3.2 Components of the Instructional Sequence

The instructional sequence is divided into three sections:

• Introduction, Motivation, Introduce Academic Language
  
• Lesson Tasks, including Assessment
  
• Closure and Extensions.

Introduction and Motivation

Focus the lesson time with motivation.  Begin with an appropriate, enticing hook or attention-getter, or link your learning to a current topic or situation well known to students, to stimulate interest and background knowledge.  Students may come into a lesson distracted by many things, so is important for you to capture their attention and motivate them to engage in the lesson. Remember, the brain loves novelty. A brief, novel, interesting activity could/should be used to focus students’ attention and prepare them for the lesson. Sometimes a brief review of material from a previous lesson is used. At other times a story is shared that leads to the content to be learned. A pre-assessment activity may be used at this point as well.  The goal of the Introduction and Motivation of the lesson is to have learners become excited for the lesson and motivated to learn!  Create a "hook" for them to engage in learning new concepts.

In this phase of the instructional sequence, you will clearly communicate the learning objective for your learners (by writing this on the board, a slide and also read it out loud - make sure learners know what they are working towards with this statement, and refer to it to help them refocus if needed). This can be the "I CAN" Statement written in developmentally appropriate - learner friendly language.   Communicate the value of the lesson objective and why it may be “important, useful, and relevant to their present and/or future life situations” (Hunter, 1994, p. 94).  Learners who see the authentic application of this knowledge or skill to real-life situations will be more fully engaged in the learning process.

While motivating your learners and stating the objective you are eliciting prior knowledge related to the lesson. Additionally, you will introduce academic language that will be used throughout the lesson.

Lesson Tasks, including Assessment

In this section of the instructional sequence, you will identify the sequence of the specific activities you have planned in order to introduce students to content and to help them meet the lesson objective. Take into account alignment, scaffolding, and monitoring, as described in the sections above, when planning this sequence. Plan for modeling throughout the enacted lesson.  Think through the "I do"  "We do" and "You do" discussion or activities to reinforce the objective.  Be sure to plan for intellectual engagement with content, opportunities for students to use and apply academic language and also for interaction with others around the content.

Consider how you will include the following:

• provide input on content and process,
• model and share examples,
• use effective questioning strategies and check for understanding,
• guide students practice,
• provide students with opportunities to use academic language, and
• provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their learning through an assessment activity and leave adequate time or assign for later.
  

All of the informal and formal assessments need to be aligned with your objective for this lesson.

Closure and Extensions

Each lesson needs a well-planned closure.  Plan at least 3-5 minutes for closure at the end of your lesson.  This takes practice.  Monitor and pace your teaching and independent practice time to make room for closure.  Being efficient with time in your lesson allows for a strong closure.  This can enhance the overall learning more than "letting them work a little longer" in a less-focused way.  During closure you will also build a bridge to the next lesson for this subject area. Think about how tomorrow’s lesson will build on what was studied in this lesson.  Summarizing and closing well sets up a successful introduction to the next lesson in this curricular sequence.

Closure gives time for students to reflect, summarize and re-state or review the objective or I CAN statement.  It also reinforces the lesson objective and provides one more brief moment for learning to happen as the summary of the lesson is stated by the learners - it can move the learning that took place in the enacted lesson into the long-term memory.  Closure is the time to reinforce how this knowledge or these skills apply to authentic experiences in life, outside the classroom.  It helps students to make the connections to self, to others, to the outside world, linking the lesson to their schema.

Closure is NOT telling students to close their books and put them away or to line up to go to the library together.  Closure is NOT reviewing the homework.  Closure is also more than just stating a list of the activities students engaged in throughout the lesson.  It's asking WHY DID WE DO THIS?  HOW DOES IT CONNECT TO REAL LIFE?  WHAT QUESTIONS DOES IT RAISE?  Closure is a time to assist students in summarizing, evaluating, analyzing, or reflecting on important information about concepts, content, or processes studied within the lesson.  Motivating students to engage in closure is important to provide a time for deep thinking.  Some teachers use exit slips as tools to capture what the students have learned and remember about the main concepts being taught.  Some teachers require a "what's next" question around the content/skill.  

Extensions should also be included in your planning.  Extending the objective and the lesson content for students who have met the lesson objective or finished their work helps you to keep them engaged and go further.  The early finishers need a focused way to keep the synergy and learning going beyond what they have accomplished.   Note:  Extensions are not “busy work” or even “extra work”.  Instead, extensions are activities that “extend” the lesson objective, helping students to engage at a deeper level. Extension activities may involve application of content related to the objective in new contexts. You may also want to include activities that can be done at home through a planned home-school extension activity.  There are ways to extend the learning by asking learners to plan a small task for the next time this content is taught (ex: bringing in a sample, posing a larger question to the class connected to the topic, or exploring a new question that arose during the lesson).