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Yesterday I started writing a blog post in response to several thoughts/questions that I’ve heard mumbled around me.  I addressed the first of these ( see below) in some detail and would like to thank all of the practising teachers out there who supported me and our profession with their responses on Twitter, Facebook and the post itself.

1. Teachers in the field don’t plan lessons so why am I doing a lesson plan

Now, the audience I still have in mind has an assessment due very soon and in it they have been given the “Four Part Lesson Plan” to work with.  Hopefully yesterday’s blog post has done something to help them understand why we’re planning a lesson so let’s move on to the purpose of that particular planning frame and how to use it with an IWB (Ready to put your TPACK hats on?)

1. I don’t really get what the four part lesson plan is all about
2. How do I use an IWB in a four part lesson? Am I making a notebook lesson?

What is this Four Part Lesson all about?

The framework you’ve been given to work with comes from the idea of the “Accelerated learning Cycle”. It came from the TEEP (Teacher Effectiveness Enhancement Program) There are some excellent ideas there about planning and what makes a good teacher – It’s free to sign up too .  One of the 5 underpinning elements of TEEP is the accelerated learning cycle.

Accelerated learning is the term that the TEEP model uses to describe the techniques and strategies that we use to actively engage learners in learning. It is based on research of brain function , student motivation and multiple intelligences and provides a platform for life-long learning by promoting the importance of understanding how we learn as much as what we learn. The key ideas of accelerated learning can be briefly summarised as:

• Making connections with prior knowledge and experiences
• Experiencing the content of the curriculum through the senses
• Supporting students to take risks in their learning
• Allowing opportunity for exploratory talk
• Providing students with relevant and
• useful feedback
• Offering learning experiences that are both pleasurable and memorable
• Regular review of learning”

(Taken from http://www.teep.org.uk/a_themodel.asp on 18/10/2011 )

What’s supposed to happen in each part?

So how do the dot points above translate into the planning frame you’ve been given?   Here’s another useful diagram I was given when I was teaching with this cycle at Shenley Academy

Descriptions of each stage of 'The Four Part Accelerated Learning Cycle'

There’s a great little tool here to help fill in ideas whilst you’re brainstorming.

Now, as you know, with the help of my colleagues back at Shenley, I’m currently putting together a list of different types of activity that could fit under each of these headings but in the meantime what could I suggest?

Connection:

The connection phase is all about helping your students to see the big picture.  What do they already know / have the already experienced and what will they know/ have experienced by the end of the lesson.  It’s also about creating a moment for students to connect with your learning environment.  So, if we’ve just come in from P.E. or recess on a windy day we can all get ourselves into the correct “learning climate”. In TEEP that’s the consideration of:

• The physical environment
• The social/emotional environment
• The intellectual environment

Don’t forget there’s not too much new learning going on here… Bear that in mind when deciding how much time to spend connecting

Some practical ideas:

• Everything should be ready to go when they get there
• Always display the objectives – what about adding a “what we’re going to do” as well?

Connecting with prior learning:

Some Practical Ideas

I’m writing this blog post with a certain audience in mind.   Over the past few weeks I’ve heard several things that have caught my attention. Things that I think I can help with. They are:

1. Teachers in the field don’t plan lessons so why am I doing a lesson plan
2. I don’t really get what the four part lesson plan is all about
3. How do I use an IWB in a four part lesson? Am I making a notebook lesson?

As a teacher, you may be reading this post and forming your own ideas about the answers to these questions.  Please feel free to add comments if you feel I miss anything.  What I’m about to attempt to do is attempt to explain and discuss the points above. Let’s start with point 1.

I was wrong.

As those of you who have worked with me know, I use the four part lesson plan. I have done for the last 5/6 years.  So here’s what my day to day plans look like:

My Weekly Planner:

The plan below represents the notes I make for myself.  The letters at the start of each point represent the stages of the four part accelerated learning cycle.  The audience of this plan is me… As a result,  It doesn’t contain enough information for anyone else to pick this up and run with it not does it need to.  From these notes the reader has no context, no resources, no idea about who I’m teaching because I have all of that information in my head and no one else needs that information right now… What’s important is that I did spend a minute creating a plan outlining how I would be teaching my content, although all of the details are not written down I have spent time considering them.  I also will have created a flipchart (I used Activ Inspire) to accompany this.  The flip chart has the lesson objectives clearly stated within the first couple of slides.

