Category Archives: Professional Development

Effective Planning

Effective Teaching Begins With Effective Planning 

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Effective Teaching

“What is effective teaching?” This question generates a variety of answers from teachers and administrators. Most educators have their perception or definition. Despite one’s opinion, teaching is a process and has several components and principles.

To become a certified teacher, one must attend a teaching program at a university or college. While participating in a teacher education program, future educators must take methods courses in the core subject areas and their area of certification. Future teachers learn theory, best practices, instructional strategies, lesson planning, and more. Then, they complete a semester of student teaching in a controlled setting with a cooperating teacher for support. Afterward, the real-world awaits in real classrooms with real students. In other words, welcome to the trenches.

Teaching is not an Easy Process

Experienced and new teachers search for effective and engaging strategies to ensure that their students successfully learn new skills. Teaching is not an easy process, and it takes much thinking and preparation to create great lessons for students. In this chapter, we will explore how effective teaching begins with planning.  As educators, we subconsciously know some of these things, but it is good to refresh our memories.

Qualities of Effective Teaching

According to Qualities of Effective Teachers, 3rd Edition by James H. Stronge, 2018, “Effectiveness is an elusive concept when we consider the complex task of teaching. Some researchers define teacher effectiveness in terms of student achievement.

Others focus on high-performance ratings from supervisors.  Still, others rely on comments from students, administrators, and other interested stakeholders.  In fact, in addition to being uncertain how to define effectiveness, we vacillate on just how to refer to successful teachers.”

If you ask a variety of teachers and administrators to define teacher effectiveness, you will hear many different interpretations. Our perceptions and opinions are different based on our education, experiences, school population, and expectations. However, despite our perceptions and views, we can agree that effective teaching begins with lesson planning.

Strategic and Effective Planning

Effective teaching, along with a great and engaging lesson begins with strategic and effective planning. During the planning stage, effective teachers recognize how to reach their students best and being intentional. Jeff C. Marshall in Highly Effective Teachers states, “When we focus more on the why and thus the intentionality of our teaching, we begin to ask richer questions that guide our instruction, such as: How can I better engage the learners who appear to mentally check out? How can I make sure that my lessons are aligned so that the learning matches my goals/objectives? How can I create a learning environment that challenges all while providing scaffolding for those who need it?

Successful Teaching

Successful teaching cannot occur without effective planning. As educators, we learned to write lesson plans using formulas and templates. The procedure we are very familiar with is Students Will Be Able To (SWBAT) – Skill (Verb) – Concept – Context. The skill is “What am I going to do? The concept equals the topic, big idea, or strategy. Lastly, the context is the specific condition, what are you using, and how will I get there. Here are two examples.

Lesson Plan Formula and Templates

1. SWBAT state the characters, plot, setting, and theme for a story.

2. SWBAT compare measurements made using different units.

It takes professional development, practice, and experience to learn to create lessons with intentionality. Always keep the learning outcomes in mind in all of the stages of designing a lesson or unit. Indeed, you want your assignments and activities to be engaging, effective, and relevant for the students. Let’s explore backward design, strategies, and questions to ask to help you create lessons that meet your expectation and students’ needs.

Planning Process

Whether you teach children or adults, keep these ideas in your mind. As part of your lesson planning process, ask yourself these four questions.

1. Who are your learners? Understand the learning characteristics, styles, and needs of your students.

2. Why is this lesson or unit necessary? Students, want to know, “Why do I need to know this? What’s in it for me?”

3. What do learners need to be able to do?

4. How can the students best learn the subject or skill?

Think about using the backward design method to create your lesson and keep the learning outcomes in mind. Also, it helps to keep your lesson relevant to the needs of your students. Now let’s begin with steps to get you started with your design.

Effective teachning begins with effective planning
Strategic and effective planning is the starting point for a great lesson. Photo by Nils Stah on Unsplash.com

Begin with the End in Mind

1. Imagine what students will say and be able to do at the end of the lesson.

2. Think and reflect on how to imagine the end.

3. Build your beginning with your end in mind.

4. Plan with students’ needs in mind. Will the lesson satisfy their needs?

From Imagination to Reality

Now you are ready to head to the next step by moving from imagining what the lesson looks like to the beginning to make it a reality.  Begin to ask yourself more in-depth questions for students, materials, resources, and instructional strategies.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself. Reflect and answer the questions in a way to help you stay focused on the learning outcomes. Remember always to keep the learning outcomes in mind.

1. What prior knowledge or skills do students need to be successful?

2. What vocabulary, terms, information, or skills do you need to introduce to participants?

3. What materials and resources are best in building the desired skills and knowledge?

4. What instructional strategies are most likely to result in your desired outcome for your students?

5. How can you progress monitor or check for understanding along the way? What type of assessment tools will you use?

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 Understanding by Design

A great resource to review is In Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe. They state that “backward design is focused primarily on student learning and understanding.  When teachers are designing lessons, units, or courses, they often focus on the activities and the instruction rather than the outputs of the teaching.

