Classroom Lesson Planning

Conception / Objectives / Procedures / Standards / Performance

 

Introduction :   Education is not an easy task as some people think. It is a complicated process that needs great efforts and patience from the behalf of the teacher. It is nearer to innovation than just filling, copying and piling knowledge.

            When we teach, we do not only copy from mind to mind as pumping liquids through tubes from a vessel to another, we do not just fill pupils’ minds with information but we aim at making them able to possess the ability to discover facts. They interact with these and ideas and simultaneously develop their cognitive growth, ability to discover, creativity and adaptation. Such a difficult process can not be extemporized, it should be planned for carefully and accurately.

              Lesson planning is one of the most important and basic conditions in organizing learning, being one of the main duties of the teacher as a regulator of his pupils’ learning.

               There is no doubt that organizing others’ learning in a certain situation is considered to be a magnificent job which has it’s rules and conditions that a dutiful teacher should be aware of according to the available circumstances. Meaningful planning is a major step towards success to pave the way for a suitable atmosphere for learning inside or outside the classroom without wasting time in useless affairs.

    

 

First: Conception:  

            Classroom lesson planning is known as the process that leads to having a comprehensive outlook of the educational situations that the teacher prepares in order to achieve his aims. It is also the process that leads to putting a teaching plan including educational situations containing any other processes depending on aims specification, selecting the methods and procedures that help in achieving, evaluating and executing the plan..

 

 

Second: Objectives: 

a.       Helping the teacher to face the different educational situations aided by a high degree of self-confidence.

b.      Helping the teacher to avoid  the awkward situations in front of his pupils or whenever classroom problems may rise.

c.       Helping in the teacher’s continuous professional growth.

d.      Helping the teacher in organizing pupils’ learning via organizing the sides of the educational situation that are( the teacher, the student, educational experience and the class environment) .

e.       Helping the teacher in achieving the educational objectives easily on behalf of his pupils.

f.        Helping the teacher in improving, enriching and developing the curricula.

g.       Enabling the teacher to know the priorities of the teaching process.    

 

 

Third: Procedures:

          The teacher:

-          reads the material of the lesson analytically.

-          benefits from the  special references  to equip himself with  the accurate knowledge. 

-          be aware of the objectives of the subject matter to know how to function them in favour

                                      of his pupils’ general growth.

-         specifies objectives.

-         chooses the best aids, methods and activities for each aim necessary to achieve it.

-         chooses the technique of evaluation for each objective.

-         estimates the suitable timing for each objective(usually assumed). 

 

 

Fourth: Standards: 

              Planning has two standards: (long-term planning) represented in year-plan, the other is (short-term planning) represented in lesson plan. Here we are going to know the parts of the year plan and the lesson plan separately.

A.     The Year Plan: It consists of:

-         Basic information including ( stage - class - material - school year ).

-         objectives:   should have the following characteristics:

·        To be specific objectives of the lesson.

·        To contain kinds of behaviour types expected from the pupils.

·        To be comprehensive and containing the psychomotor, cognitive and emotional fields.

-         Content  includes the educational experiences that lead to achieve the previous objectives.

-         Methods, activities and audio-visual aids:  Methods include the educational techniques like recitation, discussion, scientific experimentation, research and group work etc….. Activities include applied sides of the subject that help in the acquisition of scientific thinking techniques and cooperative learning. Audio-visual aids include tapes, textbooks, posters, films, flashcards, CDs, pictures, maps, classroom findings, the board ,markers (pens) and others.

-         objectives Evaluation Techniques: Evaluation techniques contain the methods used to measure objectives achievement like: tests, observation tools and estimation tests.

-         Time: It includes the amount of timing like saying “ the first week of  a certain month” or from a specific date to another.

-         Remarks: They mean the difficulties that may hinder the educational process like: ( time is not enough for executing the objectives that were not achieved, or partially achieved ).

B.     Classroom planning  can be divided into:

-         Basic information  includes the period, subject matter, day and the date.

-         Aims: The objectives should:

·        be achievable in a classroom period.

·        be behaviorally composed.

·        be specific.

·        include cognitive, emotional and psychomotor objectives.

