Creating a Learning Experience
To the right is a learning experience outline developed by my colleagues and myself during a university course on classroom planning and instruction.
|
|
Planning and Instructional Strategies
Thoughtful teachers pay close attention to their students, get to know them, and teach the curriculum in a way that best suits each and every one of them. At first, this seems like an impossible task, especially as classrooms become more and more diverse! I am encouraged, however, after talking to other teachers, reading books and watching videos about teaching, that although good planning and instruction is a challenging feat, it is by no means an insurmountable one.
Basic Methods
- Backward Mapping - The Learning Experience - Inquiry-Based Learning - Evidence-Based Instruction These three basic elements of instructional planning provide a solid foundation for designing lessons and activities that will engage and motivate my future students. I believe it is important to ensure that every student meets the curriculum objectives and academic goals, but it is equally important that they develop 21st Century skills. As such, differentiation will also be part of my instructional planning process. The more I get to know my future students, the more each of them will get out of the lessons, activities, and learning experiences in my future classroom. |
Backward mapping refers an order of lesson and/or unit planning that begins by establishing objectives (found in the state/county curriculum) and preliminary statements of what students need to know, understand, and be able to do at the end of a lesson/unit, then moves to assessment planning, and ends with instructional planning to facilitate student achievement of the objectives. I use backward mapping as a teacher to ensure that each student, with different learning needs, will achieve meaningful objectives.
The Learning Experience provides an engaging and relevant structure through which students experience a lesson and/or activity. When planning a learning experience, I would follow the following outline:
- Launch: Begins the learning experience and introduces the lesson/activity.
- Explore: Accesses students' prior knowledge, gets students to contribute their own ideas.
- Present: Students present their ideas gathered from the "Explore", then instructor presents.
- Apply: Students apply what they have learned in a meaningful way.
- Closure: Instructor wraps-up the lesson and reviews what students have learned.
Inquiry-Based Learning involves learning for the purpose of answering a question. Many of my professors and friends who are teachers have told me that one of the most important skills for a teacher to have is knowing how to ask good questions. When students are asked to answer important and meaningful questions, they will be motivated to seek out the answer(s). As a future teacher, I will weave such questions throughout my lessons to encourage purposeful learning.
Evidence-Based Instruction emphasizes that every teacher's instructional strategies should take into consideration each individual student's needs. By carefully documenting daily observations of students, really getting to know their learning and interaction styles, I can structure lessons and activities in ways that will best facilitate the success of every single learner in my future classroom.