Here we’ll be reviewing how to set up a lesson plan to cover (NJ) Core Curriculum Content Standards.
This used to be a no-brainer for me as a teacher of many fields. Lesson planning itself is like opening a gateway into building new connections through a solid foundation of “know-how” and “can-do” spirit that has been around for ages. Using these foundations means that they are tried and true, will give students the best results, and will help stable students if they fall.
The thrill of chasing the new leads hasn’t left me. I’m always building up materials for the next new idea. However, plugging in the NJCCCS (for me) has slowed since motherhood. At home, ideas I used to use as lesson plans, were now used to become pastimes and teach my children something along the way. These ideas weren’t over crowded with the need to have the project fit, in some way, into a core curriculum standard.
Do I wish I had the time to pull that off? At the time, no. I needed the time to sleep with my eyes open, wherever possible. Kidding! Kidding… but for real, I see you stay-at-home-parents and guardians. It’s not an easy 24/7/365 without the glory of the sick day or coverage to get yourself back.
Looking back at it now, maybe it would have helped guide me a little better, rather than having to do my research on how it’s done now as compared to when I graduated as an art teacher in 2008. Time changes things, and I am seriously crossing my fingers while I make the transition from doing activities for fun, to creating lessons for the core curriculum content standards.
The takeaway is, it’s been a while.
Those of you that are struggling in this head space of “Should I even bother?” The answer is, YES!
Today, I’m taking you with me on my journey of finding the best way to tackle the idea of getting back into lesson planning for the classroom.
…And, where would I be without a quick Google search? My first initiative was to find out if there was a list that New Jersey educators were still working off of and that was a quick find.
In this article, it took me through the whole process across the board. Being an art teacher, I’m certified to teach K-12, so it isn’t super daunting for me to click through all of them. If you aren’t a K-12 teacher or even teach in New Jersey, you’re more than welcome to check out your state’s Core Curriculum Content Standards for your level of expertise. I’ll still be working on how to apply them to lessons, and that should be applicable across the board.
Just for an example, I’ve gone ahead into the drop down menu in the blue menu bar above the information: Content Areas:
Then clicked on English Language Arts:
And found:
The first *very important observation* to notice is that back when I graduated, the core curriculum content standards were referred to as CCCS back in 2008. Now, New Jersey’s site refers to them as Student Learning Standards (SLS). I should have seen that before, when I first brought up the website, but I was still very content in finding the CCCS that I didn’t even realize it changed.
So, those of us that are coming back into this, scanning for CCCS, the above information is for you. Stop. It’s been renamed.
Next, the setup is different.
Just for an example, I looked to the right and clicked on the link: 2023 NJSLS-ELA: K-12:
Here they separated all of the Student Learning Standards into three groups: Elementary, Middle, and High School.
Out of genuine curiosity, I went ahead with the first opportunity: Kindergarten, to see what else changed. Truthfully, I wanted to know, for sure, how to not only know what block of standards I would be referring to by its numerical title, but also, if there were ways to apply that then to a rubric table.
In lesson planning you need a way to keep track of what each student was able to do during the process and the completion of the project for grading. A lot of the younger grades, especially those that I student taught for, went off of a plus or minus rubric for art, mostly due to their age and abilities as beginners. I’m not sure if that’s an across the educational board expectation, or if you have had to use the check process, where a student gets a check for each skill they worked through, or another method using the rubric table or otherwise. If so, I’d love to hear how your method works for you and your students.
Anyhow, this is what I found out. When I clicked on Kindergarten, the NJSLS-ELA was broken down into four main groups: Language Domain (L), Reading Domain (R), Writing Domain (D), and finally the Speaking and Listening Domain (SL):
Selecting the top one, Language Domain (L):
It provided a drop down menu that got into all of the numeric titles that would need to be used for lesson planning and applying what the students would be learning. That was my first sigh of relief.
So now we’re looking at writing into the lesson plan:
“L.RF.K.#” or any related field within the grade and subject level that you’re looking to teach. To cross reference that, I copied and pasted “L.RF.K.1” into the Google search bar, and it came back to me with the same concept:
Now, if you can see that tiny text, the purpled link shows that this Student Learning Standard also comes up in Grade 1. The link is used, because I needed to know why. It brings me to a site called Common Standard Project that looks like it is being used as a quick, click, copy to clipboard, service center. Since there are plenty of teachers that are like me and designing lesson plans on the fly, having a place where I can quickly look up those Student Learning Standards to apply them to my plans and rubric, is truly a life and time saver.
As helpful and broken down as my state’s curriculum builder is, finding an interactive list like this is very helpful. In fact, I’ve bookmarked it so that when I come back to create lesson plans for the DIY instruction posts I’ve added so far, I can simply grab and go knowing what I know now about the NJSLS – formerly NJCCCS.
