The following flows out of our discussion group online and one peer "Heather" proposed a number of really helpful questions to help guide lesson plan development. As we go further in the course, lesson planning will be a key focus so these questions will definitely help guide efforts. Her comments (less time stamp) from the site are as follows:
"Before a Lesson: Ask a Few Questions
Heather posted Oct 14, 2019 17:38
Before planning any lessons or units of lessons, it is helpful to have answers to a few questions.
1. Do I have the curriculum? What are the general learning outcomes and what are the specific lists of learning outcomes that need to be covered in any instruction based on this curriculum?
2. What time frame do I have to work with students? (1 month/ 5 months?)
3. How many units of study do I need to develop to meet the curricular requirements, the course length parameters, the needs of the educational institution in which I am working, and then what are the needs of the students in the course? (A balance needs to be found.)
4. Where am I teaching, classroom layout and facility? What textbooks, and resource materials are available? Do I have any educational assistance available for students or to me? What is my budget to obtain materials that are missing?
5. What do I know about the community in which I am teaching, socio-economic/socio-political/ socio-cultural concerns?
Then, it is time to build an overall course plan, which includes the units of study and contains more specific "terminal and enabling" objectives for the learners. At this point, I also generate a syllabus for students. I make it as detailed as is required by the educational institution and/or the students themselves.
When I am lesson planning individual daily lesson plans, I ask myself questions like:
1. What is the general learning outcome being worked on in this lesson? How does it contribute to the overall development of the students' skills/abilities?
2. What do the students already know? What do they have experience with prior to the lesson? How can I scaffold this lesson to the previous one?
3. How long will this lesson take? Can it be one individual lesson or is it necessary to develop the learning over the course of several days/classes?
4. What materials do I need, learning resources? Do I need to develop some or can I modify some that I already have?
5. What activities/tasks will the learners perform during the lesson and then be expected to practice outside of the classroom?
6. How will I time the lesson to achieve all of the activities, working from guided practice to individual practice?
7. How am I keeping the students on-task? What contingency plans do I have when students struggle? Do I have alternative resources available? How can I re-direct students that are struggling with the tasks in the classroom?
8. How will I know if the students have mastered the lesson? What assessments will I need? Do I need to develop a rubric or series of rubrics to assess student progress? Is the assessment summative or evaluative...performance or product?
9. Am I using age-appropriate and/or interest-level appropriate materials for this group of learners?
10. How can I keep learners engaged in their own learning? What feedback to I need to get from them?
Wow! This really is a mind-gym!!!
I think I ask other questions too, but .....this is all I can think of right at this point. Writing out a list of questions I ask myself is difficult, as the process of making decisions in lesson planning is complex.. and changes as the educational context changes.
Question: Does anyone use a planning flow-chart?
(I know that keeping general steps in front of me really helps me stay focused. I really liked the chart on page 181 of Brown and Lee.)
Heather"
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Barney's reply:
Great questions Heather - very helpful (I've put them in my e-portfolio blog).
As I'm reviewing this stuff I also found a helpful template displayed in the CLB support kit (p. 32 & 33) as it provides a great overview of the expected lesson plan structure.
After this, the same CLB support kit document, has a good section on "Daily lesson planning" with a wonderful graphic. (p. 22 & 23).
The reason I like the above steps (especially at the start) is because any ESL administrative review of a new teacher will expect justifications for all lesson plan inputs. When starting in the business - I would expect most would want to model themselves after a key ESL document that has benchmarked (over many years) against the best in the business.
There seems to be tighter parameters with ESL lesson planning compared with general education lesson plans. More a focus on tasks and the defined learning competencies to support the uniform ESL standards.
After this baseline, the experience and creativity of the teacher can then flow more freely into the lesson plan development (but always against the set learning benchmarks).
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