Chapter 10: What will I do to develop effective lessons organized into a cohesive unit?

Teachers are still free to organize this content into units of their design. In the classroom Identify the focus of the unit Decide the centerpiece of the unit which will be a task. Plan for specific critical-input experiences as well as activities that will deepen students understanding of the content. Create an outline for the weeks that it takes do develop the unit. The outline provides a framework to guide your decisions. Rules and procedures: communicates the message of high expectations Research and Theory Teachers use these units to organize new content in ways that provide a cohesive framework for the entire semester or year. Academic task is the basic unit of organization within a lesson. A teacher who designs and organizes academic tasks well will produce better student learning that a teacher who doesnt. Academic activities: incremental, practice, restructuring, and enrichment. Textbook might have less influence on the way teachers organize instructional segments than one might think. Decisions teachers make about the focus of units of instructions, the less within those units, and the segments within each lesson provide the infrastructure for effective or ineffective teaching. Real time decisions are point of contact between teacher and students. Flexibility is a critical component of effective planning. Action steps Action step 1. Overall focus. Identify the focus of a unit of instruction. It affects many other aspects if the unit. Focus on Standards should also form the basis for planning at the classroom level. knowledge Critical-input experiences. Deepen students knowledge regarding the goals. Requires students to go beyond the information contained in the learning goals. Focus on Issues Hypothesis-generation and testing Deal with values Focus on students Once students begin to make progress on these goals students are asked exploration to identify their own essential questions. Hypotheses you want to test? Problem you want to examine? Decision you want to examine? Action step 2. Plan for lesson segments Students practice their new knowledge or skill under direct teacher that will be routine components of every supervision. lesson No single design for all lessons will suffice for all situations. Flexible form of lesson design involves: 1 segment that will most likely be part of every lesson; 2 segments that focus on content; 3 segments that address actions that must be taken on the spot. Consider the following routine issues: rules and procedures, communicating learning goals, tracking students progress on learning goals, and celebrating success on learning goal. Action step 3. Plan for content-specific Academic content lesson segments. One content segment is addressed in a single lesson. Determine before classes: critical-input experience, activity that helps them practice or deepen their knowledge, presented with a hypothesisgeneration and testing task or asked to work on such task that was started previously.

Lesson segments devoted to critical input experiences

Lesson segments devoted to practice and deepening students understanding of content

Lesson segments devoted to hypothesisgeneration and testing task Action step 4. Plan for actions that must be taken on the spot.

Lecture Materials students read Physical demonstration Video or DVD presentations Field trips Seek for variety in the mediums used for input experiences Expository and narrator format Ask students question that require them to elaborate on the content, engages students in activities (summarize and re-present the content and reflect on their learning) Procedural knowledge should not be assigned as homework until they can perform the procedure independently Ask and answer these following questions: 1. What practice activities will I use, and what is my role during these activities? 2. Am I using a variety of practice activities? 3. What knowledge-deepening activities will I use, and what is my role during these activities? 4. Am I using a variety of knowledge-deepening activities? 5. What will the role of homework be in these activities? 6. How will grouping be used in these activities? Consider how much time will be provided for students to work on these tasks in class. Teacher acts as a resource for students. Asking students about the progress offering support and guidance. Engagement: considering a variety of engagement activities. Consequences for rules and procedures: providing consequences for adherence to and lack of adherence to rules and procedures is a day-today activity. Relationships: communicating and appropriate level of guidance; appropriate level of concern and cooperation. Expectations: Low expectancy students are being treated in the same manner as high expectancy students. Sketch out the mayor activities in the unit. Formal assessment at the end of each week. Effective teaching is a complex endeavor involving many interacting components. Teacher reminds himself of the complexities of teaching on a daily basis.

Action step 5. Develop a Flexible draft of daily activities for a unit. Action step 6. Review the critical aspects of effective teaching daily.