Planning

Shelbi is a preservice teacher interested in planning
lessons that will motivate her future students.
Who better to ask to write a post about different lesson plan models?
Here are her observations:  

Bridging English – Ch. 14

from Google

One of the GREAT Joys of being a teacher is LESSON PLANNING!!! This chapter goes into great detail on the Hows, Dos, and Don’t Dos of Lesson planning!!!!

Knowing different theories, specific methods, and general approaches are useless if a teacher does not know how to use all of this knowledge to execute an energetic and confident lesson plan.

 

An efficient lesson plan is a very essential key in a classroom.  It is an aide for the teacher to insure that their students are obtaining all of the knowledge they are supposed to know in one day. Lesson plans are especially a big help for new teachers.  It helps them enter the classroom with ease and the feeling that they are in control. Teachers normally know what to teach their students, but how to teach it to them is where the gap needs to be bridged. 

This chapter provides many different models to help teachers provide beneficial lesson plans to their students. I will list only 3 models, but the text displays many more.

Lesson Planning Models

 

·        Creative-Process Model

This model includes Pre planning, Planning, and Post planning. As the teacher, it is very important to brainstorm all of the different ideas about what you want to teach. After making a list of all of the different ideas, you would focus on the most important ideas and start building from there. Expanding on those ideas in a detailed outline form will help you keep track of the importance of the lesson while teaching.

·        Conversation-Based Model

from Google

ENGAGE, ENGAGE, and ENGAGE!!!!!!! This model is to help students get involved in debates and activities to keep their attention on the lesson.

The lesson must be of:

Quality. It must be built around episodes of High Quality.

Quantity. It requires an appropriate breadth of materials to sustain it.

Relatedness. It must have interrelated parts.

Manner. It must gear instruction toward helping students enter into the curricular conversation. (See page 430 for more insight.)

·         Objectives-Based Model

This model is a very structured based method of teaching. After you figure out what you’re teaching, you narrow it down to how much has to be taught to the students. Organize the material in the order it should be taught and point out key objectives that the students’ should really focus on.  After using different methods of activities to complete the lesson, you will always evaluate exactly what it is you expected out of the class.  You will be able to gain a sense of whether your students understood your method of teaching.

Some school districts not only require a daily lesson plan, but they may require the submission of a Unit Plan.  Unit planning consists of multiple weeks or months of lesson planning.  Page 436 goes into more detail on the use of unit planning.

The main points that stuck out to me at the end of this chapter:

·        Organize the curriculum and text that must be taught and emphasize how different lessons can be tied together to help create a unit plan.

·        Listen to students and what they think and what they wish to gain from a lesson.

·        Get to know your students to be able to plan different activities to accommodate their lifestyles and interest.

·        Individualization prompts us to plan lessons that “deepen the individual’s desire and ability to communicate.”

·        Interaction “reminds us to consciously apply our understanding of students so that instruction exploits the desire to communicate, rather than attempting to suppress it.”

·        Integration requires planning lessons that tap “the entire range of skills and forms in communicating and receiving messages.”

from Google

As a future teacher the question is not, which model am I going to use to create my lesson plans, but which models can I tie together to create an effective lesson plan. Every lesson plan model that was illustrated in this chapter can be used to teach an effective lesson plan.

Final Thoughts

This chapter is very interesting to me, but I wish it detailed the different types of engaging activities that can be used in the lesson plans. Sometimes I feel that teachers know that engaging students in activities to keep them involved and interested in the lesson is key, but they don’t know how to create different activities to do so.  When I began reading this chapter, I thought this subject would also be discussed in this chapter. Unfortunately, I was wrong!

So, what do YOU think?

The purpose of a lesson plan is to be extremely thorough; a teacher can leave it on their desk and their substitute teacher will know exactly how to execute the lesson to the class with perfection.  As future teachers, which model or models would you use to deliver your lesson plans?  How creative will you make your lesson planning?