STEM Lesson Template
This template supports STEM teachers to create lessons that build science practice and STEM inquiry skills in alignment with state and national science standards, and that address the Common Core literacy shifts around close reading and building textual evidence. Select any starting point from the steps below to begin building your lesson. When your lesson is ready, delete the instructions before you publish it.
1. Lesson Abstract
Briefly summarize your lesson and its overall teaching and learning objectives, for future users of the lesson. Indicate the time span of the lesson as you envision it, and any resources needed.
2. Lesson Themes
To
Do
Collaboratively identify 1-2 lesson
themes that put students in the position of practicing scientific inquiry,
constructing arguments, and building textual evidence. Enter your lesson themes below.
3. Essential Questions
To Do
Collaboratively
write a unifying, essential question for your lesson that is tied to your
identified lesson themes. List your unifying
essential question below.
To
Do
Identify additional supporting questions for your lesson that are specific
to the STEM subject (or subjects) addressed. List your questions below.
4. Standards Addressed
Choose Your Next Generation Science Standards
To Do
Write the Next Generation Science Standards that are addressed in this lesson.
5. Learning Objectives
To Do
Tie your learning objectives to the
specific standards you want to address by answering: What must the student know and
be able to do to meet the content standard? Enter
your learning objectives below.
To
Do
If working
across STEM subjects, write the learning objectives that are specific to each
discipline, and enter them below.
Related Resources
Tips for Writing Student Learning Outcomes - IUPUI
6. Text Set
Choose an Anchor Text
An anchor text is the central text around which a lesson or unit is built. This may be, for example, a narrative piece, a data set, or an image. Students across disciplines will engage with this anchor text throughout the lesson or unit, using it as base upon which to build skills and knowledge. A few simple guidelines for selecting anchor texts include:
- Look for texts that are more general, and that are relevant and usable across disciplines
- Look for texts that help your students reach the learning goals you want to emphasize
- Look for texts that are meaningful, rich and worthy of study
- Choose appropriately challenging texts
Visit a Primary Source Collection to browse for possible anchor or supporting texts.
To Do
Choose 1 anchor text for each lesson or
set of lessons you would like to create. Enter the name of the anchor text and
its URL below:
Title of Anchor Text:
URL of Anchor Text:
Choose Supporting Texts
Supporting texts should help students to successfully move through the learning objectives for your lesson, and can help to build the knowledge necessary to access the anchor text in your lesson. They can be framing texts, background texts, or texts that complement your anchor text.
To Do
Choose
a series of supporting texts, based on your analysis above, that will help your
students master the necessary concepts, skills and knowledge needed to meet the
lesson's learning goals.
- Consider learning objectives that will be addressed through your anchor text, but that you may want to strengthen through supporting texts.
- Consider background concepts that students will need to master in order to access the anchor text, and that supporting texts can help your students to acquire.
- Consider texts that are typical for your discipline (e.g., data sets for science).
For each STEM subject addressed, add the name of your supporting texts and their URLs below.
| STEM Subject | Title of Supporting Text | URL of Supporting Texts |
Related Resources
Creating Text Sets for Whole-Class Instruction
Implementing the CCSS for Mathematics: CCSS Curriculum Materials Analysis Tools
Selecting Texts for Teaching and Assessing
Build & Organize the Text Set
Your text set should provide opportunities for students to build knowledge about a topic or subject through analysis of a coherent selection of strategically sequenced, discipline-specific texts.
To Do
Consider
how the anchor text and the supporting texts should be sequenced within the
lesson to develop necessary skills. In the table below, organize your texts
into a sequence that represents how you want to develop students’ knowledge in
line with your identified learning objectives. Consider how the anchor text, which is the most complex and challenging of your text, will be referred back to repeatedly through the lesson by students to scaffold their learning.
| Text Sequence for Lesson/Unit | Learning Objectives |
| 1. | |
| 2. | |
| 3. | |
| 4. | |
| 5. | |
| 6. | |
| 7. | |
| 8. | |
| 9. | |
| 10. | |
7. Student Tasks
To Do
Identify how you will
direct learning through questions and inquiry, and how these questions relate
to your team's overall essential question(s) that unifies learning across texts
and disciplines. Your questions should facilitate rich and rigorous evidence-based
discussions and writing about texts through a sequence of specific,
thought-provoking questions. Determine your text-dependent questions and enter
them below.
To Do
Develop your formative
assessment strategy. Consider how and to what extent your methods of formative
assessment elicit direct, observable evidence of student learning in targeted
CCSS skill areas. Enter your formative assessment strategy below.
Related Resources
Short Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions
Complete Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions
Checklist for Evaluation Question Quality
LDC Template Task Collection 2.0
Improving Student Achievement in Mathematics Through Formative Assessment in Instruction
8. Culminating Learning Experience
To Do
Develop your summative
tasks with your team, and answer: How will the culminating tasks provide for
summative assessment of the standards targeted and the skills and knowledge
developed during the lesson? Enter your summative assessment(s) below.
Related Resources
Graphic Organizer Assessment Rubric
ASCD Common Core: Assessment Shifts
Selecting Texts for Teaching and Assessing
9. Pre-Requisite Learning
To Do
Collaboratively with your
team, make a list of the background knowledge and prerequisite skills that your
students will need to succeed in the lesson/unit. Enter your list below.
To Do
Use the following guiding
questions to develop your pre-assessment approach with your teaching team:
- How might students’ background and skills be pre-assessed to determine their readiness for learning?
- How will the pre-assessment reveal gaps in students’ knowledge in alignment with our selected standards and learning objectives?
- How will we use pre assessment data to revise our teaching and challenge students at an appropriate level?
Enter your pre-assessment approach below.
Related Resources
10. Organization of Instructional Activities
To Do
Determine with your team
the sequence of your instructional activities. Use the following, guiding
questions:
- How should major instructional activities be sequenced to provide a coherent progression of learning?
- How are learning activities designed and sequenced to develop students’ literacy and emphasize the key areas of focus (shifts) in instruction?
- In what ways does the instructional sequence prepare students for the summative assessment?
List your instructional activities below, organized sequentially. Add notes about length of time for each activity, or for the lesson overall, as well as the preparation and materials needed for each activity. Consider adding notes about specific strategies for diverse learners including those who are ELL, have disabilities, or read well below (or above) the grade level text band.