Design Proposal: Part 1 - Lesson Description

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You will describe your lesson within the Lesson Description as described within Part 1 of the Design Guide. Please open your copy of the Design Guide, and turn your attention to Part 1: Lesson Description Links to an external site.. As noted on the OER Commons website Links to an external site., providing descriptive information about your lesson greatly increases its discoverability by users looking for open educational resources. The OER Commons content management system uses the descriptive information you include to match relevant resources to a user's search for materials. Since this section acts as our end users’ first glimpse into the contents of your lesson, it is critical that you provide accurate and thorough details to inform their search. The following offers guidance for completing the sections within the Lesson Description to provide an effective lesson overview.

Title: What’s in a Name?

The first section of the lesson over asks you to list the lesson title. Though this may seem like a straightforward step, please keep a few important considerations in mind as you create a lesson title:

How well does the title reflect the content and skills this lesson addresses?
Does the lesson title use keywords that will improve its likelihood of being listed in searches on this topic?
Have you chosen an appropriate lesson context for adult learners?

The first two considerations above are closely related: be sure that the title reflects what you’re teaching and uses words to help others find it. For example, imagine you are making a lesson about writing effective concluding statements (e.g., College and Career Readiness Standards for Grade Level B, English Language Arts / Literacy, Writing strand, Anchor Standard 1, Supporting Standard d). You could choose a catchy title, such as “Wrap-Up Your Writing in Style!” However, this title does not use key words that effectively communicate the skill (concluding statements) or context of the lesson. Instead, try something like this: “Creating Effective Concluding Statements for Persuasive Essays.” If an Adult Education instructor searches for lessons related to conclusions or concluding statements, the second lesson title is much more searchable.

The third consideration above asks that you think about the context within which to frame your lesson. In addition to selecting a set of skills to teach adult learners, you’ll also be selecting the context in which to frame those skills. We’ll discuss this more in future sections, but for now, start thinking about selecting a context that speaks to the life experiences, varied interests, and needs.

APA guidelines recommend that titles should be fewer than 12 words and should not contain abbreviations or words that do not serve a purpose. While you are not expected to follow APA formatting for this project, do try to use these suggestions to develop a title that is succinct and which efficiently and effectively communicates the topic of the lesson to others.

Remember, at this stage feel free to work through the design document pieces out of order. You may find it easier to revisit this section after crafting the first draft of your lesson so that you have some time to reflect on an appropriate title.

Abstract

The abstract should be a short written summary of your lesson to help others find your lesson during a search. Target a very brief paragraph. It is very helpful to carefully craft a short “elevator pitch” statement that describes your lesson. As covered in Module 1 of the course, define your learner audience. As you did in Module 2 of the course, describe the purpose and goal of your lesson. Not only does this solidify the goal in your mind as the designer, but it will also help instructors and learners using your lesson to decide quickly if the lesson will meet their needs.

In contrast to the learning outcomes and objectives that you will cover later, the abstract broadly defines what the learner should be able to achieve when the lesson is complete. In other words, what skills and knowledge do you want the participants to learn as a result of the lesson? Keep in mind you are designing a lesson that will take the learner approximately 15-30 minutes to complete. Think of the abstract as a target to be reached or achieved.

It helps to refer back to this abstract as you are designing the lesson. If you find you are straying from this purpose, it is a signal to either re-evaluate your purpose, or re-evaluate your design. In crafting your purpose statement, make sure you are contemplating the following questions:

What is the topic of the lesson?
Who is the target learner audience?
Why are the learners taking this course, and how will the learners benefit from taking your instruction?
What will be covered in this lesson?

Learner Audience / Primary Users

This section should describe the intended learner audience / primary users for this lesson. As we have mentioned several times during the course, it is important to develop a clear conception of your audience before you begin your design, and work toward refining that conception as you move through the design process. As we covered in Module 1, it is critical to begin the design process by considering who your learners are, the contexts in which they’re learning, and their goals. While you will never actually meet the adult learners for whom you’re designing this instruction, it is still possible and necessary to develop your own conception of the learners as a diverse group of people with rich histories, including varied life and work experiences. It is important that your instruction allows your learners to draw on their own histories to make the instruction meaningful and relevant. Always keep your primary users in in mind as you craft your Design Proposal. We have shared personas to consider, but it is up to you as the designer to internalize this, and to describe your own conception of the instructors and learners as people who will be using your instruction.

Educational Use

The education use should include “Curriculum/Instruction”. Additional educational uses can be added, if applicable. OER Commons offers the following additional options: Assessment, Professional Development, Informal Education, Other.

