Having a solid lesson plan can help instructors keep on track during a lesson, make it effective and relevant for learners, as well as help ensure the information presented is clear and organized. Below I’ve selected five of eight possible lesson-planning components and provided a rationale and resource for each component.
Creating a positive learning environment
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_create_a_positive_school_climate
This site is targeted at school administration making leadership choices, but I selected this site because I think that the information here can be translated well for practice with adults. I can use this to improve instruction by incorporating the three steps to a positive climate section. These strategies could be used at the start of the course in order to help learners identify together what their common goals for the course are. If the learners are allowed to choose their ideal learning environment, it encourages them to be personally invested in making it happen. They are included in the creation of “ground rules” for positivity. There are also resources for encouraging dialogue and maintaining the positive climate over time.
Planning
http://www.algonquincollege.com/profres/lesson-planning/
I selected this site because it is full of excellent and user-friendly resources. There are lesson-planning templates, reflective checklists for the instructor; articles that contain best practices etc. This site is relevant and also has other resources for assessment, creating learning materials, and more. I can definitely see myself referring to this site for templates and ideas. I think it will improve my instruction by keeping me on track and organized.
Media
http://www.algonquincollege.com/profres/applying-technology/
I chose this site for media because it is chock full of resources and discussions about when, why, how, and where to use media in lessons. This will improve lessons by helping me to decide which kinds of media (if any) will enhance the lesson after I have a draft lesson plan in place. There are also resources on how learners can use technology to support their own learning, which will be helpful for students.
Motivation
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/nine-strategies-to-spark-adult-students-intrinsic-motivation/
I chose this site because it contains an easy-to-read and easy-to-apply strategy for increasing intrinsic motivation in adult learners. This will improve my instruction because this resource helps bring in to focus the factors that will increase intrinsic motivation in adults. I feel it’s more important that adults are learning because of an internal desire to reach some goal rather than for grades or other extrinsic rewards.
Instructional Process/Strategies
http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/
I chose this site because it contains a concise overview of some different instructional strategies I could use depending on the learning situation. This resource will be helpful for improving instruction because it gives step-by-step strategies for incorporating different process components. For example, the discussions row has a quick explanation of the process and an overview of reasons for using the tool. It then branches off to a more in depth discussion about how to use the tool and steps for incorporating the tool. I can see myself referring to this when thinking about which strategies to employ in lessons and how to make effective use of these tools.
SCHOOL 