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In this workshop you will examine the fundamentals of preparing to teach a lesson and review numerous instructional strategies that can be used as-is or modified to fit the style of a particular student or teacher.
This lesson will provide guidance on how you can use the curriculum in preparation for developing your instruction. Specifically, we will look at:
There are two incidents from when I first began my career in teaching that helped me make important changes to the way I think about teaching and, therefore, the way I prepare my lesson plans.
Incident #1
I was proud, even boastful of the fact that I was a chemistry teacher. In my mind, I was paid to teach a very difficult subject that only a few mortals were able to understand in a meaningful way. One day at a social event, another teacher asked me what I taught in the local high school. I responded, “chemistry” with such a feeling of superiority that Caesar would have been jealous. Out of courtesy, I asked the other teacher what she taught. She responded, “students.” I later realized that she had the better answer.
Incident #2
On the first day of class, after my introductory speech and official welcome to the students, I presented an excellent lecture on the finer points of chemistry. On days two and three, I picked up from day one and presented two more excellent lectures. If only my college professors could have seen how well my lecture outlines were organized and heard my polished oratory! They would have been so proud! On day four, which happened to be a Friday of a shortened week, I gave the students a quiz to show them how much they had learned during the first week of class. While grading the quizzes, however, I realized that the students did not perform well. In fact, the scores were awful. Knowing that I had presented three excellent lectures, I reasoned that the problem must be the students.
The following Monday morning I found myself whining to a veteran teacher about how poorly my students had done on their first quiz. I stated that it was obvious that most of the students were misplaced and the remaining students were too lazy to do the work since I had given them everything that they needed to get a perfect score on the quiz! She listened patiently to a lengthy bout of my complaining, then removed her glasses, turned to me and with a pleasant smile said, “Have you tried teaching them?”
“What a stupid question,” I thought to myself. “Of course I had been teaching them. I gave them three excellent lectures. That teacher doesn’t know anything about teaching.” Only later did I learn three important rules which showed me the hint behind the teacher’s question.
Rule #1: Teachers teach children of every age, ethnicity, and social status. The better teachers meet the students where they are academically, socially, and emotionally and begin to construct lessons from a starting point that meets the needs of the students.
Rule #2: It isn’t how much you teach that counts; it is how much the students remember.
Rule #3: What the students will learn and remember will depend upon the teacher’s ability to prepare appropriate lessons.
It is important for teachers to become proficient with a number of different teaching strategies and be able to use them to construct unforgettable lessons.
No matter how good you are as a teacher, no one teaching tactic will work for all of the students for the entire year. It isn’t about the teacher, it is about the students. Lessons are intended for the benefit of the audience, not for the convenience of the teacher. Beginning teachers sometimes confuse presenting curriculum to the students with good teaching. Obviously that is how I started my teaching career.
To provide the best lesson for students, match the intent of the lesson with the learning styles of the students and then determine the best strategy(ies) to employ to maximize the learning. This capacity for effective teaching is polished over time, often after making many mistakes.
There are many teaching strategies available to teachers. Using the correct strategy may mean teaching the same curricular content differently for one student or for one class than for another student or class. It is important for new teachers to know many different strategies, their positive and negative attributes, when to apply them, and how to measure the subsequent amount of student growth.
Thanks to a scientific approach to educational research and practical experience, we now know a lot more about how and why students learn. Although some of the old sayings still ring true, such as “idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” and “never put off to tomorrow those things you can do today,” new thinking has brought subtle changes to education. Research in education has added a few more precepts such as, “if a student doesn’t understand what is being taught, they are likely to lose interest and stop participating,” and “concepts taught in the wrong sequence confuse students and cause them to stop thinking.”
It is important to know how students learn before planning the strategies to accomplish a curricular task. What does the educational research indicate about learning? Is there a common thread that describes how students learn?
The Learning Cycle is a current theory that attempts to explain how students learn and a general formula for how to teach. It offers a student-centered model that is based on Piaget’s learning theory and the subsequent constructivist model. The Learning Cycle theory is universally applicable for use in any grade or subject and can be easily modified for unique purposes. The Learning Cycle has three stages that typically require several teaching sessions to complete: exploration, concept introduction, and concept application.
The three stages of the Learning Cycle
So, as a beginning teacher, you may be wondering how the Learning Cycle actually works in the classroom?
Instruction begins with the exploration stage. Before a teacher presents any formal lessons, students perform engagement activities that will help provide the context for learning and increase the students’ interest and motivation. These activities often involve the hands-on manipulation of physical objects and always include student movement and interaction. Students are encouraged to dialog with peers to provide possible solutions, formulate explanations, make predictions, or prepare a defense of their responses. Depending on the purpose of the lesson, the activities may be open-ended but often the activities direct the students to perform a specific task to frame the upcoming lesson.
This model presumes that students confront new phenomenon at the concrete level of reasoning. In the concrete stage, students are capable of remembering facts and other information, but are incapable of performing operations, as well as analyzing, applying, or synthesizing this knowledge. To advance beyond the concrete level, students must replace misconceptions and introduce new learning. One of the best ways to accomplish this task is through the engagement activities found in the concept introduction stage.