Standards Alignment

Level: Adult Education
Grade Level: [Type CCRS Grade Level A, B, C, D, or E]
Subject: [Type CCRS Subject Area of your lesson, either English Language Arts / Literacy or Mathematics]
Domain or Strand: [Type the CCRS Domain or Strand information]

Domain: If you want to design a Math lesson, what is the domain?
Strand: If you want to design an English Language Arts / Literacy lesson, what is the:

Strand (e.g., Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, or Language), and
Sub-strand if you chose Reading and Writing (e.g., Reading of Informational Text, Literature, History/Social Studies Text, or Scientific and Technical text, or Writing of History/Social Studies, or Scientific and Technical subjects)?

Standard Description: [Type the description(s) for the specific standard(s) and supporting standard(s) that align with your lesson as they appear in the College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education document. Download College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education document.

A key goal of this design project is to help prepare adult learners for college and career readiness, and to pass high school equivalency tests. Therefore, it is imperative that your instruction aligns with the College and Career Readiness Standards Download College and Career Readiness Standards

(CCRS) anchor and supporting standards. This means the scope and specific objectives of this unit must align with these standards.

This section of the Design Guide describes the specific grade level, subject, and educational standards your lesson will address. The grade level, subject, and educational standard you chose for your instruction should based on your knowledge, interest, and experience with the subject matter and designing lesson materials. As you complete this section, look back at the material from Module 2: Aligning Your Lesson to Educational Standards, and review the College and Career Readiness Standards report to choose the anchor standard and supporting standard(s) for your lesson.

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Language

The selected language should include “English”. Include additional language(s), if applicable.

Material Type

The selected material type should include “Instructional Material”. Additional material types can be added, if applicable. OER Commons offers the following additional options: Activities and Labs Assessments, Audio Lectures, Case Study, Data, Full Course, Games, Homework and Assignments, Images and Illustrations, Interactive, Lecture Notes, Lesson Plans, Module, Primary Source, Readings Reference, Resource Review, Simulations, Specimen, Student Guide, Syllabi, Teaching and Learning Strategies, Textbooks, Unit of Study, Video Lectures, Other.

Learning Goals

As covered in Module 2 of the course, an important part of the process of narrowing your lesson’s focus is defining (and likely continuously refining) the purpose and goals of your lesson. In contrast to the learning outcomes and objectives that we will cover later, the lesson goals broadly define what the learner should be able to achieve when the lesson is complete. In other words, what skills and knowledge do you want your participants to learn as a result of the lesson? Again, keep in mind you are designing a lesson that will take the learner approximately 15-30 minutes to complete. Think of the purpose and lesson goals as a target to be reached or achieved.

Keywords

Designers for Learning
Adult Education
[Type list of additional keywords here.]

As described on the OER Commons website, providing descriptive information about your lesson such as keywords greatly increases its discoverability, because their system uses these descriptors to find relevant resources when users search for materials. To help track resources created for this course, please include “Designers for Learning”, “Adult Education”, and additional words or short phrases to help define the content of the lesson.

Time Required for Lesson

The time required for lesson provides the instructor an estimate of the time required for a learner at the intended level to complete all activities within the lesson. Our goal for lessons in the Adult Learning Zone is to keep the timeline of each lesson to 30 minutes or less. This allows the instructor to adapt and adjust the resources as needed, and also ensures that they can cover the lesson in a single session with learners. In order to meet this restriction, you’ll need to focus your lesson on one or two key objectives and skills, and then determine how long each lesson activity will take.

In her article titled Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site., Milkova offers the following suggestions for determining a realistic timeline for a lesson:

Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each
When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take
Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points
Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left

Prior Knowledge

The prior knowledge summary should tell the instructor what skills and knowledge the learner must have in order to start the lesson.

Required Resources

The required resources summary should tell the instructor what resources are needed in order for learners to complete the lesson, and what advance preparation is needed. List any types of software, hardware, print materials, or other objects that may be necessary during learning. This may include as access to a computer, presentation software, a projector for the instructor, a printed version of worksheets or handouts for the learners, or Internet access. This list will evolve as you move from the Design Proposal to the development of your prototype and final deliverable. Take nothing for granted in this section. You will likely need to revisit this section after you have drafted your Design Proposal and prototype to ensure you’ve listed all materials and accounted for any changes you may have made in the plan during the design process.

Lesson Author & License

List the names of the author(s) of this lesson, and specify the Creative Commons license. To ensure the broadest use of your work, we request that you select a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license (Links to an external site.).

When you are ready to apply a license to your lesson, consider using the Creative Commons License Builder (Links to an external site.) to ensure your selection matches your intent. In addition, if your final project is a remix, compilation, or derivative of other works, and contains a variety of CC licensed materials, keep track of the authors, sources, and licenses. If you have questions or comments about selecting a Creative Commons license for your project or how to remix resources of different license types, refer back to Module 2 of the course, and/or Ask a Subject Matter Expert for ideas on how to proceed.