Chapter 6

Preparing an Instructional Plan...

 

Lesson Planning is not the simple task of scribbling down notes about the days planned events. It is a thoughtfully, prepared outline of a teacher's strategies to bring a class to individual goals as well as class goals. The plan is vital to keeping the teacher and students on track and gathering data. The components to a successful unit are:

• Selecting the topic/theme
• Deciding on a goal
• Creating an overview
• Selecting educational objectives
• Detailed instructional procedure
• introductory activities
• developmental activities
• culminating activities
• Plan PRE-assessments/POST-assessments
• Gather materials

In addition, time is a crucial factor to plan. Although the unit itself can be any duration, the daily time planning is important. Teacher needs to have anchor activities to fill in down time and make the best use of all teachable moments.


     The mode of delivery is another decision to be made. Direct and indirect instruction really aren't choices. They are both viable and necessary instruction techniques that when utilized appropriately act as compliments to one another. It is true, direct instruction should never be the bulk of teaching but it has a place....however small it has become. Indirect instruction is so different from direct instruction.

The vast amount of resources and unlimited creativity that can be used it exciting; it is the classroom experience that provides dense learning experiences for all types of learners (tactile, kinesthetic, auditory & visual).
There are many different aspects of the child learner an educator needs to decise what and where their beliefs lie:

• Learning Styles-
• imaginative
• analytic
• dynamic
• Three Phase Learning Cycle-
• exploratory/hands on
• inventive/concept development
• expansion/application
• 4MAT
• Learning Capacities-
• bodily/kinesthetic
• existentialist
• interpersonal
• intrapersonal
• logical/mathematical
• musical/rhythmic
• naturalist
• verbal/linguistic
• visual/spatial

Gone are the days of the teacher talking and the kids sitting passively and listening to facts that will be memorized.

Teacher's need to plan for each student, taking into account their unique talents and abilities. This requires knowledgeable and dedicated teacher's who don't live inside the box.

 

     The educator that plans gives themselves the gift of reflection. It is so important to look back and reflect and re-evaluate every lesson. Whether you have taught the lesson one time or 25 times, it can never be the same plan or outcome twice. The children are different, the class dynamic is different, and every year the teacher should evolve and be different.