Therefore, it can be stated that teachers often focus more on teaching rather than learning. This perspective can lead to the misconception that learning is the activity when, in fact, learning is derived from a careful consideration of the meaning of the activity.”

For more information on backward design, check out Three Stages of Backward Design.

1. Identify the Desired Result

2. Determine Acceptable Evidence

3. Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

Let’s quickly take a look at three stages of a road trip to the learning outcomes you desire.

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Stage 1 of Backward Design

Stage 1: Desired Results

Here is where you establish the goals and enduring understandings of the lesson. You will think about: Acquisition, Understandings, Essential Questions, and Transfer. 

Acquisition

What key knowledge or skill will students acquire during the lesson or unit?

Understanding

What big ideas or specific understanding will students have upon completion of the lesson or unit?

Essential Questions

What questions will provoke inquiry, understanding, and transfer of the knowledge? The essential questions usually frame the lesson. If your students attain the goals of the lesson, they should be able to answer the essential questions.

Transfer

How will students transfer the knowledge from the lesson or unit? Then, how will they apply the information or experience outside the context of the class?

Evidence and Assessment

Stage 2: Evidence and Assessment

You must decide what you will evaluate students on or what is the evaluative criteria. Will you use performance tasks, projects, papers, quizzes, tests, homework, or other evidence?

Students must demonstrate that they attained the goals of the lesson. They must show their level of understanding, and you must determine how students will do so.

Learning Path

Stage 3: Learning Path

Summarize key learning events and instructional strategies. Will you present key learning events via individual learning activities, lectures, discussions, problem-solving sessions, or other techniques.

 You must decide the individual learning activities and instructional strategies to use during the lesson or unit.

Successful lessons begin with strategic planning and backward design is thorough practice. It takes time to master; however, time and with practice, it will become normal to you.  The steps for using backward design allow you, the teacher, to be more reflective when creating lessons. The process makes you clearly think about the students’ needs, learning styles, resources, materials, and assessments. More importantly, the backward design allows you to plan and teach with intentionality. Remember effective teaching begins with effective planning.

Resources

 Qualities of Effective Teachers, 3rd Edition by James H. Stronge, 2018
Stronge, J., 2018. Qualities of an Effective Teacher. 3rd ed. United States: ASCD.

Jeff C. Marshall in Highly Effective Teachers: 7 Classroom Tested Practices That Foster Student Success
Marshall, J., 2016. The Highly Effective Teacher: 7 Classroom-Tested Practices That Foster Student Success. 1st ed. United States: ASCD.

In Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe
Wiggins, G. P., McTighe, J., Kiernan, L. J., Frost, F., & Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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Types of Learning

Exploring Types of Learning 

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Types of Learning

Effective teachers want their students to learn actively. Each day, different levels and types of learning take place in classrooms across the world. For those who work in education, the lingo changes and can be confusing. However, we are going to explore some educational terms that define several types of learning.

Active Learning

Active learning is a student-centered approach. The responsibility for learning is on the students, often in collaboration with their classmates. During active learning, students engage and contribute their thoughts, ideas, and opinions through collaboration and discussion. The teacher guides the conversation or activity, but the students actively participate. One example of active learning in a classroom engaged and filled with discourse or divided into groups with students collaborating or problem-solving on a project. Here are a few examples of active learning activities.

  • Think Pair Share
  • Role Playing
  • Discussions/Student Discourse
  • Problem-Solving
  • Game-Based Learning
  • Group Projects
  • Debates

Hybrid Learning

If you have not heard of hybrid learning, another term is blended learning. It is a mixture of in-class active learning and out-of-class online learning through digital media. While in class, students participate in a productive learning activity. Then outside of the classroom, students may be directed to watch an online video, lecture, or complete an online activity through a school or educational website.

  • Station Rotation is used mostly in elementary schools. Students rotate through stations on a fixed schedule, where at least one station is an online learning station
  • Lab Rotation is when students rotate through stations on a fixed schedule in a dedicated computer lab.
  • Remoted Blended Learning is  when a student focuses on completing online coursework while only meeting with the teacher intermittently or as-needed.
  • Flipped Classroom Students are introduced to content at home, and practice working through it at school supported by a teacher.
Consider the types of learners when planning lessons. Photo by Wadi Lissa on Upsplash.com

Meta-Cognitive Awareness

Meta-cognition allows students to reflect on their thinking and knowledge. It is critical thinking and how one comes to know about a subject or specific skill. Meta-cognitive awareness goes well beyond the surface and introductory learning.

