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Lesson Feature | Content of the Feature |
Prepare | Bulleted list for steps and materials teachers will need before teaching the lesson. Bullets vary by project, starting with project boilerplate such as references to the Teacher Support box or the standards. Other bullets may include Background provided to teachers Prior knowledge or skills students should have Vocabulary to preteach Building and programming experience Other Prior knowledge
Background knowledge assumes that teacher’s core curriculum/materials offer the first source of truth. We are telling teachers what concepts or terms are important and providing minimal specific suggestions to help them develop it with students. We are neither providing nor recommending any sources beyond the core curriculum. Use concepts and terms that will support research if teachers choose to do so, and language that will be easy to share with the target age students. All background and prerequisite knowledge should reflect the age and cognitive development of the target students. What might they need to know? Keep this narrowly focused on what students need to know for the specific learning in the lesson vs. all the background we could happily give about a topic. Any provided answers should be written in language and cognitive level of the target students for easy sharing. Be mindful of Science accuracy, and of avoiding any inaccuracy when simplifying for younger students. For example, when we say that “bees like nectar” or “plants get animals to move pollen for them,” we are suggesting that these organisms have opinions, feelings, and intentions. See Permissions and Credits for more about effective research. Vocabulary terms will not be defined. Limit to 6 essential terms, 2–4 is better. These may include terms in the lesson standard. IF we exclude a word from readability because it is domain-specific or too difficult, make sure to list it here. Building and Programming Experience: Consider and list the prior experience students need to succeed, including any Start tutorials available in the student content. Identify any specific lessons where they can acquire the necessary LEGO building or programming experience. Use resources for a particular product, such as Unit overviews, Help sections of a student app, and student tutorials to develop ideas. Refer teachers to any useful resources. Also see resources such as those listed below: Coding Blocks in SPIKE Essential Coding Concepts in SPIKE Essential Computational Thinking in SPIKE Essential.
Open-project lessons, which are the last one in a unit, have no provided models, programming stacks, or inspiration images. For prior experience, suggest a related existing lesson OR other support to help teachers and students develop the building and programming experience. Use the resources referenced above for support.
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Part A | This is the first 45-min section of the lesson. It contains the meat and most important parts of the instruction, because we know that many teachers will not use Part B. They may not have time, may need the sets for a different class, or may not find it useful. Incorporate the appropriate boilerplate, such as This lesson contains a Part A and a Part B. Both are important to access the full learning of the standard. If time is limited, review both parts to choose elements that meet your students’ needs. |
Engage | This section follows a repeating pattern to lead students into the learning experience (possibly in an App). Repeat/summarize the storyline/first activity. This consolidates information from APP Step/Cards 1–3. The story offers the narrative entry into the story and invite students to join the minifig character or solve a problem for it, frames the specific challenge students will receive, and provides opportunities for social-emotional learning as students connect to the character’s situation and wants. The characters are assigned intentionally for coverage and to align with their biographies. Stories are written at student language and cognitive level. When revising for subject-matter accuracy, readability, instructional coverage, or other minor reasons, maintain the purposes of the story, update it across its several appearances. Encourage students to THINK about the main character’s problem as prompted in the student experience. If repeating content in a student app, match it exactly. Supply answers to support teachers, writing them in student-facing complexity and language for easy sharing. We recommend that you write the student questions first and work backwards to the lesson plan. Boilerplate to distribute sets and devices
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Explore | This section follows a repeating pattern to lead students through the build/program section of the learning experience. Capture the essence of the steps/cards in the student-learning experience. Text here should match the student learning experience text as closely as possible, but you may tweak for flow or grammatical structure and to avoid repeating text that is boilerplate here. Present a specific building idea related to the challenge and the required evidence of learning. Provide any necessary support regarding LEGO elements that support the learning, e.g., an element to use as a piece of pollen that can be transferred. Include sharing routines and opportunities to reflect and then iterate. Reference and build on any sample model programs or models provided in the lesson plan. These are additional to the base model or programming ideas presented to students directly and give teachers ideas of what the solutions might look like without saying there is a right answer. Open-project lessons have no inspiration images or sample programs in the student experience. Model images AND programming stacks are created collaboratively between SME writers and model/tech designers.
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Explain | This section follows a repeating pattern to lead students through the Explain section of the student learning experience. It is often where the meat of the standards’ instruction occurs. For that reason, it appears in Part A and again in Part B, so that teachers are sure to use it no matter how they allocate time. Direction to gather students Direction to introduce sharing and explanation, followed by 1–3 bullets that closely mirror or exactly repeat the student-facing text. It’s essential that these bullets capture the intended standard learning if this is where it occurs. For example, if the standard requires students to “ask questions,” we need them to do that during explain. If it requires them to “develop a model that mimics the function of an animal in pollinating plants,” we need them explain the model’s function here to demonstrate their learning. Direction to guide sharing Boilerplate guidance for how to continue Explain in Part B if desired.
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PART B | This is the second 45-min section of the lesson. It offers the opportunity to repeat/continue Explain, which is often the meat of the standard. The other sections offer additional building opportunities to extend and continue the learning, but in theory only Evaluate is needed to complete the standard instruction. |
Explain | Can be continued or repeated from Part A if the learning requires it. |
Elaborate | This section follows a repeating pattern to lead students through an additional challenge in the student learning experience. These challenges help students extend learning beyond the lesson to related topics, aspects of the standard, or even their own lives. Includes background students may need to complete the Elaborate challenge(s); 1–3 sentences max summarize the additional challenge, using the language in the student learning experience as closely as possible. This text can be slightly rephrased here as needed, but we recommend that you write the student-facing content first and work backwards to add background needed. Keep the subject-area learning at the cognitive and language level of the target students AND closely connected to the lesson standard. Be mindful of introducing new challenges that will require a lot of additional background. Elicit sharing and learning Prompt clean up
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Evaluate | This section follows a repeating pattern to enable teachers to monitor student progress toward the required learning for the key learning objectives. Elicit discussion about student thinking and process. Often boilerplate in a lesson series. Section may include Exit Tickets, Observation Checklists, Self- or Peer Feedback, and other evaluation methods. Some content may be in PDFs and some included on the lesson page. Content in PDFs should be referenced in the lesson plan, likely with boilerplate.
For Observation Checklists, see the example below. Observation Checklist Bullet 1: Boilerplate to connect the learning objectives with the checklist we provide. Bullet 2: Boilerplate to create and share a scale for ranking the progress observed. Bullet 3: 1–3 sub-bullets that tell teachers what they should see if students meet the learning objectives. Remember that many elementary teachers will appreciate being told what an “accurate” model looks like – even if they know, we are saving them time.
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Differentiation | May differentiate the overall lesson difficulty, e.g., reading or programming, or the specific subject-area content, with a narrow focus on the learning required by the standard. In all cases, target the main lesson learning and the age/cognitive development of the target students. Simplify….. 1 (2 if necessary) bullets to describe a way to simplify the required challenge 1 learning for students who are struggling. Increase… 1 (2 if necessary) bullets to describe a way to extend or increase the learning for students who are ready.
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Extension | BRIEF (1–2 sentences max) suggestion for one or more activities to meet an ELA or Math standard OR another set of subject area curricula. When Math is included, prioritize CCSS Math to find best fit and use ELA elsewhere (because Math is harder to align). For ELA, incorporate varied learning and delivery modalities to enable access and success for all students. Even a writing activity can be delivered orally, through a video, etc. Boilerplate reference for time List the standard
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