Part IV: Planning - DOK Levels

   When I started developing formative and summative assessments for my students using the DOK levels, my lessons became more meaningful.

 I have learned through trial and error, that implementing meaningful and rigorous activities is essential, but I am not able do this without effective planning.

    Although I have a very scripted curriculum, I still had to spend time changing my questioning strategies and recreating activities that were not rigorous. As a result, I spent the first month of this school year rewriting questions for my basal stories. It was a lot of work, but it was all worth it! Now, I spend less time re-teaching and my scores are improving drastically.

    There are so many lesson plan templates out there that it is difficult to choose the right one. I have been using this template that includes everything I need to teach with rigor.

Description:

1.      Standard- Focus on one or two standards. You can include one content objective and one language objective.

2.    DOK Level – Decide the standard’s DOK level.

3.   Formative assessments- Plan activities on the standard’s DOK level.

4.  Summative Assessment- Plan assessment questions on the standard’s DOK level.

5.   What do your students need to know? Deconstruct the standard and focus on the nouns and concepts (knowledge).

6.   What will students need to do? Deconstruct the standard and focus on the verbs to identify what students most be able to do.

7.   Guiding questions- Use question or sentence frames that will check students’ understanding. The STAAR Guide is a great tool for this!

8.   Activities- How will you deliver the lesson? Remember to include ESL strategies and to consider your students’ oral language proficiency levels.

9.   Vocabulary/Verbs- Identify 3-6 unfamiliar words from the standard that will need to be taught in order to understand the lesson.

o    Do you have any other planning templates that have helped you plan more effectively? 

      Please share any activities, guiding questions, formative assessments, etc that can help other teachers teach with rigor.