pressure
High air pressure
Opening (state objectives, connect to previous learning, and make relevant to real life)
 How will you activate student interest?
 How will you connect to past learning?
 How will you present the objective in an engaging and student-friendly way?
 How will you communicate its importance and make the content relevant to your students?
Warm up question: What is air pressure?

After students have completed their warm up I will ask for their answers. Then we will do an
activity to explain the difference between low and high pressure. Students will be asked to put
their hands up to their mouths and blow on them. Can they feel the pressure from their breath?
Do they think that it is high air pressure or low air pressure? Why? Then students will be asked
to hold the hands close to their mouths while they take a breath in. What do they feel? Do they
think that it is high air pressure or low air pressure? Why?

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 Teacher Will: Student Will:
 How will you model/explain/demonstrate all  What will students be doing to actively capture and
knowledge/skills required of the objective? process the new material?
 What types of visuals will you use?  How will students be engaged?
 How will you address misunderstandings or
common student errors?
 How will you check for understanding?
 How will you explain and model behavioral
expectations?
Instructional Input

 Is there enough detail in this section so that

another person could teach it?
Teacher will put up official definitions of isobar, low air Students will record the definitions in their notebooks
pressure, high air pressure, trough, ridge, and barometric
on a power point.

Co-Teaching Strategy
 Which co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you include for specific students?
 Do you anticipate any students who will need an additional challenge?

Teacher will read the definitions out loud to help students if they can’t see the board or need to be kept on task.

Teacher Will: Student Will:

 How will you ensure that all students have multiple
opportunities to practice new content and skills?
 What types of questions can you ask students as
you are observing them practice?
 How/when will you check for understanding?
 How will you provide guidance to all students as
they practice?
 How will you explain and model behavioral
expectations?
 Is there enough detail in this section so that
another person could facilitate this practice?
 How will students practice all knowledge/skills required
of the objective, with your support, such that they
continue to internalize the sub-objectives?
 How will students be engaged?
 How will you elicit student-to-student interaction?
 How are students practicing in ways that align to
independent practice?

Teacher will hand out an example of an isobar
map. She will pull up the map on the power point
and explain that that isobar lines show equal or
constant pressure. She will ask students to look for
Guided Practice
Students will volunteer patterns they notice on the map.
The two important patterns are that isobars lines never
cross and that the numbers are given in multiples of 4.

patterns on the map.

Through inquiry with the students as a class, the Students will pay attention to the teacher’s
teacher will review how areas with low air explanations and will answer the teacher’s questions
pressures were places where precipitation was about what type of weather and wind is likely to exist in
most likely to fall and how areas with high air relation to the air pressures on an isobar map.
pressures were places where it was likely to be Students will also label their maps with symbols for sun
sunny and clear. She will also help them to or rain and for wind direction on their maps.
understand how wind travels from areas of high air
pressure to areas of ow air pressure. As the
teacher goes through this demonstration, she will
ask the students to draw symbols for sun or rain
and for wind direction on their maps.

The teacher will then pass out a map that contains Students will follow along and create isobar lines and
only the numbers barometric pressure, but no weather symbols on their own maps.
isobars. The teacher will demonstrate to the class
how to fill out the map with isobars and weather
labels.

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 Co-Teaching Strategy
 Which co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you include for specific students?
 Do you anticipate any students who will need an additional challenge?
 How can you utilize grouping strategies?
Teacher Will: Student Will:
 How will you plan to coach and correct during this  How will students independently practice the knowledge and
practice? skills required by the objective?
 How will you provide opportunities for remediation and  How will students be engaged?
extension?  How are students practicing in ways that align to
 How will you clearly state and model academic and assessment?
behavioral expectations?  How are students using self-assessment to guide their own
 Did you provide enough detail so that another person
learning?
could facilitate the practice?
 How are you supporting students giving feedback to one
another?

The teacher will explain the Isobar Map Challenge: Students will listen to and follow the instructions of the
There will be up to four rounds, depending on how Isobar Map challenge.
much time we have. The goal of each round is to
complete an isobar map given a template map.
The teacher will tell the students that after the
activity, they will turn in their maps so that she may
check for evidence of mastery. Maps must have
isobars that do not touch, at least on of each of the
following labels: Low- and high-pressure areas,
wind arrows, sun symbols and rain symbols.
Students will be given the option to choose from
Independent Practice

four difficulty levels for each round. At the

beginning of each round students will be called up
in an orderly fashion and asked to take a map
template of their desired difficulty level.

