2. The Basic Lesson:

A)   The Components – Whether the lessons are whole group, small group or activity approach (centers), the basic components of the lesson are all the same:

1)   You need the overall goal or goals;

2)   Decide upon the essential skills/points that you need to make or have the students learn;

3)   Decide upon the approach – the type of lesson you are going to teach; Is it one that you will develop from scratch? Is it from a teacher’s manual and basically done for you? Is it one from the internet that you are going to tweak to suit your class?

B)   Creating the template

You want to visualize the lesson.  You need to make a structure or template for your lesson. It can be similar to the one in your Practicum Pages or one you got from your Associate teacher or one that you have designed yourself. Professional lesson plan templates have also been made (like you see in a teacher’s manual or on teacher internet sites). Lesson plan templates are good to use because they are designed to make sure that you have thought of everything – including things like the materials you will need and use.

C)   Organizing the ‘How’

1)   How are you going to teach these – in what order or progression?

2)   How are you going to have the students apply the skills that they are learning? What is the application or seatwork?

3)   What about evaluation? How are going to establish that learning has taken place?

4)   Are there any students that you need accommodations or modifications made?

5)   How are you going to close your lesson off?

6)   Reflection – How successful were you? Do you need to do more practice? Move on? What would you keep or change if you had to do this lesson again in the future?

D)   Success or Failure?

       How do you think the lesson went? Basically, there is no such thing as a failure. However, some lessons can be a lot better than others. Still, in every lesson, some things do go right. After the lesson, reflection takes over. How successful was your effort? What did the students accomplish? What did they learn? To what degree? Answers to these and similar questions help you and your Associate decide what should be done next. The results might indicate that a majority of the objectives need to redone or reinforced. The results might also indicate that the learning level is great and it is time to move on to the next objective and a new lesson.

E)    What Next?

      You have a ‘gut’ feeling of your success but it is the application or seatwork of your lesson that determines your answer for you most of the time. If the students have done the work extremely well – move on. If it has been poorly done, redo and reinforce. If it was somewhere in the middle, you might still move on but also incorporate a reinforcement of only those items that seem to have been done poorly. You final decision as to what to do might hinge upon what comes next in your unit. If what come next depends upon mastery of this lesson, then that knowledge helps you to determine what should be done.

Lesson plans may be available on the following websites:

http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/core.cfm

This is an Ontario Ministry of Education site – useful stuff!

http://www.thecanadianteacher.com then click on ‘teacher tools’.

Prof190 website:  http://www.educ.queensu.ca/Prof-190-191/teaching-professional-resources.html with references to the Curriculum Planner and lesson info

If you want to have your students do a puzzle as part of their lesson activities you can create one here:

http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com

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