How to Create and Use a Rubric Table
Also, since I brought up rubric tables for scoring the projects in the first place, I’ll also review that here.
First and foremost, you’ll need a project to design this after. The one below is a noted model of what I used as per my teacher while I was student teaching, back in the day as an art teacher.
As you can see here, we have the grade level as kindergarten in the top left corner. It’s important to remember what grade level you’re working with as the expectations will inevitably change via the grade and throughout the year as your students learn and grow.
Under the grade’s depiction, there’s a column for the “Skill #”. This is a placeholder for the skill you’re looking to build throughout the lesson. It could be anything, as per my subject area, it could be painting with watercolors, or brush care, or understanding of art history concepts, or application of media, etc. For another subject area, like a general education teacher the skills will be different. They could be focusing on Print Concepts or Phonological Awareness, or Phonics and Word Recognition. All of these big picture concepts would go in this column.
Within the rows in their corresponding areas there will be breakdowns of these areas depending on the grade level. Since we’re working on Kindergarten for example, this can be done in one of two ways, the numerical system 1-4, one being where the student needs work and four being that the student exceeds their necessary knowledge of the content, or the probe technique, which marks Y/N or +/- within the related areas.
In our school, the 1-4 method breaks down the skill level as well as the behavior of the student during the learning process. This has also been adapted by a non-numerical pattern that gives students, parents, and the school a better understanding of where their students are at by marking them with Exceeds Expectations (EE), Meets Expectations (ME), Somewhat Meets Expectations (SME) & Needs Assistance (NS), which is essentially the numerical concept with letters. It’s considered the more student centered, friendlier version of the grading system for the elementary school level.
Hey, if it promotes learning in a more comfortable way, why not?
Then there’s the probes, where we want to know if the student learned anything, or tried. I’ve found these mostly in art, where we look at a piece of student work and organize the questions accordingly:
- Did student listen for instructions? Y/N or +/-
- Did student apply materials appropriately? Y/N or +/-
- Was student able to complete the work? Y/N or +/-
- Did student take care of materials and tools? Y/N or +/-
- Did student participate and talk about their work? Y/N or +/-
Typically, during my experiences in student teaching, the grading system relied heavily on a 3 out of 5 scenario to give a positive, leaving a lot of the expectation and trial on the fact that the student did, in fact, put in the effort required to create a finished piece. Truthfully, it was hard to give a minus on projects because the students often-times showed up, excited for something new and ready to get it done. There were times, however, that students would act out for attention, burn their time, and do their best not to participate and those were the instances that we needed to take them aside and talk to the student about what was going on. If a minus was recorded and the student would be given the opportunity to make it right and complete the project at home for a plus.
As they get into the older grades, such questions would be reviewed in a deeper concentration, just as any other subject matter though. What we want to see is not only do they understand the subject matter, but how to use it appropriately, internalize the messages within the piece or context whether we’re talking about art, or general education, and so forth.
To give a better idea of this concept, I’ll be adding rubrics to the lesson plans I organize through the various DIY projects that will be shared here. The reason being, is not only for my own personal practice, but also for readers to see what kind of educational value could be earned from DIY projects across the board.
We live in a society that uses media constantly, whether it be social based or blog related, or simply by using our devices to record via pictures and video. It is amazing what’s at our fingertips. Why not harness it and figure out just how to reconnect our drive to create with the education to back our decisions? These concepts will help our students create endless foundations so that they can bounce back from the nailed-it nation, into life skills that will constantly provide for them (and us).
I believe that’s my mission in all of this.
How to Create the Lesson Plan with Everything Together
Now that I have what I need in terms of how the NJSLS works, I can then take any of my projects and match them up with the subject areas that the project would work for, add all of my materials, give a background concept and gear up the students on how we’re going to get this project into gear.
Seems easy enough, right?
Honestly, it could really be as easy as that, provided you did the legwork that went around working through the physical project. A lot of times my research is a collection of videos, articles I’ve read, people I know in whatever field I’m working with, companies of which completely depend on if we need to think mathematically or be conscious of the amount of materials we’re using for said project, and so forth. Being able to keep these items together, with the referencing I’m trying to convey in the project can get lost in translation. Therefore, the organization of your project, verses your materials, and the time you have in class to pull it off is all sort of working against you rather than with you.
With that said, the first thing your lesson plan has to have is a central idea.
It’s cool to love to create in any field, but to starve yourself of frustration, do yourself a favor and pick the central idea. You can then use that same central idea and break off into other concepts if you’re looking to do more of a unit. However, for the sake of staying on task, pick the central idea first and work with that in it’s entirety.
