Lesson plan: defining aims

Lesson plan: Defining Aims

What is a lesson plan?

Before we do anything we must plan what to do, how to do, why to do and when to do. Also in the teaching, a teacher must plan what he wants to teach the students, why he wants teach and how to teach. The first thing that a teacher must do is preparing a lesson. It is called a lesson plan. What is a lesson plan? These are many definitions of lesson plan.

               “A lesson plan is a teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction for an individual lesson or a teacher’s document used to plan a lesson.” (en.wikipedia.org)

               “A writing noting the method of delivery, and the specific goals and timeline associated to the delivery of the lesson content.” (longwood.com)

               “An organized outline for single instructional period. it is a necessary guide for the instructor in that it tells what do you do, in what order to do it, and what procedure to use in teaching the material of a lesson” (www.dynamicflight.com)

               “A written document used in planning a presentation.” (wps.prenhall.com)

               “A teacher-developed and teacher-written study plan that guides instruction. It contains an outline of the important, points of a lesson arranged in…” (natomagroup.com)

               In my opinion, a lesson plan is a teacher’s document planning for teaching.

How to do the lesson plan?

               The first thing a teacher must do is decide on the lesson plan’s focus. The teacher creates one idea or question they want the students to explore or answer. Next, the teacher creates classroom activities that correlate with the established ideas or question. This includes individual and group activities. A lesson plan must correlate with the text book the class uses. The school or the teacher usually selects the text book or provides teachers with a limited text book choice for particular unit. The teacher must take great care and select the most appropriate book for the student. A good lesson plan can reflect interests and need of students. It incorporates best practices for the education filed. The lesson plan correlate with the teacher’s philosophy of education. Which is that the teacher feels is the purpose of the student. Lesson plan is preferable, because it allows a teacher to create various research, writing, speaking, and reading assignment.

How to consider lesson plan?

1. To know who the students are. Know ability levels, backgrounds, interest levels, attention spans, ability to work together in groups, prior knowledge and learning experience, special need or accommodations, and learning preferences. This my not happen as quickly as you would like, but it is important for designing instruction that will meet the needs of your student. That’s key in successful teaching and learning.
2. To know the content. It is important for you to research the subject matter that you will be teaching. You should also utilize curriculum guides published by the state in which you teach and the local school district that employs you. It is also a good idea to know the national standards and state standards that drive curriculum frameworks and that will give you a lot of information relative to your subject area. TeAch-nology.com has a large number of links that will help you to search for information relative to that subject matter you are employed to teach. one link that can help is as follows
3. To know the materials that are available to help you teach for success. Take and keep an inventory of the materials and resources that are available to you as a teacher. for example: technology , software, audio/visuals, teacher mentors, community resource, equipment, manipulative, library resources, local guest speakers, volunteers, or any materials that can assist you in teaching

Planning For Instruction

               Before the teacher starts teaching, the teacher must plan for instruction in order to make successfully in teaching.

1. Content The teacher must list the important facts, key concepts, skills, or key vocabulary terms that you intend to cover. You can also prepare an outline with key learning outcomes. Remember to refer to your curriculum guides.
2. Goals To identify the aims or that you want your students to achieve as result of the lesson you plan to teach. goals are end produce and are sometimes broad in nature. Goals relate directly to the knowledge and skill you identify. Goals determine purpose, aim, and rationale for what you your students will engage in during class time. The goals are typically written broad educational or unit goals adhering to state or national curriculum standards.
3. Objectives To identify the objectives that you hope your students will achieve in the tasks that will engage them in the learning process. objectives are behavioral in nature and are specific to performance. Objectives tell what you will be observing in student performance and describe criteria by which you can measure performance against. In many way, objectives represent indicators of performance that tell you, the teacher, to what extent a student is progressing in any given task. Instructional objectives can start with. A “given” that describes a condition that enables your students to perform any given task. A “given” could be any activity, a specific set of direction ,materials needed to perform a task, any assignment, for anything that set up a condition for students to engage in the task being observed and measure for performance. The heart of the objective is the task that the student is expected to perform. it is probably one of the most important part of the lesson plan because it is student centered and outcome based. Objectives can range form easy to hard tasks depending on student abilities
4. Materials List the materials and recourses that will be need for the lesson to be successful, the teacher also use technology resources needs to achieve objectives.
5. Introduction Describe or list a focusing event or attention grabber that will motivate the students to want to pay attention and learn about what the teacher plan to teach. It will depend on the ages and stage and of the students and will rely on students interests and backgrounds. The teacher must remember to get the students to attend and respond to the introduction will set the stage for the rest of lesson.
6. Development Describe how the teacher plans to model or explain what the teacher wants the students to do. Modeling the learning behaviors the teacher expects of his students is a powerful development tool and provides demonstration that students can then imitate or practice on they town. During development, models of teaching are used to facilitate students learning. Models can include direct instruction, inquiry, information processing strategies, or cooperative learning strategies.
7. Practice The teacher must list or describe ways in which the teacher will provide opportunities for the students to practice what the teacher wants the students to learn. The more opportunities the teacher provides, the better chance they have to master the expected outcomes. These opportunities are in classroom assignments or tasks that give the teacher, the chance to guide and monitor progress.
8. Independent Practice The teacher should list or describe ways to provide opportunities for the students to complete assignments to measure progress against the goal of instruction. These assignments are meant to give the teacher s the chance to determine whether students have truly mastered the expected outcomes. Remember to only plan for task that the teacher believes students can accomplish without guidance.
9. Accommodations The teacher should list or describe ways that the teacher will differentiate instruction according to students’ needs. This can include any curricular adaptations that are needed to meet special needs students.
10. Checking for Understanding To list or describe ways that the teacher will check for understanding. Assessment and ongoing feedback are necessary for monitoring progress. This can include questioning, conferencing, or journal writing.
11. Closure To list or describe ways that can wrap up a lesson. This can include telling students in the most important concepts that were covered in lesson, asking the students what they thought were the key concepts, or preparing them for the next lesson building upon what was presented. The key is to leave the students with an imprint of what the teacher hope to achieve in any given lesson.
12. Evaluation The teacher must list or describe the ways to assess or measure the student success in achieving the outcomes that the teacher planed to reach. This can include a variety of ways to evaluate student performance.

