Planning, Planning, Planning!

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TESL 0100
Unit 6 Reflection

Ah, lesson planning. This was the focus of Unit 6 of the Fundamentals course and it was jam-packed! We dove head first into all things lesson-plan related: envisioning a lesson, coming up with the goal and language focus of the lesson, planning the sequence of activities and procedures to follow, determining the amount of time each will take, predicting and anticipating any challenges/difficulties our students may have, as well as creating an exit assessment and transfer activity. Starting with the end in mind and doing "backwards planning" is an effective method for creating a lesson plan. A teacher must know why a student is doing each activity; there must be a purpose behind it that will lead them towards the lesson goal.

Before even beginning to create a lesson plan a teacher must have a strong understanding of the ultimate goal: what outcome do the students need to demonstrate? The teacher then needs to take a step backwards and come up with a list of the knowledge and skills necessary in order to reach that outcome. Next they need to design an assessment that the students can complete to demonstrate mastery of the knowledge and skills. Then they need to select or create the actual activities or mini-lessons that will allow the students to learn and practice the knowledge and skills. After the assessment students should also have an opportunity for reflection and self-assessment. If all of these things are considered and all of these steps are followed, a teacher will have created an effective lesson. Knowing why each activity was selected and what the activities are leading the students towards is critical. There must be a reason for everything that we do as a teacher.

Of course, there are going to be times when things don't go as planned, or the activity that a teacher thought would be perfect to practice a skill is a total flop. It is impossible to plan for each and every possible scenario, and we cannot predict the future. However, with a detailed plan in hand that has a clear end goal, it is much more likely that the lesson will result in students achieving that goal.

A couple of years ago I attended a professional development workshop on Backwards Design, presented by Jay McTighe. I worked with two other teachers to create an entire unit on Ancient Egypt by following the backwards planning process that I later put into practice in a Grade 2/3 classroom. I found it to be an extremely effective way to create a unit plan with multiple lessons. Listed below is the PowerPoint presentation from the PD that I attended.

Reference:
McTighe, J. (2018) Understanding by Design. Retrieved from: https://jaymctighe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Jays-slides-6.29.18.pdf


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