When all students have gotten their map
templates, the teacher will start a timer and
students will have five minutes to complete their
map. The teacher will encourage students to seek
help from each other, but let them know that there
are many ways to draw the map without breaking
the patterns that were discussed when the maps
were first introduce.
Upon the start of the teacher’s timer, the student will
draw the isobars on their map, label high- and low-
pressure areas, draw at least one wind arrow, and
draw symbols (at least one sun and one rain) for the
weather on the maps.

When the timer reaches five minutes, the teacher
will pull up on the power point the actual solution
for the map. She will ask students to notice the
differences and similarities of the actual map to
their own.
At the end of five minutes, students put their pencils
down. They will compare their maps with the true map
that is on the power point.

These steps will be repeated for up to four rounds. These steps will be repeated for up to four rounds.
Co-Teaching Strategy
 Which co-teaching approach will you use to maximize student achievement?

Differentiation Strategy
 What accommodations/modifications will you include for specific students?
 Do you anticipate any students who will need an additional challenge?
By giving the students the option to vary the difficulty level of the map that they complete, advanced students
can challenge themselves and struggling students can receive more guidance and structure from the
template. Making the activity a challenge uses competition to increase motivation among students.
Closing/Student Reflection/Real-life connections:
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  How will students summarize and state the significance of what they learned?
 Why will students be engaged?
When there are 8 minutes left in class, students will be asked to put their names on their maps and turn them in.
The teacher will then hold a class discussion on the importance of isobar maps and how they relate to the world.
Topic the could be covered: What is an isobar? Does this style of map make sense to you? What was something
that you had trouble understanding in this lesson? Who uses isobar maps? What weather events to isobar maps
tell us about?

Example of Student’s Isobar Map Expectations

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Sarah Jones

SPE 417

Signature Assignment

I was nervous to give this lesson to my students, but I feel that I did well. There were several things that
could have been improved upon, but I did implement teaching techniques that we learned about in class. I
learned a lot from this experience and it made me more comfortable in front of the classroom. Since then, I have
taught several lessons for the kids on my own. For this project, I designed the lesson plan myself. Ms. Dowell
talked to me about the content that she wanted the kids to learn and gave me resources such as empty isobar
maps and an example lesson that she had found online. I ended up using the empty isobar maps and their keys
in my lesson plan, but, rather than exactly following the example lesson plan, I created the lesson plan that you
see above. The most significant differences are the opening and the independent practice, which I turned into a
game.

The first thing that I did was open my lesson by demonstrating to students the difference between low
and high air pressure by having them use their breaths to create those situations above their hands. The students
for that class that I taught were 6th graders and they seemed to enjoy participating this way, rather than just
watching a video or looking at a diagram. High air pressure and low air pressure were Category 1 vocabulary
words: words that the students probably already knew the meaning of (Phillips, Foote and Harper 64). As is
suggested by the “Preteaching Strategies to Improve Student Learning in Content Area Classes”, I chose to
preteach these words even though they were Category 1 words, because they were basic concepts on which the
entire lesson would be built upon (Berg and Wehby 16). Then I had them write down the definitions to all of the
vocab words in their science notebooks. Instead of projecting the words and definitions, I wrote them directly
on the board so that they would have enough time to write along with me. I think that this helped keep students
together, and allowed them to ask questions as we went through the words. Also, my IMT’s projector is set very
close to the board, so it can be hard to read what she projects.

What is interesting about the way my IMT teaches is that she directly cues all the points that she wants
to be written down by her students, but I have never noticed her encouraging her students to take notes on more
than they had to. Research from a study by Joseph R. Boyle found that middle school students record only 25%
of the total points of a lecture, while students with learning disabilities record only 13% of total lecture points
(Boyle 91). On the one hand, always directly cuing important lecture points probably increases the percentage
of lecture points that students white down. However, because she directly grades her student’s notebooks, it
seems to me that they are only incentivized to write down what she tells them to write down. They may not

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have much liberty to change or add notes that would help them to better understand the material later when they
are reviewing the material for a test.

For the second part of the lesson, I put up a complete isobar map on the projector and passed out
matching maps to the students. We went over everything that was on the map and explained what different
symbols and numbers meant. We also identified examples all of the relevant vocabulary words on the map.
Unfortunately, in the rush of the lesson, I forgot to model with them how to fill out an empty map. This showed
in the ability of students to complete the next part of the lesson.

