Lesson Templates
PeerLearning.net provides a variety of lesson templates that can be used to teach any subject or curriculum to students from elementary through graduate school and beyond.
Restorative Practices
Restorative practices can be applied in a variety of situations to deal with academic, social, or behavioral issues. Restorative practices, such as discussion circles, give students voice in issues that concern them. Teachers or other circle leaders provide a prompt that is meant to focus the discussion, and all participants in the circle are invited to respond one at a time. The circle can proceed in order (a structured circle), or based upon participants volunteering (an unstructured circle). The use of restorative practice circles can promote student participation and empower them to share in generating ideas and making decisions.
Support for restorative practices is provided by an on-line circle software that is separate from the instructional software.
Group Inquiry
This lesson type brings students together in a small group to work on a shared activity. All students contribute to each part of the activity, but play different roles. For example, one student may be the Manager, another the Presenter, and third the Recorder. Each student's unique role has it's own set of specific responsibilities that contribute to the success of the group. Any worksheet or learning task that is currently being used as an individual activity can be turned into a group activity with this lesson type.
Group Project
This lesson is designed for small-group activities where each student has a responsibility for one part of a learning activity, which could be a science project or math problem broken down into components, or a set of tasks that fit together to become a finished essay or presentation. The key is that the teacher provides learning materials that describe the responsibilities of each member of the group, so that each student can see clearly how they will be held accountable for their part of the activity and how their work will contribute to their group's finished product.
Peer Tutoring
Students work in pairs in a peer tutoring lesson. One student is the "player" who performs the task and the other student is the "coach" who provides support, expertise, and encouragement. Then the students switch roles - the "player" becomes the "coach" and the "coach becomes the "player". The teacher provides two sets of materials to support each student in playing their roles - initially, the "player" receives the questions and the "coach" receives the answers, and then the situation is reversed with a second set of materials. Peer tutoring is often used to review concepts before an assessment, such as math problems or vocabulary words, but can also be used to explore new material or encourage student conversations about specific topics.
Jigsaw
In a jigsaw lesson, the content or materials are divided into pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. Each student in a group is given a piece of the puzzle, and their task is to become the expert in their piece and teach the other students in their group. The number of pieces in the puzzle corresponds to the number of students in the jigsaw group. Through this process of teaching and learning with one another, each student is able to fit the puzzle together and learn all of the material. A jigsaw lesson could be used to learn a set of related science or social studies concepts, compare different mathematical techniques, or contrast famous authors or characters in literature. Anything that can be divided into pieces can be learned using a jigsaw lesson!