I sent out my “rigorous revised lesson plan” before the break and I got a lot of positive feedback from the principals. As I reflect further and discussed rigor more with fellow teachers I realized I needed to go back to Bloom and all of his higher order thinking. I decided to rewrite this lesson plan using the row game model that I found by Kate Nowak (I think she invented it..?!) because it allows for individual practice, self/peer-checking, and a bunch of extra problems should the student finish earlier.
I also edited my do-now and exit ticket to exhibit that higher order thinking as well and put in more questions for the do-now tickets (as modeled by my observations of other staff in the building).
In the end, I was very happy with the revised lesson and so was the department head at the school. I think it still showcased creativity (row game), collaborative learning (working together, helping your classmate), and rigor (higher order thinking, scaffolding between activities).
As I know so many of you are completely fascinated by my job hunting: I am now being flown back out to Chicago by a different school within the same network on Monday – I will be doing a demo lesson for 11th grade pre-calculus on matching basic trig functions to their graphs. I now know I need to use some of the same principles of rigor in this lesson plan and I’ve already begun scouring the blogs and twitter for some good resouces and ideas. So expect to be flooded with my many questions on twitter as usual (you guys are the best!).
Do- Now:
Row Game:
Row Game (KEY):
Exit Ticket:
Adapted this for my Pre-Algebra student today…love the self-checking!!