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Guide to Finding Lesson Plans

Printable version of this guide

The Education and Social Science Library has many materials containing lesson plans, primarily in the form of curriculum guides, in both print and microfiche formats. According to the Facts on File Dictionary of Education, a curriculum guide differs from a lesson plan in that it includes "one or more aspects of curriculum and instruction, such as philosophy, policies, aims, objectives, subject matter, resources and processes" (p.138), while a lesson plan "includes the instructional objectives and methods for a particular functional unit or period of instruction" (p.271). Many lesson plans are embedded within the curriculum guides. The following is an explanation of several ways to locate lesson plans and other teaching materials on a particular topic in the Education and Social Science Library.

Please direct all comments or requests for information to Nancy O'Brien.

Questions? Ask a librarian.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

  1. Print curriculum guides
  2. Web sources for curriculum guides and lesson plans
  3. Microfiche curriculum guides

I. Check curriculum guide section in Room 104

If you are looking for lesson plans on a topic, see the handout labeled Guide to the Curriculum Collection in the Education and Social Science Library . At the end of this packet, there is a "Call Number Guide by Subject for Curriculum Collection." Find the call number that corresponds to your subject. For example, if your subject was American history, the call number would be 973. Then you may either go to the online catalog and do a call number search to see titles within that call number range, or you may go to Room 104 and browse the call number area in the section where the curriculum guides are shelved. Curriculum guides in Room 104 are shelved separately from the textbooks and other materials. Look at the map at the end of the beige Guide to the Curriculum Collection to determine where they are located.

If you need additional assistance, please do not hesitate to ask for help at the reference desk or Ask A Librarian!.

II. Sources on the web

There are also many resources on the Internet for lesson plans and curriculum ideas and activities. Some of these include:

III. Check the microfiche collection of curriculum guides.

In the Education and Social Science Library, there are several microfiche collections of curriculum guides that may also be searched for lesson plans or other instructional materials. These are: the Kraus Curriculum Development Library, ERIC microfiche collection, and the American Primer collection.

A. Kraus Curriculum Development Library

This microfiche collection of pre-K-12 curriculum guides covers a variety of subjects, including traditional areas (social sciences, mathematics, etc.) and other areas (Bilingual/English as a second language, special education, etc.). See the Guide to Microform Collections for a summary.

To search this collection, use the Kraus Curriculum Development Library Database. Curriculum guides added to the database since 2001 are available electronically. Older curriculum guides are available on microfiche in room 104.

B. Other microfiche collections of lesson plans:

ERIC

Many ERIC documents on microfiche contain lesson plans and classroom materials. When searching the ERIC database, type your subject keyword and combine with the appropriate descriptor term(s) using the AND operator.

EXAMPLE: mathematics and (lesson plans or problem sets)

The following is a list of possible descriptor terms that may be helpful:

lesson plans
curriculum guides
state curriculum guides
instructional materials
teacher developed materials
bilingual instructional materials
study guides
teaching guides
learning modules
units of study
activity units
course content
educational games
reading games
educational resources
mathematics materials
reading materials
science materials
learning activities
class activities
activity units
resource units
problem sets

There are more descriptor terms to be found in the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors (025.36 U5874t) near the reference desk.


American Primers Collection

To search the American Primers collection, find American Primers: a Guide to the Microfiche Collection, (MFICHE428.6 Am35 index). It is located in Room 112 on top of the microfiche cabinets. The guide is divided into several sections: the reference bibliography, which lists all the microfiche according to accession number, the index by names, which lists microfiche under different authors, the index by title, and the chronological index, which lists materials according to the year that they were published.

The name and title indexes are useful for searching a particular author or title. However, the chronological index is a useful point to start when looking for materials from a specific time period, such as the 1920s. In this section, titles are listed by year along with their accession numbers. For more information about a specific title found in the name, title, or chronological index, go to the reference bibliography section, which also gives publisher information and the number of pages. The number of microfiche per title is given in a separate manual labeled "American Primers" (MFICHE428.6Am35).

Although this microfiche collection is mainly used for finding old textbooks and reading primers, it has a limited amount of teaching manuals (lesson plans, teaching methods, learning games and activities, teacher's guides to accompany primers) from the 1700's to the mid-1930s. It mostly contains introductory reading materials from that period, such as primers, spellers, and alphabet books. However, this may be a useful resource if you are searching for historical curriculum materials. See the Guide to Microform Collections for a summary.

American Primer microfiche are stored beyond the bookstacks in Room 112, in the second tall file cabinet next to the HRAF file cabinets. They are located in the third drawer from the bottom.