Reflective Lesson Design

Bergen McGregor

Camden Dykes

Overview

• Activities are the elements of well-designed, well-organized lessons that help students attain specific learning objectives (outcomes).

• Activities are organized into lessons and lessons are then organized into units.

• Units lead to long range goals (standards/benchmarks).

• These long range goals reflect useful skills and ideas for daily living.

Overview Continued

• Constructivist approach to teaching

• Direct and inductive approach to teaching

• Formal and informal modes of instruction as well as differentiated instruction.

• A reflective teacher decision maker attempts to weave together a variety of types of activities when designing lessons and units.

Constructivist Learning Theory: Schooling for Democracy

• Constructivism: implies that learning is an active process that individuals construct the schemata that constitute their understanding, as opposed to passively absorbing information.

• The theory suggests that in-depth learning of concepts and ideas occurs only when a person has the opportunity to actively construct knowledge through inquiry and exploration.

• Dialogue and cooperative learning play in the development of understanding.

General Principles of Instruction and Learning

1.Learning is not the result of development, learning is development.

2. Disequilibrium facilitates learning.3. Reflective abstraction is the driving force

of learning.4. Dialogue within a community creates

further thinking.5. Learning proceeds toward the

development of structures.

• The greatest challenge for the teacher involves the preparation of learning experiences that include appropriate forms of scaffolded instruction.

• Scaffolded instruction: Designed to help students build understanding, bridging the gap between current understanding and new meanings.

• Refers to graphic organizers, graduated instruction, verbal hints, and guiding questions, and some forms of direct instruction.

5 Principles Evident in Constructivist Classrooms

• Teachers seek and value their students’ points of view.

• Classroom activities challenge students’ ideas.• Teachers pose problems of emerging relevance.• Teachers build lessons around primary concepts

and “big” ideas.• Teachers assess student learning in the context

of daily teaching.

Six Principles for Instruction

• Cultural context principle

• Congruent continuous assessment

• Conceptual focus principle

• Higher level thinking principle

• Active processing principle

• Variety Principle

Cultural Context Principle

• Make sure classroom events and activities draw on the strengths of a variety of cultures and both males and females.

• Focus on race, class, and gender equity.

• Focus on social and political context.

Activity

• Name some strategies you will use to avoid stereotypes in your classroom.

• How will you promote multiculturalism in your classroom.

Influences on Teacher Decision Making

• Classroom

• School

• Community

• District

• State

• Nation

• Planet

Congruent Continuous Assessment

• Match your objectives, activities, and assessment.

• Find out what your students understand about a topic, plan activities to build on that knowledge, and assess continuously.

• Congruence: Crucial match between the lesson objectives, the activities, and the assessment.

• Match the activities with the level and type of learning stated in the objectives.

Conceptual Focus Principle

• Make sure the activities are focused on developing a few key concepts and generalizations- the structure of the information-rather than memorizing a series of facts.

Higher Level Thinking Principle

• Aim learning activities toward an authentic project or display that requires higher-level thinking.

• Examples: Role playing, debates, simulations

Active Processing Principle

• Help students make new ideas more meaningful through direct experience and active involvement with the ideas in meaningful contexts.

• Doing: Direct purposeful experiences, Contrived experiences (simulations), and dramatized experiences (role-playing)

• Observation: demonstrations, study trips, virtual trips, exhibits, educational television, videos, and still pictures

• Abstraction: visual and verbal symbols

Variety Principle

• Appeal to the different styles, needs, and preferences of students

• (Modalities of Learning)

Activity

• Create your own mnemonic device to memorize the 6 principles of learning. Practice saying them for memory until you know them in your long term memory. Write or draw your mnemonic device.

Two Approaches to Teaching

• Direct Lesson: Teacher tells the students the concept to be learned and leads them through most of the activities.

• Inductive Lesson: Begins with exploratory activities and leads students to discover a concept. This requires the students to do more of the thinking.

• Both lessons can be combined into one unit.

A Lesson-Planning Framework

• Lesson Plan: Describes your activities for one day of instruction

• Lesson Design: includes all the activities you will need to help students achieve mastery of one or more objectives.

Four General Phases

• Opening: Readiness, preassessment, active prior knowledge and experience, focus attention, invite inquiry, clarify culminating authentic projects/ assessments, state objectives and purpose

Four General Phases

• Constructing meaning: Students receive, gather, interpret, share,and digest: information, data, problems, ideas and events.

Four General Phases

• Using/ Applying: Students apply new learning in problems, experiments, group or individual projects, productions, or exhibitions.

Four General Phases

• Assessing Learning: Teacher continuously gathers information from student responses and products to provide feedback and design next steps.

Formal and Informal Instruction

• Formal Instruction is best for beginning teachers when creating a lesson plan. Mostly teacher directed.

• Informal is child-centered and is influenced by their environment.

• Examples: Classroom pet, plants, calendar, daily interactions with impromptu explanations with teachable moments.

Differentiation

• Differentiated instruction: instruction that “flexes” to meet the needs of multiple learners simultaneously.

• Each different individual must find a way to link new information into his or hers existing cognitive structure

• A teacher who is committed to all students’ learning must recognize that it will often require not one lesson, but multiple differentiated lessons, in order to accomplish that goal

Activity

POP QUIZ!

• True or False: Learning is an active process that individuals construct the schemata that constitute their understanding, as opposed to passively absorbing information.

TRUE!!!!!

• Name the 5 general principles for instruction and learning

1. Learning is not the result of development, learning is development.

2. Disequilibrium facilitates learning.3. Reflective abstraction is the driving force

of learning.4. Dialogue within a community creates

further thinking.5. Learning proceeds toward the

development of structures.

• In what area is “Doing” located on Dale’s cone image?

• Bottom

• What are the two approaches to teaching?

• Direct and Inductive

• Use your mnemonic device activity to tell us the 6 principles for instruction.

• Cultural context principle

• Congruent continuous assessment

• Conceptual focus principle

• Higher level thinking principle

• Active processing principle

• Variety Principle

• What are the four general phases in the framework for a lesson plan?

• Opening, constructing meaning, using/applying, assessing learning.

• State the differences between formal and informal instruction.

• THE END