Engaging Instruction - Lesson Plan Structure

Planning for Instruction

Last week I blogged about planning for units and lesson with some research supporting effective lesson plan development. This week I go into the components of a great lesson plan.

 

Why do we plan? 

When the lesson is premeditated, it is more likely to be sensible, complete and in a logical sequence. The learners will then be more likely to be engaged and learn. It encourages the teacher to be clear about the expectations of the unit, the content that is to be taught, and how it will be taught.

This is the basic structure of a lesson plan:

Outline of Plan for Instruction

1. Unit (Topic) of Instruction: This is basically just the title of the lesson
2. Situation: Thinking about the relevance of the information to the learner. Have some of the students had experiences with the content? What are the needs of the community?
3. Instructional Objectives: What the learners should be able to do after the lesson is delivered. These are sort of the milestones that guide you throughout the unit and form the basis for evaluation. This is where you, as a teacher need to think about the domains and modalities of learning (Domains = Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor; Modalities = Visual, Audible, and Kinesthetic)
4. Interest Approach: This is where you “hook” the learners interest and encourage them to have a desire to learn the content. Here is a link to an article published in the Journal of Agriculture Education that studied the effects of using an interest approach in a classroom. Although there was no difference in knowledge or attitudes, the interest approach increased student engagement.
5. Group Objectives: The teacher guides the students in developing learning goals. What to the students see as important to learn? This helps students become self-directed learners
6. Problems and Questions: A true problem is when there is a felt need for solutions to a problem vs a question which really just satisfies a curiosity
7. Plans for Solving Problems: Webb identified “Depths of Knowledge” which aids teachers in encouraging students to learn more deeply and think more critically. Solving problems, acquiring knowledge, and developing skills help learners go beyond just recalling the information and deeper into developing real skills, thinking strategically, and then extending that thinking to other areas of life. See image for a brief explanation of Webb's Depth of Knowledge and Bloom's Taxonomy.
8. Application of Learning: In agriculture education it is easy for students to see the application of what they are learning. But it is more that just understanding the application; seeing the value is just as important.
9. References and Teaching Aids: This is simply a list of resources that you use in developing the lessons
10. Evaluation Procedures: Ensuring that the students learned what you had intended them to learn (think back to the instructional objectives) is essential. Developing formative and summative assessments that are effective at elucidating the knowledge level of the learners requires thought and preparation. .

The lesson should be focused on the areas of significant learning and the teacher should always strive to encourage the learners to think deeply about the knowledge and skills that they are acquiring. 

It seems like a lot at first, but soon it will become second nature (at least that is what I am telling myself now).

How do we design and plan instruction?

The key to being an effective teacher is to plan like a boss. It takes a lot of thought and effort to ensure that the course or unit is designed so that the students understand what they are learning and why it is important.

A key resource for designing lessons is the book, "Understanding by Design" by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). In the book they outline seven tenets of the design philosophy. The fourth tenet is that, "Effective curriculum is planned backward from long-term, desired results through a three-stage process (Desired Results, Evidence, and Learning Plan). So they way to look at planning the curriculum is what you want the students to know and what skills they should develop at the end of the course and then work backward from there to determine how they will get there.








To me this still seems a little daunting, but thankfully Fink (2003) breaks it down even more. Time is of the essence so we as teachers need to recognize that constraint and focus our energy on the knowledge and skills that are essential, or as Fink calls it, significant learning. Fink identified six kinds of significant learning that are not separate but interactive, at least that the goals is that they should be interactive. See the figure to the left.






 So now that we understand a bit more about design process and significant learning we can use a resources that we developed by Benjamin Bloom that is referred Bloom's Taxonomy. Basically, it describes a hierarchy of cognitive function.

The purpose is to help teachers design lessons that require students to use higher levels of cognitive function; to not just be able to regurgitate information, but to truly understand the material and be able to use it. From there the learner should be able to take what they have learned, break it down and increase their learning as the apply the knowledge in different contexts. See this article for more information about Bloom's Taxonomy and how it can be used in designing and planning effective learning experiences. Also, West Virginia University created an interactive circle diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy that is worth checking out.

Personal Reflection:

I feel a bit overwhelmed with information. There is so much research out there and I want to soak it all up, but there is so much! Thinking about all that I am reading and putting it together to help me develop as a new teacher will be a long journey for me, but I'm excited about for the day when I can have a strong grip on the basics and start to refine my techniques and become an increasingly effective teacher.