10. What are five ways to differentiate a Lesson Plan, and How do you explain each type?

             As every single student learns differently, teachers must look for the best ways to plan their classes, and take into account all these differences so that all students benefit and learn.

             Lesson plans are an essential component of a successful teaching experience. These plans help ensure that all standards and materials are covered, providing a teacher and students with structure for each class day. Many schools require that teachers submit lesson plans in a specific format on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. For teachers who do not have a required format, there is a variety to choose from.

Five-Step Lesson Plan

            A five-step lesson plan is a form of daily lesson planning that includes the following components: anticipatory set, instruction, guided practice, closure or assessment and independent practice.

            In the anticipatory set, a teacher should list the objective of the lesson, explain how it connects to past learning and describe the purpose for what is being learned. For the instruction section, a teacher must list how she will use direct teaching through modes such as lecturing, providing notes or showing a video, and modeling by demonstrating how to complete a process or activity. The third step is guided practice which asks the teacher to list any activity students will complete in the classroom with teacher or peer assistance. This is followed by the fourth step, closure or assessment, which requires an activity to help the teacher get a snapshot of what students learned that day. Independent practice is the fifth section of this format. In many cases independent practice can be completed in class; however, in the five-steps plan, independent practice is the place the teacher lists any homework assignments students will be expected to complete related to that day's lesson.

Five-E Lesson Plan

          

           The five-E lesson plan format asks teachers to list components that deal with engaging, explaining, exploring, elaborating and evaluating. This lesson plan begins with a question or brief activity that hooks or engages students at the beginning of the lesson. In the second phase, the teacher lectures or provides a video, reading passage or demonstration to explain the material and its key terms.

            After explaining the concept, a teacher must show what activity students will complete to help them explore the material. These activities can include stations, cooperative learning groups, games, worksheets or other instructional methods.

           The fourth component, elaborate, can be compared to independent practice. Activities should help students apply the concept to a variety of situations. This work can be completed in class or as a homework assignment.

        Each five-E lesson plan ends with an evaluation component to determine whether students have learned the material. This can come in the form of a formal, graded assessment, or students can be informally assessed with a question and answer session, exit slip or short writing prompt.

Weekly Lesson Plan

           A weekly lesson plan is an ideal format for teachers who are covering a similar topic throughout the week. At the top of the lesson plan, teachers should list the standards, objectives and essential questions being covered that week. Under that section, each day of the week is listed with a short description of the activities for that day. At the end of the plan, a section should be included to list any assessments that will cover the week's instruction, such as a unit or chapter exam or special project.

Unit Plan

            For teachers who do not work well with elaborate plans, a unit plan is a simple way to guide instruction. At the top of the unit plan, teachers list all of the standards and objectives covered in the unit along with the projected time-frame for the unit. Below that is a list of all activities expected to be part of the unit, followed by a list of all assessments related to the unit. Each day, a teacher presents lessons to students with that unit in mind, but since there is no specific plan laid out, there is some flexibility in what is covered each day.

     

       

Inquiry-Based Lesson Plan

             Inquiry-based lesson plans are especially useful for the science classroom because they involve experimentation and hands-on activities that allow the teacher to be a facilitator of learning rather than an instructor. Lesson plans that are inquiry-based include very little lecture or notes. Teachers begin this type of lesson plan by listing the standards and objectives to be covered. After that should be a detailed description of any activities students are to complete during the day's lesson. Activities should not include worksheets or exams, but instead includes hands-on, problem-solving experiences through experiments, cooperative learning groups or stations. After the activity, teachers should list a variety of inquiry-based questions to ask students to promote discussion of the concepts and material covered in the activity and help further facilitate student learning.
 

9. Teacher´s Style of Deliver

          Just as students have individual learning styles, teachers have their teaching styles that work best for them. It is important for teachers to be aware of their preferences when creating and delivering instruction.

There are different ways of categorizing teachers´ styles of delivery:

Formal Authority

         

          Teachers who have a formal authority teaching style tend to focus on content. This style is generally teacher-centered, where the teacher feels responsible for providing and controlling the flow of the content and the student is expected to receive the content. This type of teacher does not usually require much student participation in class. "Sage on the stage" model.

Demonstrator 

           Teachers who have a demonstrator or personal model teaching style tend to run teacher-centered classes with an emphasis on demonstration and modeling. This type of teacher acts as a role model by demonstrating skills and processes. Then, this teacher acts as a guide in helping students develop and apply these skills and knowledge. Instructors with this teaching style are interested in encouraging student participation and adapting their presentation to include various learning styles. Students are expected to take some responsibility for learning what they need to know and for asking for help when they do not understand something.

