LESSON PLANNING

Lesson Planning

Lesson Planning

Overview

Students will take turns verbally describing to their classmates a simple abstract drawing. The classmates are expected to reproduce the drawing as closely to the original as possible.

Objectives

Students will use a variety of descriptive terms to "explain" an abstract drawing to their peers. Those drawing will be expected to ask pertinent, clarifying questions.

Activity

The teacher should have several pre-designed abstract drawings using basic shapes. These can be designed on the computer or by hand. One student should be selected to go to the front of the class. They should take one of the designs and try to explain to the class how it should be drawn. Each class member should have a paper and pencil in front of them. They should follow directions as carefully as possible to reproduce the drawing as described by the presenter. Students will soon learn that they will need to ask clarifying questions such as "where on the paper", "how big", etc. The presenter cannot use any visuals to assist in his/her description. Students will soon learn how difficult it is to communicate and how necessary it is to find multiple ways to explain things.

Method Of Learning

This is a cooperative lesson. One individual is in charge of explaining a drawing but the audience is expected to ask questions for clarification.

Assesment

Each student will journal about his/her experience in the role as the "explainer" and as the "drawer". They should compare and contrast each role, discuss what was most difficult/frustrating, or what they found easiest. This is used as a self assessment, not an assessment of others.

When it comes to lesson planning, new teachers need to avoid the temptation of planning just a few lessons because they've survived the week. Lesson planning is a skill which takes focus and organization. It's not too late to start getting into the habit - make it one of your spring goals until the end of the year. For starters, you should get into the habit of planning beyond the lesson itself. But in order to plan an entire lesson unit in advance, you also need to know what to plan.

Spend some time looking through the unit. Make a note of those skills that you would like to spend time teaching. These are your instructional goals or skills for the lesson unit. Examples of instructional goals are: teaching reading strategies such as scanning, skimming and inferencing with an expository text. You should have no more than 5 instructional goals for the unit. Remember, planning a lesson unit doesn't necessarily mean using only the textbook. Here are some tips on how to plan a lesson unit.

Assessment Strategies

Assessment strategies include which types of assessment you will use. If you are an ESL or English teacher, plan on using some form of assessment to measure vocabulary, reading, writing and possibly either listening or speaking. Also vary your assessment formats by using dictations, quizzes, tests check-ups also in an alternative assessment format.

Associated Projects

Traditional testing is not the only way to accumulate ...