Lesson planning is a practical way for a teacher to organize her thoughts and ideas before presenting them to her class. Without a plan there is no telling what could happen. The biggest chance for disaster in a science class is probably during an experiment. It is the teacher’s foremost responsibility to ensure her student’s safety. The teacher needs to carefully plan her lesson and consider the following questions: are the tools safe, are the students mature enough, how can the lesson be carried out to avoid disaster? As we saw in the video Sarah’s case, lack of planning is a recipe for disaster. The student’s became so frustrated that the classroom became chaotic and Sarah could not help them because she didn’t have a plan and she didn’t try the experiment herself before doing it with her class.
Some other factors to consider when planning an elementary science lesson are: keep it interesting, keep it moving, and to use more than one method of presenting information since all students do not learn the same way. Younger children can be easily distracted and have shorter attention spans so it’s important to be aware of what the children are doing during the lesson in case changes need to be made, such as breaking into small groups or watching a video. It also doesn’t hurt for a teacher to be flexible when it becomes necessary to alter her game plan.
Arlette,
ReplyDeleteYou make so many good points. I personally very happy that teaching is becoming more interactive rather than lecture based. It inspires more student interest in the topic and allows more students to get involved. Merely lecturing to the students will quickly loose their attention and thus their interest. As you mentioned, in order for a lesson to be safe and effective, it is important to develop a lesson plan ahead of time. It is also important to test out the lesson before involving the students; as you mentioned, Sarah in Sarah's case had not acted out the activity ahead of time which unfortunately resulted in a failed activity/lesson because the students became discouraged with their projects and the teacher had no idea how to help them. She also had not align the activity with the frameworks, had she done this should may have realized that the activity was over the heads of her students. (They were only supposed to understand a single design not a multi-design.) Although she had great intentions her planning was not sufficient.
I also like your idea of keeping the students moving and the activity interesting as well as maintaining flexibility. Things are not always going to go as planned but it is important to for a teacher to be able to adjust their lesson to compensate for student learning/understanding. For example, a teacher may think that his/her students have a particular background knowledge of a topic in which that don't. In such a situation the teacher can not simply proceed with the activity without first going back and providing the necessary background knowledge.