5.4 – Lesson Planning Best Practices

Another format for lesson planning that I’ve used has been the “I Do, We Do, You Do” structure in which I provide direct instruction, facilitate students through a guided practice portion, and then have students work independently to apply their learning. As a student teacher this year, I began with implementing this lesson plan format because it seemed to easily fit with the structure of lessons according to the math curriculum that my school uses, HMH Into Math. As I’ve grown more comfortable both with whole group instruction and the curriculum itself, I think there are numerous ways to adjust our math curriculum to better fit the inquiry-based lesson plan, which would most definitely be more engaging as well as allow more time/space for differentiation to occur in real time throughout the lesson. While the “I Do, We Do, You Do” structure has been somewhat successful, I think I’m in a place as a teacher candidate and my students are in a place in their relationship with me, where we’re both ready to make our math learning more engaging, and this inquiry-based lesson plan is a great method for doing this.

I too have used “I do, you do, we do. While this method is effective, I believe a more student led inquiry method allows for deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.

What other formats of lesson planning have you used? I have used what the district has provided. It is specific to the school. We have specific areas to cover based on the standard being taught.

What types or methods of planning have been most successful for you? I enjoy planning with my team. This ensures we can share ideas on best practices.

In my school district we use the standards-based unit plan for our lesson planning. We create this unit plan as a grade level. All grade level teachers use the same unit plan, but teach the lessons according to their teaching style.