Why plan for your lessons?
Imagine this: You created a lesson plan with a lot of effort. But, when you took it to the classroom, it didn’t work at all! Just like in the picture, your students made a mess of the class. Have you ever been in this situation?
So, you understand that framing lesson plans will not make them fool-proof. Students may not ask relevant questions, not give answers that you can build on, or just lose interest. A lot of these troubles can be addressed by planning FOR lessons to make them effective.
This planning exercise helps you in many ways:
You can recognize your students’ context, interests, and learning styles
Planning helps you adjust content to make it relevant to students’ backgrounds and learning levels
You can also ask probing questions and give constructive feedback to enhance students’ learning
Remember: Planning FOR lessons is not the same as creating lesson plans!
Creating lesson plans would include the tasks of creating appropriate learning objectives, designing projects and activities for the session, and methods to check for understanding.
But, planning FOR lessons builds the foundation for these lesson plans. It runs through all the aspects of the lesson plan.
Think of it like this: When you want to cook a dish, you prepare a recipe for it. This recipe is like your lesson plan. But, before actually following the recipe, you need to plan for it. So, you might think of the required groceries or utensils and if you have them. If not, you will plan where to buy or borrow them from! This exercise is like planning FOR lessons, and it is quite different than lesson planning.
As we will see further, planning includes several components and qualities that you must include to make lesson plans productive.
