LESSICONS

Written by: Jennifer Appel

When I was writing my book, Inspiring JOY, I really wanted to make sure that everything in the book was “practical” for teachers. We are under a tremendous amount of pressure to follow the curriculum, meet all of the standards, pass the test, teach kids SEL/Character, all while making sure their basic needs are met. This can be completely overwhelming, so I didn’t want to add one more thing for teachers to do. That is why I came up with the LESSICONS format to help all of us teach our core content and still be able to incorporate SEL/Character into our everyday classrooms.

LESSICONS help teachers to focus on the whole learner and not just academics.

If lesson plans focus only on academics it is like a coach who only teaches her players to dunk a basketball.  They might be missing key skills like dazzling dribbling, pinpoint passing, sharp shooting, or gritty rebounding.  Let’s not forget endurance, sportsmanship, or leadership.  It also assumes that everyone is capable of dunking without modifications like a smaller ball, lower rim, or trampoline to jump higher. ​

Perhaps, they’re not even showing up to the gym with proper equipment like an adequate pair of shoes or a deflated ball.  How good would our team actually be if everyone only knew how to dunk? Furthermore, some athletes don’t even want to play basketball at all--they’d opt out in favor of volleyball, football, or tennis.

LESSICONS is a system for focusing on what matters--it’s a template for achieving pedagogical joy.

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ABOUT THE Author

Jennifer Appel is an educator, coach, speaker, and writer.  She’s the Co-host of the Award Winning Culture podcast and the Co-Creator of Award Winning Culture.  In addition to being the author of: Inspiring JOY:  A Revolutionary Lesson Planning Framework for Teaching the Whole Learner she’s the author of a line of picture books focusing on social emotional learning and character education which includes, Award Winning Dog and I’m WHO.  Furthermore, Jennifer has been a contributor on two books: Teacher’s Deserve It and Expedition Science.  

Her passion for learning comes from growing up in an education driven family (4th generation) and wanting to inspire and serve others.  She is driven to create an environment where all students are able to learn and become passionate about supporting others.

Jennifer has been a teacher and coach for 22 years at Enterprise Middle School.  In 2018, EMS was awarded the ASCD Whole Child Award for the State of Washington and the Global “Class Act Award” for creating a culture of excellence through kindness, service, and empathy.  Additionally, they were selected as a finalist in the 2019 PBIS Film Festival and took top prize in the Community, Parents, and Staff category.

Jennifer has written blogs and lesson design for CharacterStrong and Teach Better.  She was selected for the Washington State Reading Cadre and spent 10 years teaching graduate and undergraduate classes at Heritage University.    

Jennifer is a part of the coveted Teach Better Speakers Network.  She presents at conferences, schools, and districts all over the country.  Topics include: Creating an Award Winning Culture, Amplifying Student Voice, Student-Led Podcasting, Infusing SEL into PBL, and Infusing Servant Leadership through PBIS.

In 2018, Jennifer helped launch a blog about School Culture and helped roll out a student-led leadership podcast called Award Winning Culture: Hosted by Wildcat Nation, which can be subscribed, listened or reviewed on iTunes Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, PodBean, and Libsyn.  

Jennifer can be contacted through email at awardwinningculture@gmail.com.  You can follow her on twitter or instagram at @jennifermappel.  Follow AWC on Twitter @awculture or @awcpodcasting on instagram @awardwinningculture.  #AwardWinningCulture #InspiringJOY