Week+4



Brent Plowright 28/03/2009 Wiki - Week 4

Today we had our lecture on the all important, highly anticipated lesson plan. Yes this is the one we have all been waiting for, and fair enough as nearly all of our major assignments revolve around them, and rightfully so. Although the necessity for adequately planning out a lesson is pretty obvious, I thought I’d just go over a few of the reasons we require a lesson plan, the sections of the lesson plan document and their practical relevance to teaching, and for that matter, learning.

So why do we need a lesson plan. Well it can be summed up pretty well by a quote Pete had within his presentation, that being “Teachers who fail to plan, plan to fail.” Planning is so crucial not only for the teacher to fill in the day without losing focus, but for the students’ learning and development. A well planned lesson not only plans out your day but documents the process of teaching and learning that has taken place over time. It gives the teacher a chance to reflect on their lesson. What went well? What worked? What didn’t work? Why did it or didn’t work?

So let’s discuss each section of the lesson plan:


 * 1) Learning Purpose: ** This is where we explain why we are teaching the specific topic and what we intend the students will learn from the activity. Some text can be used straight from VELS here if you wish.


 * 2) VELS Reference: ** As VELS is the document by which our teaching is governed, it is essential we identify the VELS references applicable to this lesson. As there is no copyright protection on VELS documentation, text can be lifted straight from VELS documentation here. It is however not recommended whole slabs are copied. In saying that, interdisciplinary studies may require a more text than a single discipline activity would.


 * 3) Engagement: ** Here we get straight how we will introduce the topic and arouse the children’s’ interest? It should be explained to the students exactly what the activity is intended to teach them and accomplish.


 * 4) ** **Procedure: Setting out the procedure the lesson will employ by** systematically presenting each step in the lesson will help us as teachers to ensure the flow of activity is clearly linked, including transitions (e.g. from floor to tables)..The number of this step will vary with each lesson depending on the activities that are to be participated in, the group set up and number of transitions utilised. We must clearly identify the learning activities that the students will undertake.


 * 5) Pulling it together: By pulling together it is meant that we should document exactly how ** we intend to bring the lesson to a close and open the way for ongoing learning. This is a critical step and provides for summing up and pulling together the ideas explored in the lesson. This reiterates to the students the purpose for the lesson as stated in our engagement portion of the lesson and allows students to query and ask questions about the lesson. I believe that asking any questions about things that are unclear is extremely important and can also help out those students that are too shy to do so themselves.


 * 6) Group Set Up: ** It is important that we list the group set up of each section of the lesson and each activity. We can also analyse if we have not been using one kind of group set up enough by looking back over our past lesson plans. Although this may not necessarily be a bad thing it will vary from class to class as different types of learners’ learning is facilitated best by different strategies, and therefore often group structure.


 * 7) Materials: ** We create a list of teaching materials needed for each phase of the lesson. We should also attach samples of materials to be given to the students.


 * 8) Observations of students’ learning: ** We must have set in our minds the methods we will use to observe students’ learning in this lesson. As we were told in our tutorial, this is quite often one of the more difficult sections for teachers to apply. It is important to note that we do not necessarily need to observe the whole class for every lesson. We may only observe a small group of students and note whether they seem to have understood and/or succeeded in the task set. Perhaps one lesson you can concentrate on you more accelerated learners to ensure they have a strong understanding of the subject material and in the next lesson dealing with the same or a similar learning purpose you can then concentrate on other students without having to worry to much about observing the other accelerated learners, keeping in mind some extra work may need to be set to extend those more accelerated learners.


 * 9) Teacher’s Resources: ** List the resources the teacher will need. Although this is similar to the materials section, references to teaching materials should be made here also.


 * 10) Catering for inclusion: ** It’s important we identify ways in which we will cater for all students in the class, as nearly every class will have students that are ahead or behind in their learning development. So how will we ensure all students are involved and learn from the activity? It is essential we identify these before the lesson begins.


 * 11) Your reflection: ** After our lessons, reflection is one of the most important tools we have as teachers to improve upon ourselves as teachers and our lessons. Through a written reflection we have a chance to identify the pedagogical stance we take during the lesson and reflect on what went well and why, what was difficult and why, how engaged the students were and what we did to encourage this or what could we have done to encourage this more, what else we could have done to improve the students’ learning, how responsive we were able to be to the students and what WE learnt.

. So that’s a basic run down of the different sections of the lesson plan we were given. What do we all think? Are there any particular sections that people are worried about?
 * 12) Supervisor’s comments: ** Supervisors will provide written comments on the lesson and use these as the basis of the reflective consultation that follows. Comments should be supportive and helpful and filed in the student teacher’s lesson folder together with the lesson plan.

Bec 30/03 Wow Brent! was a great synopsis of a lesson plan,i agree that they are essential in planning a well structured classroom activity and lesson. These plans are well set out and very effective in the everyday running of a classroom. Each section has been clearly discussed above and is clearly defined in terms of what to write under each heading. We continued on with this topic in the workshop where we worked in our wiki groups to create a lesson plan based on the leap frog activity we did in maths. Each group worked on a seperate section of the plan and sent it to Pete, who collaborated it and sent it to all of us. It was a worthwhile activity we need to refine this skill to adapt these plans as an integral part of our teaching career.

Jake 30/03

Brent that is a fantastic run down of the lesson plan criteria! I also believe that to create a smooth flowing environment for learning, the lesson plan must be thorough and well thought out and overall engaging. What you have written above gives a clear understanding of what must be taken into account through the relevant sections. What I thought really helped me to understand it, was the tutorial exercise with Pete, where we were able to get different interpretations of what people thought about the lesson plans structure. I think that by gaining a sound understanding of each criteria and using a solid template that the planning of the lessons will become easier and less time consuming. This will also be a very valuable asset for when relief teachers are require to take over the class. By having a well set out, easy to follow lesson plan in place the students learning experiences minimal disruptions.

Amy 31/03

I am going to continue with the praise Brent and say well done! I am definately going to print out this page and use your extra notes when planning my lessons! The lesson plan lecture was well worth the wait as it answered the multitude of questions that we all had, however I do believe that it should have been done earlier. There is no doubt in my mind that as beginning teachers lesson plans are an invaluable tool to plan every aspect of our programs. We have to remember so many different things, so by having a resource to record explicit information about what we want to teach, will help to make us better teachers. In answer to Brent's question I do have concerns over some sections and the quality of information to provide, however with plenty of practice on placement I am sure I will have refined my skills and be an expert lesson planner by the end of it! As with all things in life, the more we practice the better we will become. I am in agreeance with Bec and Jake about how valuable the tutorial with Pete was this week (they are all valuable of course!). I think that by each wiki group working on a section, to create the leap frog activity, provided us with a great example of a 'working' lesson plan.

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Names: Brent Plowright Rebecca Beed Amy Mclean Jake Gordon