Preparing to Do Lessons – 

The best advice I can give you is to stay organized.

A)   I recommend that you have a book/binder/bound notepad in which you record everything having to do with lessons.

B)   Plan your work with your Associate. Write down exactly what it is that you have to do, when it needs to ready for discussion and when you will actually be doing it.

C)   Learn student names as fast as you can. When you actually start to do your lessons, it is important to be able to call upon individual students by name. It also helps with discipline.

D)  Find out what your Associate did in the past to teach this particular topic. Does s/he have any particular advice about the topic, the approach you should take or about the students being taught? Remember that your Associate has already had the students and knows about them so should be able to give you a ‘heads-up’ if necessary.

E)   Pay particular attention as you watch your Associate teach during your observation period. Determine the routines put into place. These have been chosen carefully by your associate and the students know them – don’t make changes without discussion and approval. Find out your Associate’s style. Is it similar to yours or different? Yours is expected to be different so be prepared to take a little while for your class to be comfortable with your approach.

F)    Try to figure out two important things about your Associate. First, what dependence does your Associate have on the use of students’ previous knowledge? If this is evident, you should attempt to continue this practice. Second, is the ‘hook’ being used by your Associate based upon the previous knowledge or is it totally independent, determined strictly by each lesson’s topic(s)? [A ‘hook’ is a lesson device used to capture and keep the attention of the class. It is believed that the longer the students stay focused the fewer disciplinary disruptions will occur. You always want to start your lesson with 100% student focus.] Every lesson needs a hook to focus the students. Using previous knowledge as part of that hook process is an advantage because it refreshes the learning that has already taken place.

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