Students write self-reflections in a language arts or math journal about a skill or topic they learned. They can express the process of solving a problem or their thoughts about a science experiment. Students can create a mind map to show their learning process visually and how their thinking evolved.

It is essential to schedule a time for students to reflect on their learning process and see how their knowledge progressed. Provide students the opportunity to reflect on what was easy for them to learn versus what was difficult. Reflect why and which strategies worked or did not work and why.

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Community and Service Learning

Community and service-learning is a perfect opportunity for students to have a real-life learning experience. Students can volunteer to complete projects or support community organizations. They can organize activities such as food drives, community clean-ups, letter-writing campaigns, etc. These types of opportunities promote collaboration and the value of helping and supporting others. Here are a few examples of community and service learning projects.

  • Students plan and organize a coat drive for homeless citizens.
  • Collecting food for a local food bank
  • Recycling Program
  • Build and plant a community garden
  • Neighborhood Clean Up
  • Community Newsletter

E-Learning (Web-based learning or Online Learning)

E-Learning includes learning online through a course or courses that a school offers on the net. Emails, live lectures, and video conferencing are all possible with e-learning. It is convenient and flexible. It promotes active and independent learning. E-learning is a system based on formalized teaching but with the help of electronic resources. This type of educational experience usually is not seen at the elementary or middle school level. It is more popular at the college or university level.

Experiential Learning

Experiential learning is a process by which students develop knowledge, skills, and values from direct experiences outside of a traditional academic setting. It is also a method of education through firsthand experience. Students’ skills, knowledge, and experiences are acquired outside of a conventional classroom. The experiences can include internships, studies abroad, field trips, service-learning projects, etc. There are five steps to experiential learning.

  1. The Experience Itself 

The experience is the thing that happens. It can be scheduled activity, current event, or an unexpected discussion.

  1. Publishing 

 Students reflect on their journey through the experience. During the publishing phase, students only reflect on themselves.

  1. Processing 

 Students reflect on observations that other participants had who shared the experience.

  1. Generalizing 

 Students think about other times where they had similar feelings or views. During this phase, students stretch to think about their experiences.

  1. Applying 

Students think about things they learned from the experience. Students consider how they can apply what they learned during the experience.

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Project-Based Learning (PBL)

PBL is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects. Students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem, or challenge. PBL requires students to critically think, problem-solve, collaborate, and communicate.

VARK Learning Styles

Listed above are types of learning that can happen in a classroom. Take into consideration the types of learning styles your students possess. According to VARK, there are several learning modalities. VARK stands for Visual, Aural, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic. Students may have one modality or a mixture (multimodality). Review vark-learn.com for more information and resources.

Visual Learners (V)

Visual (V) learners prefer maps, diagrams, charts, or other graphics. It does not include still pictures, photographs, videos, movies, or PowerPoint. It also includes designs, whitespace, patterns, and shapes to help convey information.

Aural/Auditory (A)

Students learn best from lectures, group discussions, radio, email, speaking, and talking things through. The aural preference includes talking out loud as well as talking to oneself. People sort out things by talking it out.

Read/Write (R)

Students prefer information to be displayed as words. The preference emphasizes text-based input and output, such as manuals, reports, and essays. People with the Read/Write modality like lists, the internet, dictionaries, journals/diaries, etc.

Kinesthetic (K)

Students who are kinesthetic learn through actual personal experiences, examples, practice, or simulation. They learn by doing, touching, tasting, holding, etc. Kinesthetic learners value their own experience of acquiring knowledge or skill.

Multimodality (MM)

Some people use more than one modality and can switch from mode to mode, depending on what is the project or assignment. It is not unusual to be this flexible. They choose the modality based on the occasion, situation, or context of the project or activity.

For more information about VARK learning styles, visit vark-learn.com.

It is crucial to consider the types of learning and learners when planning lessons. When taken into consideration, you are a more effective teacher, and students’ learning experiences are more memorable.

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Areas of Reflection for Educators

Five Areas of Reflection for Educators 

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Areas of Reflection

If you were a fly on the wall, what would you see and hear in your classroom? As an administrator, what would you see and hear in your school? Self-Reflection is key to effective teaching and learning. Successful educators know that no matter how good a lesson is in the moment or how good the school rating is, there’s always room for improvement. Great teachers and administrators look for ways to become better at their craft. We will explore five areas of reflection for educators.

According to Beverly Flaxington of Psychology Today, self-reflection is a lost art. In the article, The Lost Art of Self-Reflection, Flaxington states, “It’s quite unpopular today to engage in healthy self-reflection, or to put it in another way, “What’s my role in my problems and how could I address things differently for different results?” Looking outside is so much easier. You can point to the other person, outline their foibles and failings very easily, and then rest comfortably knowing the culprit has been identified!”

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