Write the following sentence on the board:


Give students three minutes to think of as many unique words relating to social studies as they can that relate to teaching generally or the social studies as a content area. The words may only contain letters appearing in the above sentence. For instance, there is one "Z" in the above sentence. Students may include words with up to, but not more than, one "Z" per word.

After three minutes, have one student read his/her responses. If other students have the stated word, they must shout the name of one state (they may choose any state name). If the word exists on more than one student's paper, all students must cross it off their lists. After the first student reads, ask another student to read his/her remaining words. Continue in this fashion until all remaining words are unique. Ask students with unique words to state these words aloud and have the class vote on whether the words meet the activity criteria. If so, the words may remain on the list. If not, they also must be crossed out. Provide the winner, the student with the most remaining unique words, with a prize that could be useful in a social studies classroom.

Ask:

• “Under what circumstances would you give an activity such as this?” Answers may include:
• As extra credit after an exam
• After a short lesson when there may be a few minutes left in class
• “What skills are taught by this lesson?” Answers may include:
• Close observation
• Sequencing
• Visual discrimination
• Knowledge connections between two unrelated ideas

Have each group of students take out their copies of the CCSD CEFs and their NCSS Standards. Tell students we are going to plan a lesson as a class. Open a lesson plan template on the projected teacher computer and ask students to volunteer suggestions for the grade level of the lesson, unit topic, and lesson topic. The unit and lesson title must be teachable within the scope of the selected grade level for both the NCSS Standards and CCSD CEFs.

Begin by asking students to identify the goal(s) or purpose(s) of the lesson. Note that the goal should address why children would need to know the content of the lesson.

Have students skip the overview; they will return to this and the materials’ sections following all other lesson planning. Next, have students identify the CCSD objectives and NCSS standards the lesson will address. Then, work students through each of the procedural steps, allowing them to suggest and (as a class) agree upon lesson procedures.

Finally, complete the overview and materials’ sections.

Explain that students have just completed the process of lesson planning.  Hand out the Unit Lesson Plan Grading Rubric (Word and HTML) and review the expectations. Ask  if there are any questions and inform students they must use the lesson planning template on the course Outline or the template from their practicum course to complete the lesson planning assignment.

Post the student-developed lesson plan on the course Materials page.

Have students get into pairs. The pairs cannot include any of the partners from the independent unit plan discussions from the previous session. Therefore, all students will be presenting their unit plans to a student who has not heard about their unit plan.

Tell students they should use the lesson plan template to ensure all lessons within their individual unit plans align with these templates. Students should ensure that the lesson descriptions in their unit plans include abbreviated descriptions of each of the primary elements of research-based lesson plans (sponge activity, content delivery, and guided practice). Have pairs together or independently refine their unit plans or begin drafting the lesson plans for their units. Encourage them to ask each other for suggestions and to ask for help or clarification as needed.