The concept introduction stage is traditionally the “teaching” stage. It connects the interests and questions generated in the exploration stage to learning. This stage is also known as the “guided discovery” stage because students are constructing meaning based on the lessons provided by the teacher. At this stage, the teacher plans and implements lessons that present curricular topics in a manner that is readily consumable by the students. The teacher must know the nature of the students and use this knowledge to develop lessons that will lead the students from uncertainty to understanding. Typically students at this stage are capable of using their understanding of the curricular concepts to perform functions. Later in this chapter there is an extensive listing and description of teaching strategies that can be used during the concept introduction stage.
The concept application stage is distinguished as an advancement beyond the concept introduction stage. Once the students are familiar and comfortable with the curricular topics, the teacher advances the students’ thinking by introducing those concepts in new situations. The students are then required to apply what they have learned to formulate a new idea or understanding. For instance, adding a single column of numbers as a concept introduction may be advanced to become a concept application when the students are asked to complete a word problem that requires them to add a single column of numbers. Further, students may be required to apply the curricular concept to make new predictions, generate novel solutions, and raise thoughtful questions. In a well-constructed lesson series, the concept application stage leads directly into the exploration stage of the next curricular concept, and the cycle repeats.
The Learning Cycle is a guide to how teachers should approach the learning process of their students. It is provided as a starting point for the beginning teacher to modify as needed for use in the classroom. The fundamental process of engaging the students, introducing the topic, and then extending learning is well accepted in the educational community.
Effective lesson planning connects the students’ prior knowledge to new concepts. Establishing the linkage between existing knowledge and new information is critical. A teacher planning a lesson without accounting for the students’ prior knowledge is like a contractor constructing a building without being certain of the foundation. When students build their understanding without the proper foundation this can lead to confusion, frustration, and a waste of valuable classtime. It is essential for the teacher to know what the students know before beginning any lesson planning. The best way to develop a lesson is to offer the students an opportunity to learn new material in a sequential, developmentally appropriate pattern that is based on prior knowledge.
So how does a teacher determine the level of the students’ prior knowledge? One of the easiest ways is to offer a pre-test on the material. Pre-tests are extremely useful if they reflect the curricular priorities and provide data on each student that indicates the student’s strengths and weaknesses on those curricular priorities. Pretests that identify where each student is achieving on a curricular progression are even more effective. For instance, does the pre-test indicate whether a particular student can add a column of single-digit numbers? If so, can the student add a column of double-digit numbers, and so on?
Another technique is to organize a group discussion in which the teacher gleans a level of understanding from the students on a particular topic and then writes it on the board. These topics are then organized in a sequential pattern for thoughtful interpretation by the students and teacher. The teacher can amplify the use of this type of data by categorizing the students’ entry level understanding on a graphic organizer. Teachers can also use data provided by student interviews, classroom participation, and student interpretation of a demonstration or event to help categorize students’ prior knowledge.
No matter what the strategy, the teacher is looking for a solid starting point upon which to begin instruction. Assessing prior knowledge may also identify gaps in knowledge, misunderstandings based on misinformation, or non-cohesive thinking.
Successful teachers introduce new material to the students in such a way that the new concepts are easily assimilated into prior knowledge. Framing instruction in this manner creates bridges for the students to use as they access their previous knowledge to help reach an understanding of the new concepts. Students require time and structure to integrate and apply the new concepts. Teachers promote student learning by providing the appropriate context for learning.
There are many strategies that a teacher can employ to frame a lesson. One of the best ways is to begin each lesson by asking the students to summarize previous lessons. The teacher can then draw the students’ attention to the link between the previous lessons and today’s instruction. For more advanced groups, the teacher might ask the students to predict the content of tomorrow’s lesson. The effects of this strategy are magnified when the students are challenged to relate the instruction to their lives.
One of the worst ways to frame a lesson is to plunge the students into an activity with no introductory explanation, especially if the lesson is not related to previous learning.
Lessons that allow students to be active learners are preferred for instructional and disciplinary reasons. Depending on the objectives, the teacher can employ many techniques to actively involve the students. Even if the teacher decides to give the majority of the lesson in lecture form, ancillary materials such as computer simulations, worksheets, or other types of print and non-print resources can be used to create a more active learning environment.
It is the responsibility of the classroom teacher to create a series of learning activities in such a way that the students will remember the content presented. Consider the following list of research-based techniques that make learning personal and memorable:
This lesson included research-based practices, strategies, and considerations that you can use to help your students learn and ensure success for all your students. As you begin teaching, you will surely generate your own ideas about how to best communicate the curriculum in multiple ways via different modalities. To get you started, in the next lessons we will introduce instructional techniques for the whole class, small groups and individual students.
Think about a classroom that you have observed or taught in. How would you describe that classroom environment? How might this environment affect the types of lessons and activities that you used in this classroom?