The WIPPEA Model is a lesson planning model adapted from the work of Dr. Madeline Hunter (Master Teaching, 1982).
It serves as an instructional roadmap for instructing in a drill-and-practice format. It is awesome for content or processes that benefit from lots of repetition.
This six-step cyclical lesson planning approach has learners demonstrate mastery of concepts and content at each step before proceeding to the next step.
The WIPPEA acronym stands for:
· Warm-up
· Introduction
· Presentation
· Practice
· Evaluation
· Application
Warm-up – Assesses prior knowledge by reviewing previous materials relevant to the current lesson. This is a short activity or prompt that focuses the student’s attention before the actual lesson begins.
Introduction – Provides a broad overview of the content and concepts to be taught and focuses the student’s attention on the new lesson. Students learn more effectively when they know what they are supposed to be learning and why.
Presentation – Teaches the lesson content and concepts the students need to know. The new knowledge, process, or skill could be shared through discovery, discussion, reading, listening, observing, etc.
TIP: Usually this is the start of the learning activity described as “I do. We do. You do.”
Practice – Models the skills and provides opportunities for guided practice. Guided practice, also known as the ‘we do’ component of an explicitly taught lesson, involves the teacher working through problems with students at the same time, step-by-step while checking that they execute each step correctly.
Evaluation – Assesses each learner’s attainment of the objective.
Application – Provides activities that help learners apply their learning to new situations or contexts beyond the lesson and connect it to their own lives.
The WIPPEA Model works best for the lower tier of Bloom’s Taxonomy (i.e., remembering (knowledge), understanding (comprehension), and applying (application).
It isn’t well suited for gifted students or for open-ended learning experiences, discovery learning sessions, or exploratory educational experiences, especially ones requiring divergent thinking skills, creative problem-solving, or higher-level thinking skills.
