learning teaching process

Planning and strategy in teaching-learning process

A few notes, strategies, and techniques

The effectiveness of professional development depends on how carefully educators conceive, plan and implement it. - Hayes Mizell, Why Professional Development Matters Learning Forward, 2010

Planning is important. No matter if it’s for your classroom, going to a supermarket, or buying a car. In education, a well-worked out course/lesson plan will act as a core of teaching-learning process. It answers all the necessary questions and provides sufficient support to the teacher so that the teaching becomes smooth and easy.

It may be the state/university/institution that decides what the students should learn but it falls to the teacher how the curriculum is taught, structured and how the students learn.

Instructional planning happens when a teacher is able to visualise and forecast the future of what, why, and how of the teaching-learning process.

Why is planning so important

Planning is a roadmap to the instructor’s success.

Whenever you make a plan, you know what you want to achieve. At the same time, it becomes clear what the future might hold and what your goals are. Your goals, which has been decided by planning, makes your decision making more efficient and more ‘to the point’.

This is because you know that how a decision will affect your plan in the long term and whether or not, this decision will help you in achieving your goals. Thus it helps you make decisions faster.

Planning takes a lot of time and effort. It’s easy to procrastinate or to tag it unnecessary. But once you realise the time and energy you save with proper planning, there’s no way you can unsee it. Something so simple as creating a lesson plan can be this transformational event which instantly takes your teaching to the next level.

A lot have been spoken about the importance of planning. So we are not getting into one of those long lectures where we go on and on about why planning is a crucial element in teaching-learning process.

If you want, you could check out these resources regarding the importance of planning. Importance of planning, Planning and Organizing for Instruction.

How to plan for classrooms

A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components :

• Objectives for student learning
• Teaching/learning activities
• Strategies to check student understanding

Here’s a bunch of questions to help you better prepare for the classroom. Try to answer them before you put your plan into action.

• How will you check whether students know anything about the topic or have any preconceived notions about it?
• What are some commonly held ideas (or misconceptions) about this topic the students might have?
• How are you going to introduce the topic?

The 3 Stages of lesson planning

1. Outlining stage
   Creating an overview of the curriculum, desirable outcomes, learning objectives etc. Structuring the timeline for the plan. Gathering data and teaching/course materials.
2. Decision stage
   Decision stage is where you create your plan, and decide on what and how you are going to execute your plan. Workflow of step by step implementation, delivery methods, assessment techniques, backup options, etc. comes under this section.
3. Mapping stage
   Map the things which you have decided on with the things you want to achieve. See if they align. If not, try to rethink your decision.