Next, you’ll need to relate it to your audience. The students are your audience. Getting them to want to do this project with you will take your personal interest as well as theirs. Your central idea is going to break off into relating it to your students and some other, very important areas as well.
Once you have their attention, you can bring in the history of the central idea. The big question now, is can you pull history from the project, whether it’s personal contextual event or can you gain knowledge from it at a worldly or culturally active event that happened in the past.
For instance, if I come up with a lesson plan that goes with my most recent post where I created Spiced Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Cake Bites, can I bring in a world event in history, or is that a personal event? Truthfully, it could be both. Does it feel more like a personal event to me? Yes, but I can dive into the history of baking. I can get into the ingredients list and have students look up where they would need to find them back before shipping and trade routes began. We could get into a side lesson of the baking and canning process, or even spice grinding process as well, all of which is not only historical but scientific as well. They could mathematically be inclined to find out just how many plants they’d need to grind spices or produce foods for canning. They could even work on a unit that would let them find out about the whole process and be required to bring a pumpkin or a sweet potato from it’s natural state into a puree to be canned. This activity could also provide knowledge in how the FDA would process food, and how their time and effort could be managed or thrown away because of the standards they process food by. For artistic purposes, and for those of potential sales, they could work on the advertisement of the label too. There, you can provide a history of what’s been tried in the past versus what works now, to build their own audience of which they could expect sales.
I know we’re getting really far into what this unit could be but, wow, it really does take a turn doesn’t it? Once we get past the “well this was a personal reason,” you can really see that there’s a lot of avenues out there to focus on.
Once you have an idea of where you want the lesson’s central idea to go, you’ll need to block out: Introduction, Project, Reflection.
Introduction:
This is the compilation of your central idea, relating it to your audience, and the history of your central idea.
Project:
All of the steps of your project.
That sounds daunting. In the lower grades, especially K-2 art, I was taught that the projects should only be a period long to complete. This means you can bring it from start to finish in the allotted 42 minutes which because of set up, introduction, and furthermore clean up, you really, at best have 25 minutes. If your periods are shorter, try to imagine that it is 7 minutes for set up and another 7 for clean up when they’re little. Sometimes they surprise you but other times, even when you have everything ready to go, it’ll still take more time than it should. And by no means should you assume that you can talk to them about the project for those 14 minutes. They aren’t listening. Not even if you said something amazing. The remaining three minutes is the time is for your introduction. Good luck!
With the class in gear and the project gates open, you’re ready to go! And go you will. All of the materials are set and out at the tables. You’ll be engaging with your students on what the steps will be, and then they’ll take it from there. Most of the younger grades do have a do not exceed time limit on projects, however. Planning them out to be done in a class period will be your best bet in elementary school. K-2 is particularly like that. Grade 3+ and certainly in middle school as well as high school, students can start working towards projects that take as long as two weeks to a month to complete.
For the sake of your lesson planning, think of the grade level(s) you teach and go from there.
Reflection:
Generally I like to have a time for students to do this that isn’t during their clean up time either. I like knowing that they can experience having their voice heard, listening to others while their peers have the floor, and so forth. It’s also important to communicate with their peers about what they struggled with or found the most useful. There have been times that I’ve encouraged students to think back into the history of the project, and see if they would have done things differently or the same, given what they know now. Reflection time is also a really great way to practice being in a critique or speaking within a group. A lot of younger students I’ve had, did not mind sharing their opinions on what they learned and how they could learn it again if they wanted to. However, the older kids seem to get quiet, almost reserved, and for young people that are going out into the working world soon if not already, really need to know how to read customers and how to speak to people. Furthermore, they need to know that their feelings are valid; that their decisions matter, and that they can achieve more than the allow themselves to.
Finally, it’s time to add in all of the nods to the your Student Learning Standards based on your state’s requirements. Remember to add all of it until you’re so good at remembering which code means what, and do it anyway. Even if you remember what it is, there are plenty of people that may look on and not know what the alpha-numerical code means. There will be more times than necessary when the written out documentation of these Student Learning Standards will go to bat for you. Showing them on your lesson plans will definitely help you in the long run.
After this, it’s time to collect the work an apply the rubric, if applicable. Sometimes the rubric isn’t used for such things as homework, quizzes, tests, or pop up lessons. The projects, however, those rubrics really explain to your students what you’re looking for and give them a mathematical (for higher grades) look at how they can get the higher grades.
I’m sure there are other ways to go about lesson planning but this is my tried and true practice. I hope that you’ve learned something here and would love to hear from you.
Until then, I wish you success in all of your endeavors.
