Planning for Effective Teaching and Learning Introduction

1 Howell, J. Teaching & Learning : Building Effective Pedagogies Oxford University Press 2014. All rights reserved. 1 12 Planning for Effective Teaching and Learning Introduction A good teacher knows that Planning is important. As teachers we engage in many different types of Planning , and this chapter will explore these in detail. There are many influences we need to consider when Planning and these will also be examined. In the toolkit you will find different templates for lesson plans that can be used across the different phases of schooling, tips on how to construct lesson objectives, how to get the timing of lessons right and how to evaluate a lesson after you have presented it.

2 Included in this chapter is practical information about: Constructing lesson objectives 2 Organising the students 3 Getting the timing of lessons right 4 Evaluating lessons 5 Matching lesson objectives to lesson content and activities 6 Online Planning resources 8 Lesson plan templates 9 Howell, J. Teaching & Learning : Building Effective Pedagogies Oxford University Press 2014. All rights reserved. 2 Constructing lesson objectives Follow these step-by-step instructions. 1 Identify the aspect of the curriculum document you wish to focus on and plan your Learning activity. 2 Create a stem. Some stem examples: After completing the lesson, the student will be able to.

3 After this unit, the student will have .. By completing the activities, the student will .. At the conclusion of the course/unit/study the student will .. 3 After you create the stem, add a verb; for example , analyse, recognise, compare, provide, list, etc. 4 Once you have a stem and a verb, determine the actual product, process or outcome; for example , After completing this lesson, the student will be able to recognise foreshadowing in various works of literature. See the list of suitable verbs to use in lesson objectives later in this Toolkit chapter. Howell, J. Teaching & Learning : Building Effective Pedagogies Oxford University Press 2014.

4 All rights reserved. 3 Organising the students Deciding how to organise your classroom should be influenced by the types of Teaching strategies you tend to favour or use the most. Beyond the physical arrangements, you also have decisions to make regarding grouping within lessons. Have a read below to consider some of the variations you could use. See Chapter 9 of this Toolkit for more detail on physical classroom arrangements. Table Grouping students Teacher-led groups Teacher-led groups are the most common configuration used in classrooms today. They include whole-class, small group and individual instruction.

5 In general, communication paths in teacher-led groups are almost exclusively between teacher and student. Teacher-led groups are an Effective and efficient way of introducing material, summing up the conclusions made by individual groups, meeting the common needs of a large or small group, and providing individual attention or instruction. Groupings may be: Whole-class instruction Small-group instruction Students working alone on teacher-directed activities Student-led groups Student-led groups can take many forms but they all share a common feature students control the group dynamics and maintain a voice in setting the agenda for the group.

6 Student-led groups provide opportunities for divergent thinking and encourage students to take responsibility for their own Learning . One of the benefits of student-led groups is that they model real-life adult situations in which people work together, not in isolation, to solve problems. Students working in groups learn to work with people from varying backgrounds and with different experiences, which sharpens social skills and develops a sense of confidence in their own abilities. Groupings may be: Collaborative groups Performance-based groups Pairs Other groupings Outside of these two main types are other variations.

7 Groupings may be: Ability-based groups Age-based groups Cross-class groupings Class arranged into different groupings based on tasks being completed Howell, J. Teaching & Learning : Building Effective Pedagogies Oxford University Press 2014. All rights reserved. 4 Getting the timing of lessons right Timing is largely dependent on your delivery of lessons and your classes characteristics. These tips should help you, but remember that your sense of timing will come with more Teaching experience and time spent in the classroom: Always allow time for an Introduction this links to previous lessons and sets up the current lesson.

8 Five to ten minutes should be enough time. Activities there are many suggested times dependent on the age of the learners (such as age + 2 minutes = maximum concentration time). Ten to fifteen minutes should be about right for an activity. Conclusions always schedule one at the end of the lesson and allow at least five minutes for this. Keep a clock somewhere visible keep an eye on it and keep the momentum of the lesson going. Don t plan to cover too many activities fewer activities in more depth is best. Make timekeeping part of the class activities nominate a timekeeper and ask them to let everyone know when there is five minutes left, etc.

9 This has the added bonus of making the class mindful of the lesson, momentum and what needs to be covered. Howell, J. Teaching & Learning : Building Effective Pedagogies Oxford University Press 2014. All rights reserved. 5 Evaluating lessons Lesson evaluation is largely an activity that occurs as private speech within an individual teacher this is how the majority of your evaluations will be conducted. You can frame this process around simple frameworks such as: What worked? What didn t work? What would I change next time? Or consider more complex questions such as: Did all students learn something related to lesson objectives?

10 How do you know? Did some new Learning goals emerge during the lesson? Can you evaluate your students Learning via the products/performances they created? What instructional strategies were the most Effective ? What one thing might you have done differently which would have made the lesson more Effective ? What else would you like to change, next time you use this lesson? Alternatively it can be evidenced via other aspects such as: Task completion did the class manage to complete the planned tasks? What evidence is there that you can examine; for example , completed worksheets, exercise books, performances?