-         Methods, Techniques and activities: They should be specific, suitable for the short-term objectives and chosen in a certain way to help the teacher in achieving the general objectives.

-         Evaluation: contains:

·        The questions that the teacher asks to be sure of the amount of pupils’ achievement of the objectives.

·        Short tests that help the teacher in knowing the extent of objectives achievement.

·        Observation which is measured by pupils’ response with the teacher.

·        All kinds of temporary tests that the teacher prepares.

-         Time: The teacher should divide the time of the period properly to suit the specific objectives.

-         Remarks: Which are:

·        The difficulties that face the educational process in the classroom.

·        The objectives that have been achieved, partially achieved or have not been achieved at all.

 

 

 

Fifth: Procedures before the plan:  

           

                 After the teacher forms an idea about the details of the lesson from the book or any other resources and before he starts planning the lesson he should ask himself the following questions:

 

1.      What are the main ideas of the lesson?

2.      Are these ideas related with any other previous lessons?

3.      What are the new facts and information in the lesson?

4.      What is the suitable plan I should follow to make my pupils more interested in such information and how to guide them to discover them?

5.      How to link these new information with the previous ones?

6.      What are the aids and activities that should be used and practised?

7.      What exactly are the difficult concepts and important information I should clarify?

8.      Which are the best questions to be asked? What are the expected questions that the pupils may ask?

9.      What are the proper evaluation techniques ( according to this specific lesson and the pupils’ standard )?                

10.  What should a teacher do to urge the pupils to use the information they have already got?

11.  What are the possible difficulties and how to deal with them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behavioural Objectives

Conception / Components / Conditions / Fields

 

Introduction:

         Dear teacher.. we should always remember this fact:

                                ( The objectives are not achieved by themselves, they change – from mere ideas and words on our papers and preparation notebooks – into real facts and virtues implemented in learners through our efforts and what we create and apply of different methods, activities according to the proper evaluation techniques that we select).            

               

 First: Conception:

           The instructional objective is usually known as the behavioural change that a teacher tries to achieve at the end of the educational process ( for a course, unit or a classroom period ). Any change that occurs in the pupil’s behaviour as a result of classroom learning is considered as educational output which forms the expected behaviour of the pupil. Therefore, the educational aim is composed of a group of educational outputs which are achieved during a classroom period.

          Consequently, we can define the behavioural outputs as: specific behavioural changes that we expect after exposing the pupil to a classroom instructional situation including new educational experiences. The behavioural outputs may look as ( all the new information, knowledge, methods of thinking, customs and skills noticed in the pupil’s behaviour).

 

Second: Components:

           The behavioural work consists of the following parts:

a.       Behavioural (action=verb) ( which specifies the learning behaviour accurately ).

b.      The subject of behaviour ( the learner ).

c.       The content ( the subject matter ).

d.      The situation ( the state of the learner during behaviour performance ).                     

e.       The criterion ( the degree of accuracy through which a teacher evaluates the learners’ performance ).

 

       

 

Example:

           

-         To enable the pupil to comprehend a paragraph about a certain topic in fifteen minutes or in not less than 80 % accuracy.

-         Behavioural (action=verb): to comprehend.

-         Behaviour subject: the pupil.

-         The content: a paragraph about a certain topic.

-         The situation: with his colleagues.

-         The criterion: - fifteen minutes ( time criterion ).

                             - 80 % ( percentage criterion ).

      

                        

Third: Conditions:

 

              The goal sentence contains the behavioural objective. Some of  the most important conditions that should be put in consideration when composing the objective sentence are:

-         The sentence should describe the pupil’s expected performance.

-         It should describe a kind of behaviour that can be easily observed.

-         The sentence should include one behavioural verb that can be measured and proved.

-         The sentence should represent a certain behavioural output.

-         The sentence should include the pupil’s  satisfactory performance level.

 

Fourth: Fields:

 

             The fields of  behavioural objectives are ( thought – emotions – skill ).

The human being is:         Thought:   is known as the cognitive, perceptive or mental dimension.

                                          Emotions: known as the passional, sentimental and affective dimension.

                                          Skills: known as the psychomotor or the dynamic skills.             

