Week+4

= = = Planning For Learning =



Hello everyone,

Just to get the ball rolling I'd like you to think about these questions.

//Alexia:// I think what engaged me was the teacher. If I liked the teacher, then I tended to like what they liked? If they seemed excited or passionate about a subject, then I would be too. So it was more about the enthusiasm it was presented with, than the actual topic. //Lily//: What engaged me as a student was the feeling that my opinion was valued and that I had the chance to express and share my thoughts and experience other point of view. In sum it was discussion. //Kari:// Oh, it's hard to remember that from school years. Definitely not lollies. They were not on offer. By bright colours, do you mean visial things? How far back are we going? Early childhood? I can only really speak for the past few years as a learner. I agree that a passionate teacher/lecturer was important. But I also agree with Lily that it was the chance to have my opinion valued and the right questions to engage us as learners. I liked to feel as though I had some say in my learning,a creative aspect or a chance to do something hands-on. I also like it when teachers relate topics to things that have everyday significance for me. I've been observing Chris (our Maths lecturer) as she always seems to engage everyone and for the past 2 lectures she's run she asks us a question relevant to us- like "How'd your English test go?" or "What about that rain we're having, has anyone got water tanks?" SO I really think it's also about getting down to the level of your students, and knowing what interests them. //Emily:// My experience is similar to Kari's. My learning was always influenced by my teacher. If I knew that they were committed to my learning, I respected them and wanted to work hard, so they know I was worth their confidence. I also loved work that allowed me to be creative. I remember replicating album covers, writing reports on Florence Nightingale and getting an A+ for a project I made on Indigenous Australians. The fore mentioned project, was my great success. It was my first and only A mark. I was the first one to hand it in and the teacher was so impressed she showed the whole class and praised me for such good work. I responded really well to praise and it made me feel really proud about what I had done. My older sister always got great marks and produces good quality work so it was important for me to know that I could do great things also. Learning had to really engage me and hold my interest otherwise I would just zone out.
 * What engaged you as a student? Was it lollies? The subject? A story before class? Bright colours? The chance to make something?**

**What do you think is the most important aspect of lesson planning?** //Alexia:// Just changing my own question, but I thought the most interesting point in the lecture was to actually write what questions you wanted to ask the children. I think this would make me feel a lot more secure in my planning. //Kari//: Yes, questions are SO important. The most important aspect of lesson planning is to plan for the unexpected...perhaps. **
 * //Lily:// This is how I would plan my lessons to answer your second question Lexi, around questions to ask that would then lead to more questions which would form an interactive map of exploring the topic.

I’ve added this comment to the top of this week because my ideas about lesson planning have greatly changed, and deepened, since practicum. In particular I appreciate the need for overall yearly, weekly, daily planning much more, rather than focusing on a single session at a time. Sessions should be a smooth flow from one to another, all subjects merging and moving on from themselves. One of my most poignant memories from practicum is when my mentor seamlessly combined a multitude of points from the past week into a single, real-life application. As a whole the class wrote a thank you letter (a text type they’d been looking at) to a guest speaker. Students used recall to comment about what happened that day. They remembered a range of facts the speaker had told them about reptiles (the integrated topic for the term) and finally wrapped it up with why she was a good public speaker (all students were currently giving 2 minute talks to the class). So what’s this got to do with lesson planning? Well, as a student teacher I’d been focusing too much on the little things. I’d write “tell students to put hands on heads” or “hand out worksheets to group A first”, but this stuff isn’t really applicable in a real setting. It’s important to think about this things at first, however by the end of my 4 weeks it was natural and easy and I started to focus on how planning for the class ran as a whole and how important it is to start the term with an overall plan.

I think lesson planning can seem like one of the most daunting tasks ahead of us. I personally worry, less about the initial planning but how effectively I’ll be able to implement my plans, and how smoothly I’ll be able to incorporate what’s happening in the class and what the students wish to learn with my own objects and the goals outlined by VELS. Our lesson focuses mainly on the aspects and design of VELS.

There are three **strands** of VELS and their subsequent **domains** and finally **dimensions** []
 * 1) Physical, personal and social learning
 * 2) Discipline based learning
 * 3) Interdisciplinary learning

I just want to note here that I agree with Ken Robinson (lecture week 1), when he commented on the social “hierarchy” of the three strands. Discipline based domains are held in much higher value. It’s important to be aware of this and give all disciplines equal weight. This also ties into how our “values” as people might not match those of our students (we all have different backgrounds and experiences). Therefore the subjects we value might not be what our students value.

Some points from the lecture that I found very insightful were.

- Learning purpose = explain why you are teaching this topic and what you intend the students will learn. - In a class you should aim to target different VELS levels by creating separate groups with a similar learning theme. - If you want a certain answer, plan some explicit questions to ask the students.

In the article //“A Tool Kit for Learning”// I just want to briefly outline and discuss primary cognitive tools. These are tools “for imaginatively engaging with knowledge.” They include; metaphor, binary opposites (a basic way of categorizing information), rhyme, rhythm and pattern, joke and humor (importantly this tool helps students think outside the box), mental imagery (a lot of today’s society is based on the visual and it can be very powerful), gossip (a basic form of social interaction, but useful for teaching. A perfect example is retell or fitting events into a narrative), play, mystery, embryonic tools of literacy (these are skills students will pick up, often orally, that help them become fluent readers and writers.) I guess the important questions are how do we teach children these tools? How to we help them develop these tools? And how do we allow them to use these tools? This is where lesson planning comes in. Our lesson plans should include all of these aspects and more. Creating and conducting imaginative and fun classes is so vital to children’s learning, but requires careful and well thought out planning. In the reading //“What’s Worth Knowing”// we are challenged to reconsider the relevance of what we teach in schools. As I new teacher I hope to be able to bring some of my own experiences to my class and really create relevant and interesting lesson. I'm glad I have another 6 months in this course to consolidate this! Image Sourced:

**Home** | Week 1 - Sir Ken Robinson "Ideas Worth Spreading" | Week 2 - Classroom Management| Week 3 - So You Want To Be A Teacher? | Week 5 - Models of Teaching and Learning  | Week 6 - Teacher Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct | Week 7 - Who Are Your Students?  | Week 8 - Issues from the coalsface - VIt and planning