Then the activity part of my lesson began. I had students come up and choose an incomplete isobar map
of whatever level of difficulty that they wanted. This was supposed to be an effort to allow the kids to self-
differentiate. However, according to Rick Wormeli’s article “Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction”,
offering multiple choices is not a means of differentiation if the teacher is not creating those choices “on the
basis of specific information the teacher knew about his or her students” (Wormeli 2). So, I guess that what I
did, may not have cut it to be defined as differentiation. Nevertheless, after collecting samples of the student’s
work, I could see that having different difficulty levels did benefit the students. The students that were ready for
the most difficult level did well, and it was helpful for the other students to have easier levels of the assignment.
But my students were a little too enthusiastic and many of them decided that they wanted to complete the
hardest level first. As a result, the students that were not ready were lost and required extra help, or they did
poorly if they received no help. Luckily, on the next Monday we went over the concept again to review and
clarify how to fill out an isobar map.

My lesson plan covered the 6th Grade Science Standard Concept 2: Earth’s Processes and Systems
(Understand the processes acting on the Earth and their interaction with the Earth systems), PO 6. Create a
weather system model that includes: The Sun, the atmosphere, and bodies of water. During the lesson, the
students learned how the sun heats up the atmosphere, creating the inequalities in pressure that we map on
isobar maps. They learned to demonstrate on the map which direction air flows. They also learned about the
weather that is typical of high and low air pressure areas. I determined the entry level of the students through
conversations that I had with my IMT as I prepared the lesson plan. As the content that was taught during my
lesson was the first time my students were learning about it, I did not do a summative assessment. Throughout
the lesson, I took formative assessments in the form of questioning the class for understanding and walking
around the room to check on how well they were able to create an isobar map. They were not graded on the
isobar map activity, because it was a game for practicing; I wanted to keep pressure low to keep students from
being frustrated, which is linked to students giving up on assignments (Johnson and Reid 65). On another day,

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when I wasn’t present, they were tested on their knowledge during the unit test by my IMT and the notes from
that day in their notebooks were graded.

After I was done with the lesson, I sought reactions and advice from my IMT. She was pleased with my
design for the game, but suggested that next time, I should model how to fill an isobar. Only at that point did I
realize that I had forgotten that step! She also noted that it would have been better if I had mandated that the
kids start at the easiest levels of the activity before getting the chance to choose a harder one. This way I could
have checked for their understanding before allowing them to try a harder one. The other think that she said I
need to work on is my classroom management skill. At times I had trouble recapturing the class’s attention from
their activity. I guess I need to develop a louder shout, because that is the main way that my mentor teacher
reels the students back in from their rowdiness.

I learned a lot from teaching this lesson. The most significant learning that I have taken away from this
experience the value of devoting time to being prepared. Only if you take the time to plan out a lesson, can you
come up with something fun or innovative to share with your students. In the future, I would take my IMT’s
advice and make sure students could pass a preliminary level (the easiest one) before I allowed them to try the
hardest one. I would also remember to model the activity with the students. I think that next time at the
beginning of the lesson, I might have to explicitly teach them a hand signal or something of the like that would
signify that I want silence. Lastly, I hope I would be in a classroom of my own where I work with students
everyday so that I would know them better and be able to consciously create differentiated lesson plans with
specific students in mind. I am excited to keep teaching lesson plans with my students so that I can get better at
it.

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Works Cited
Berg, Jessica L and Joseph Wehby. "Preteaching Strategies to Improve Student Learning in Content Area
Classes." Intervention in School and Clinic 49.1 (2013): 14-20.

Boyle, Joseph R. "Note-Taking and Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities: Challenges and Solutions."
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice 27.2 (2012): 90=101.

Johnson, Joseph and Robert Reid. "Overcoming Executive Function Deficits with Students with ADHD."
Theory Into Practice 50 (2011): 61-67.

Phillips, Donna C, Chandra J Foote and Laurie J Harper. "Strategies for Effective Vocabulary Instruction."
Reading Improvement 45.2 (2008): 62-68.

Wormeli, Rick. "Busting Myths about Differentiated Instruction." Principal Leadership (2006).
<http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4002/is_200503/ai_n11849538/print>.