These fields ( thought – emotions – skills ) are interrelated in a way that makes it hard to separate, if this separation occurs ( optional or obligatory ), the result would be mental or psychological disturbances. It is normal if one of these fields exceeds the others according to the individual differences.

The behavioural objectives can be divided into three main fields:  

a.      The cognitive field:

 It includes all what the pupil should know like facts, concepts and principles. Learner’s knowledge has the following levels ( remembrance – understanding – application – analysis – formation and evaluation ).

b.      The sentimental field: Objectives in this field are generally concerned with the emotional and passional sides which have a certain kind of relation with the individual’s acceptance or denial of specific affairs. The content of these objectives includes educational results which are related to the attitudes, values, customs, feelings, estimation and savoring.

c.       The psychomotor field: Objectives in this dimension are related with developing and learning the skill. Skill is known to enable the pupil to execute a certain work or to organize a game. It can also be social like the desire of talking, listening and meeting others or it can be a mental skill like the skill of thinking, analysis and the ability to discover facts. This field can be divided into the following levels ( observation – tendency – guided response – mechanism – adaptation and creativity ).

 

 

 

 

Examples of behavioural objectives that may help in finalizing the objectives

                     

( General Recommendations for the Teacher )

1- Preparation is the teacher’s best assistance in performing his duty whatever his lesson is ( easy or difficult ). A teacher should plan for his lesson whatever excellent the teacher is. It is not reasonable for anyone to excel any work without preparation and being ready to perform it. Inefficiency in this domain is considered an inefficacy in one of the main duties of his job.

2- The teacher plans his year or term plan before the school year begins by specifying the main features of the subject ( distribution – objectives – methods – techniques – suggested time and methods of evaluation ).

3- The teacher should write his daily plan regularly by stating the behavioural objectives for each period and what techniques, aids, activities and timing does each objective need in addition to the various suitable evaluation techniques.

4- Each teacher should be aware of the difference between the year plan and the lesson plan ( daily plan ) that lies in the level of execution i.e. the daily plan is prepared for one period while the year plan covers a complete school year or term. As for objectives, the year plan is characterized by generalization and the daily plan is characterized by specification.

5- Teacher’s mental preparation ( understanding his subject matter ), psychological ( getting his pupils ready to receive the new experiences ) and materially    ( audio-visual aids, class findings etc. ) in addition to his written preparation.

6- Each period should have it’s own preparation, in case of teaching the same preparation in more than one class in different days, the teacher should denote to that by writing the date. If classes are different in the scientific standard or individual differences, the teacher must prepare the lesson for each class according to the different standards because lesson planning is related to the learner himself.

7- Organizing the course and arranging it’s different elements logically in order to make the lesson well-linked and clear.

8- Preparation should be free from grammatical or spelling mistakes. Handwriting should be good and clear.

9- The teacher should take his preparation notebook with him in each classroom to make use of it. He shouldn’t read from it in a noticeable way, instead, he can have a look whenever he needs that.                     

 10- Processing difficulties during the lesson daily planning leads to logical scientific and proper preparation.

 11- Revision lesson preparation should include the objectives and topics of the revision in addition to the aids and the questions that should be discussed.

 12- The test lesson preparation must contain  objectives, questions and instructions of the test.

 13- The teacher should organize the school library  or any other learning resources visits and he should prepare for that in the special field according to the directives concerning this matter.

 14- The teacher should write the remarks and recommendations - written by the educational supervisor in the visits record - to be aware of what he is asked to execute in order to improve and develop his performance to facilitate the follow up process done by the school headmaster and the educational supervisor.  

 15- Free reading and benefiting from the scientific and educational references can help in the teacher’s continuous self cultivation and professional growth to enrich his experiences.

 16- For more information you can go to ( The Teacher’s Guide issued by the General Directorate of Educational Supervision in the Ministry of Education – Samples of writing weekly and daily lesson plans ) from page 286 to page 304.

 

Prepared By: 1. Mohammed Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Fahad  “ Director of Educational Supervision and Training in Al-Majma’ah Directorate of Education”.

                2.  Talib Bin Suliman Abu Dheeb.   “ English Language Supervisor in Al-Majma’ah Directorate of Education”.