A Screen Shot of my Weekly Lesson Planner NB: These are plans I've used in England. Year 11 is the last year of the GCSE and is equivalent to AUS Year 10 (in age).

In honesty,  When I plan, I usually plan straight into Inspire.  I start by finding my lesson objectives and then I consider the students I’m teaching.  Who are they? What am I expecting of them? What perceived obstacles can I see that might stop them? How do I help them over come these obstacles? How do I challenge the strong and support the weak? How do I personalise learning? How could I use ICT to help improve learning? What questions will I ask? None of this information is displayed above.

Although I have considered all of this whilst writing what you see above, if I handed a plan which was as short as this to an observer it would be very hard for them to understand what I’m up to and why I’ve chosen to teach in that way. Also, as a new, less experienced teacher it might be helpful for me to have a template that I complete, just to ensure that I am prompted into thinking carefully about covering all the bases.  When planning a good lesson, there’s a lot to think about!

That’s where the Half Page Plan comes in….

Here's a shot of a more detailed, 4 part lesson plan framework for personal use.

This template is great for allowing you to remember the process of connect, activate, demonstrate and consolidate. it also requires objectives to be listed and you can see there’s a lot more detail here.  This plan, however, would still not be detailed enough to inform an observer who is new to my classroom about everything I’m doing there.

What is an observer looking for?

In an ordinary classroom situation how do you know what you need to demonstrate as a teacher in a lesson?  We’ve now got the National Professional Standards for Teachers here in Australia.  What we still don’t have though is a mechanism for measuring how well you’re meeting them when you teach.  If you want something to measure with then click for the Lesson observation Criteria (OFSTED 2009) used when I was observed.

When we have an observer in the room then the Audience of  my document changes.  Now, through this document, you’ve  got to demonstrate all the skills you’re using as a teacher.  How do you do that?

Transparency - Give the observer EVERYTHING in your head on a sheet of paper.

In order to reach the dizzy heights of “Outstanding” as a teacher (Based on the OFSTED criteria I was constantly assessed by) you’re going to have to do a lot of work to make sure that you prove that you’ve thought of everything.   Now, this is where I would argue that you are beginning to jump through hoops.  There’s NO WAY you would ever plan every lesson in as much detail as this…. However… if you’re being observed or your lessons’ being read by somebody who can’t read your mind then here’s an example of a longer, Full, detailed lesson plan for observation.

Notice all the extra information provided here.  This is evidence of all of the thinking and teaching preparation I have done prior to the lesson.   We have information about how many boys and girls so that I can demonstrate strategies to combat under achievement in boys, we have information about the pupil’s history in the form of SEN and G+T and much, much more.

What will be more interesting to the Audience that this was intended for will be my notes to the observer at the end.  It’s these notes that resemble the Pebble Pad blog post you’ll be writing.  Although in this case my object was not to point out how TPACK was being used, can you identify how I am using technology to enable learning?  Visualisers are electronic document cameras, voting tools have been used at the beginning and end of the lesson to chart progress, the IWB has been used to allow pupils to lead learning there’s a lot going on… perhaps there are some clues there to answer your fourth question?

The main point I’m making here is that the art of lesson planning is an important one.  That, when you are a beginning teacher, you need to plan in more detail so that you can give yourself the time and a framework to operate in to ensure that you can produce quality lessons.  As you get more experienced you’ll need less of a framework  or scaffold and you’ll start to do many of the things you see in this longer lesson plan automatically.  What that doesn’t mean is that someone else who’s observing you can see what you’re doing.  When you’re asked to plan a lesson and share it with an observer so you can show off your skills make sure you give them every detail you’ve used in your head.  Share your expertise with them so that they understand what you’re trying to do.  Here was the resulting observation grade I received from the planning, organising and deliver of this lesson. Selena Woodward Lesson Observation – GRADED OFSTED CRITERIA 09

Don’t be afraid to take a risk either… and don’t forget that sometimes even the best laid plans…..

If you’re a practising teacher why not let our student teachers know that we plan?  Feel free to leave them a message below

Tomorrow? I’ll tackle that second question!