Aims

Aims are general statements briefly outlining the content of the training being offer. Well written objectives are much more specific and should clarify the aims in more detail. Well written aims and objectives will help to provide a sound basis for identifying the content of a course or training program.

Defining Aims

1. Aims provide the teacher with the goal of the teaching-learning process. In other words, you know your destination when you begin instruction. They answer the question, “what are the students supposed to know or be able to do once the unit or lesson is completed?”
2. Aims provide a clear framework for assessment is, after all, an effort to determine to what extent students have reached or achieved the objective.
3. Aims provide the students direction and a goal for learning. Students have a better opportunity to stay the course when they know the goal of the learning.

Ruth Hamilton wrote about the aims and sub-aims, by no means exhaustive by in http://www.philseflsupport.com/lessonplanaims.htm.

1. Introducing and practicing new vocabulary.
2. Revising previously taught vocabulary.
3. Introducing a new grammatical point.
4. Introducing new functional language.
5. Revising or reviewing one or more grammatical points.
6. Revising or reviewing functional exponents.
7. Giving controlled/less-controlled/freer practice of a language point.
8. Contrasting two (or more) grammatical points.
9. Contrasting two (or more) functional exponents.
10. “Warmers/icebreakers” – getting to know your students.
11. 11. Raising awareness/ear training and/or practicing aspects of phonology:

    a) pronunciation of phonemes/individual sounds

    b) word stress

    c) sentence stress

    d) intonation

    e) features of connected speech

12. Error correction work (usually revising previously taught language)
13. Self-access work.
14. Learner training.
15. Developing reading skills – prediction/skimming/scanning/inferring, etc.
16. Developing listening skills – prediction/gist/for specific information/inference, etc.

Examples of Aims

• The students can pronounce the words correctly.
• The students can tell the meaning of words.
• The students can ask and answer the direction to the bus station.
• The students can write the sentences about daily life.
• The students can read a short passage and answer the questions.

My English Class

Before I start my teaching English, I always prepare my lesson by planning what I will teach my students; the contents, the objectives or aims, materials or instruments, worksheets, and activities that I will use in the class. I use the varied activities in my English class such as games and songs depend on the contents in that period. The important thing that I must do is write the aims or the objectives of learning and tell the students what they are able to do after the learning. The teacher can check how the students success in the lesson by using the assignments, the test or any activities.

References

Mitchell, Diana, and Stephen Tchudi. (1999). Exploring and Teaching the English Language Arts. (4th Ed.) Boston, MA: Allyn& Bacon.

Raymond W. Donny Lee, Jr.(2004). Writing Learning Objectives for Unit and Lesson Plans.

Tip of writing Objectives. http://www.okbu.edu/academics/natsc/ed.

http://www.teach-nology.com

en.wikipedia.org

longwood.com

natomagroup.com/basecamp/infodev/tpdhandbook/glossary.doc

www.dynamicflight.com

http://wps.prenhall.com

Function : Asking and answering about time, routine, or activities.

Teaching Procedure/Activities :

Warm up/Lead in:

1. The teacher lets the students play the number game.
2. The teacher shows the clock and asks the students about the time. Then tells the students about the purpose of learning.

Presentation:

1. The teacher presents the vocabulary about the time.
2. The teacher pronounces the words correctly and lets the students repeat.
3. The teacher asks the questions about activities or routines and answers the questions.
4. The teacher explains how to use the words and how to tell the time.

Practice:

1. The students practice by asking and answering the questions in pairs about the time and activities or routines.
2. The teacher asks the students about their activities or routines.
3. Checks the correct answers.

Production:

1. The teacher lets the students do the assignments by writing the sentences about their routines.

Materials:

1. word cards
2. a clock
3. pictures about activities

Evaluation and measurement:

1. Observing in the class
2. Correcting the assignment