I planned a lesson using two outstanding—and free—teacher-friendly websites that perfectly complement each other. PowerUp What Works offers standards-aligned, evidence-based practices in English Language Arts and Math, with suggested technology tools. OpenEd provides access to thousands of vetted videos to enhance best practices.  Using this abundance of riches, here’s my plan.

1. Using OpenEd’s Lesson Planning Tool, I began by adding four notes to set my instructional context:

2. Next, I selected an important practice from the PowerUp Instructional Strategy Guide; that is, to explicitly identify the six different types of context clues.  I chose three, relevant videos to reinforce instruction.

3. Next I plan to give students opportunities for practice (another practice recommended by PowerUp).  Once again, a series of OpenEd videos will support students working in pairs.

4.  I added two formative assessments resources to determine how to improve teaching and learning (a PowerUp practice).

Using the results of my assessment, I will later assign additional resources, carefully selected to meet individual student needs.

I hope my lesson planning serves as a model for you. Please share how you combined PowerUp and OpenEd to plan and implement your lessons.