Learning Map Scavenger Hunt essay from ITL 608 Week 1.

1. Week One Assignment: Learning Map
Scavenger Hunt
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Austin Fox
ITL 608: Design and Process of Teaching
National University

2. Week One Assignment: Learning Map
Scavenger Hunt
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After reviewing the Learning Map information and the reading assignments about
planning for learning, I feel that all three of these lesson plans are examples of effective
instructional planning. However, all of the lesson plans have significant differences. The
common characteristics between the plans is that they all make use of the six elements from the
Learning Map.
The first lesson plan that I reviewed is the Lesson Plan Attack on Pearl Harbor. I feel that
this lesson plan has clearly defined goals and objectives as well as good structure. I believe that
this lesson plan has well-defined objectives because at the beginning of the plan, there is a
section entitled “objectives” that describes what the students will be doing. This makes the plan
clear from the very beginning, and there is no confusion after that as to what the objectives are.
What I believe to be the goals of the lesson plan are in a section entitled “standards”. These
standards are “Students will understand how to use primary-source material for research and
development of nonfiction material. This will enhance their understandings of varying
viewpoints” (1), and “Students will produce a response to literature” (1). I interpret these as
either “goals” or “learning outcomes” and I feel that they are well-presented in this plan. I really
like the structure of this lesson plan because it is written in a very straightforward way and
explains each step of the lesson in detail. As a future Social Science teacher, I feel that I could
benefit from the planning structure found in this lesson. One criticism that I have of this plan is
that it is very focused on what the students will be doing, but could use more detail regarding

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Scavenger Hunt
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instructional strategies for the teacher. Having some of this in the plan would be very helpful. I
would say that overall this plan will succeed in achieving the stated outcomes.
The second lesson plan that I reviewed is the one entitled Get the GIST: A Summarizing
Strategy for Any Content Area. The first thing that I notice after reviewing this plan is that unlike
the previous plan, this one is very focused on what the teacher will be doing. Based on the six
elements from the Learning Map, I would say that this plan makes significant use of teacher
characteristics as well as the elements of Instruction and Management. The plan makes use of
instruction and management because it is very “teacher-focused” and provides very direct
instruction for the teacher. I also appreciate that this lesson plan, like the first one I reviewed, has
very clearly defined objectives. The objectives for this plan are “Students will learn and practice
the gist summarizing strategy” (2) and “Students will apply the gist to content area-reading
assignments” (2). These objectives are very straightforward and any teacher who reviews the
plan will avoid any confusion regarding student objectives. Overall I feel like this lesson plan
will effectively achieve the stated outcomes. It provides very detailed teacher-instruction which
is certainly helpful for the effectiveness of the plan, but it could also use some work in a few
areas to be even more effective. As a criticism, I feel that this lesson plan could be a little more
student-centered as it seems to have a lack of that. I would suggest making this modification to
the teacher who authored the plan. As far as the structure of the plan, I believe that it makes use
of an efficient and well-defined structure and is simple and easy to understand for other teachers.

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Scavenger Hunt
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The third and final lesson plan that I reviewed is the one entitled 5th Grade Literacy
learning plan example. This lesson plan is very interesting. The structure is completely different
from the other two lesson plans, and I personally think it’s a rather complicated and confusing
structure for a lesson plan. The information presented in the plan however, is very detailed and
makes use of all six of the Learning Map elements. In addition, this lesson plan has very clearly
defined objectives and learning goals, and is both student-centered and teacher-focused. The
learning goals/objectives of this plan are: “students will be able to differentiate between a root
and an afix” (3), “students will be able to choose and use reliable reference materials both online
and print to determine meaning and find alternatives” (3), and “students will use their knowledge
of Greek and Latin roots and afixes to determine the meaning of unknown words” (3). These
goals/objectives are then explained further in the next column, where it describes what to
explicitly teach. I feel that this plan is slightly less effective than the other two, primarily due to
the complex structure of the lesson plan. This is my main criticism of this plan. If it were
structured in a more efficient and simple way, it would be easier to understand all of the
important and detailed information that it contains. I would suggest that the teacher who
authored this plan modify the structure of it and make it simpler for others to understand.
All three of these plans make significant use of the elements from the Learning Map. The
plans are also similar in that all three of them provide detailed explanations of what is expected
of the students. However, the first plan lacks detailed explanation of what is expected of the
teacher. The first two plans I reviewed have a very similar structure, while the third needs some

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Scavenger Hunt
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work on the structure. Overall, I believe that all three of these plans will be effective in
achieving the desired students outcomes.

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Scavenger Hunt
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References
1. Lesson Plan Attack on Pearl Harbor
2. Get the GIST: A Summarizing Strategy for Any Content Area
3. 5th Grade Literacy learning plan example