The Texas Adult Education Content Standards & Benchmarks

Lesson Planning with Content Standards

Lesson plans are commonly used by teachers to organize their lessons around three questions: “What will I teach?”; “How will I teach it?”; and “How will I know my students have learned what I taught?” However, an overriding framework is necessary for separate lesson plans to form a cohesive and comprehensive instructional program. One of the primary reasons for developing the Texas Adult Education Content Standards and Benchmarks for ABE/ASE and ESL Learners was to provide just such a framework.

The following is a brief exploration of the steps involved in creating a standards-based lesson plan. It is organized around the lesson plan template printed in Version 1.0 of the Implementation Guide. The essential components of an actual lesson follows the exploration.

Pre-Planning:

What do I want to teach?
The content standards and benchmarks provide a reference point from which to answer this question because they are organized and leveled containing descriptions of what students should know and be able to do as a result of instruction within the specific content area. This outline of skills (benchmarks) students need to master the level gives the teacher a clear instructional path.

The standards-based lesson planning process, however, begins with an assessment of learners’ needs and goals. This direct involvement of students in the instructional planning process reflects the relationship between the Texas content standards and benchmarks and Equipped for the Future (EFF).

Early on, it was decided that the content standards and benchmarks would be research-based and that this research would include data collected from Texas adult learners about their educational goals and needs. Since the data gathered aligned with the 16 EFF content standards developed from the needs and goals voiced by over 1,500 adult learners, the decision was made to adopt five of the EFF content standards as the Texas adult content standards. Thus, student needs are the foundation upon which the content standards and benchmarks were built.

What standard? What benchmarks?
To answer these questions, ask “What standard(s) and benchmarks will help the learners develop the skills they need and want?” Generally, using only two or three benchmarks can help insure a clearly focused lesson.

What is the objective(s)?
A well-articulated objective(s) insures that your lesson teaches exactly what you want it to teach. The objective should be clearly linked to student goals, the standard and benchmarks, and should be achievable and measurable. It should differ from the learning activities.

What is the context of the lesson?
Family, work, or community? This question again reflects the influence of EFF.

Develop a comprehensive materials list and estimate preparation and completion times.

Designing the lesson plan:

The following are the five steps of a standards-based lesson plan:

1. Introduce the lesson: Create interest in the lesson. Some possible ways to do this are reviewing previously learned material or by exploring what the students know about the skill that will be taught.
2. Teach the lesson: After outlining the benchmarks to identify necessary skills (the nouns and verbs), develop learning activities to teach the skills. Be sure they are meaningfully linked to the learners’ goals and needs.
3. Practice the lesson: Emphasizing practice over presentation results in a more effective lesson. Practice should be included throughout the learning activities so learners can monitor their own progress.
4. Assess the lesson: The assessment should be observable and should specifically measure whether the objective(s) were reached. The benchmark examples of proficient performance can be used.
5. Apply the lesson to the real world: Design an activity that bridges the lesson to the learners’ lives outside of the classroom.

A Texas Adult Education Standards and Benchmarks Lesson:

The following are the essential components of actual lessons developed with the Texas Adult Education Standards and Benchmarks.

Setting: Basic Beginning and Low Intermediate ABE (NRS levels 2 and 3). Ms. Crawford wanted to use the TAES to develop a writing lesson plan.

Needs assessment: Learners were asked about their writing goals and needs. One student, a security guard, wanted to improve the spelling and structure of his incident reports. Class agreed learning this skill could help them make emergency calls, file police reports, and complete insurance claim forms.

Title: Writing an Incident Report

Context: Work

Standard: ABE/ASE Write to Convey Ideas in Writing
Benchmarks: 2.2, 2.3, 3.2

Objectives: To correctly use vocabulary common to incident reports and to properly complete an incident reporting form.

Materials: Blank incident reports (provided by student), sequencing and 5 Ws graphic organizers, vocabulary bingo cards, blank index cards, and markers.

She estimated 30 minutes of prep time and six hours to complete her lesson.

Introduce the lesson: Class discussion about “incidents” they have been involved in or observed and brainstorm about common “incident” vocabulary.

Teach the lesson: Included activities to teach the 5 Ws, event sequencing, and vocabulary common to incident reports. Activities built upon one another, with each using the skills learned previously.

Practice the lesson: In addition to practicing spelling, students role played making and receiving emergency phone calls, acted as witness and police officers at an accident scene, and completed parts of a security incident report.

Assess the lesson: Students were given a scenario and completed an incident report correctly describing the incident.

Apply the lesson to the real world: The context of the learning and practice activities was the real-world.

Conclusion
As seen, the content standards and benchmarks clearly achieve its goal of giving teachers an organized and leveled instructional framework to guide their lesson planning process. In addition, by starting with learner needs and goals, it results in a skills-based lesson relevant to the lives of the adults in our classrooms.

Melanie Mayeaux has been an adult educator for nine years. She is a Standards Specialist and was a member of the writing team. Melanie has a Masters of Education and currently teaches ABE at Harris County Department of Education in Houston.