Facilitator

          Teachers who have a facilitator model teaching style tend to focus on activities. This teaching style emphasizes student-centered learning and there is much more responsibility placed on the students to take the initiative for meeting the demands of various learning tasks. This type of teaching style works best for students who are comfortable with independent learning and who can actively participate and collaborate with other students. Teachers typically design group activities which need active learning, student-to-student collaboration and problem solving. This type of teacher will often try to design learning situations and activities that require student processing and application of course content in creative and original ways.

Delegator

           Teachers who have a delegator teaching style tend to place much control and responsibility for learning on individuals or groups of students. This type of teacher will often give students a choice designing and implementing their own complex learning projects and will act in a consultative role. Students are often asked to work independently or in groups and must be able to maintain motivation and focus for complex projects. Students working in this type of setting learn more than just course specific topics as they also must be able to effectively work in group situations and manage various interpersonal roles.

            Additionally, I consider I have a facilitator model teaching style as I tend to focus on activities. I like students to help each other, and share ideas so that they can learn together. Also, I like students to take responsibility for their own learning – independent learners-, and to participate actively as well as collaborate with other students. Moreover, I typically design group activities which need active learning, student-to-student collaboration and problem solving. I often try to design learning situations and activities that require student processing and application of course content in creative and original ways.

8.Convergent and Divergent questions

        Questioning in the classroom is an important tool for teachers. Appropriately engaging, challenging and effective questions stimulate peer discussion and encourage students to explore and refine their understanding of key concepts.

        The kinds of questions we as teachers ask in the classroom depend on what they we are testing. There are two main types of questions: convergent and divergent. The form we choose with which to evaluate our students can depend on many factors such as the type of course, the type of assessment, and our teaching style. Of course, we can have a mix of question types on any evaluation.

        Convergent questions ask for specifics information and provide feedback on a child´s ability to recall information. Convergent thinking questions are those which represent the analysis and integrating of given or remembered information. They lead us to an expected end result or answer. Thought processes involved while asking and answering these questions are explaining, stating relationships, and comparing and contrasting.

       

Divergent questions do not have one right answer; they provide an opportunity for creativity, guessing and experimenting. Divergent question refers to a question which encourages students to discover various paths and create numerous changes and alternative answers or scenarios. This type of question encourages students to analyze, evaluate knowledge base and then project results with high degree of accuracy.

7. Classroom Design: Changes over the Years

         For many teachers classroom design may not seem important, but indeed classroom design plays an essential role in the teaching-learning process. The design must make students feel comfortable and a sense of belonging so that learning takes place best. Moreover, it must provide enough space according to the students´ needs. For instance, students in a classroom full of desks may not feel comfortable as they do not have enough space to move around while doing activities.

     Over the past twenty years, classroom design has changed a lot. In the past, classroom design was completely different than it is nowadays since the desks were secure to the floor, and they were all arranged in rows not allowing group work, discussions, and so forth. In addition, classrooms in the past did not count with technological advances. Nowadays, most classrooms have a large writing surface where the instructor or students can share notes with other members of the class. Traditionally, this was in the form of a blackboard, but these are becoming less common in well-equipped schools because of new alternatives like flipcharts, whiteboards, and interactive whiteboards.  Many classrooms also have TVs, maps, charts, pencils, books, and LCD projectors for presenting information and images from a computer. Furthermore, in the past, schools and institutions would often have one computer lab that served the entire school only at certain times of the week. Computers in the classroom itself increase interest in learning and awareness of the importance of what is being taught. Pupils are less likely to feel that a subject is archaic if the teacher uses new technological instructional techniques, increasing the students’ interest in learning something new. A more restricted classroom design has changed to a more flexible and equipped one.

  

   “The Traditional Classroom Design” has had one setup: straight rows of desks facing the front of the classroom. While this keeps attention focused on the teacher, it does not allow for group work or discussion. This is a teacher-centered classroom as the teacher´s desk is at the front, where he or she stands and lectures the class. Furthermore, students are passive and recipients of information since the teacher delivers the topics starting with a lecturing presentation style. There are specific routines and repetitive use of methodology. This design does not allow teachers to encourage students’ interpersonal intelligences, or to share as a community.

    

         “The Non-Traditional Classroom Design”: in this classroom design students´ desks are arranged in semi-circle or U shape what allows students´ interaction. Moreover, this design allows group work, discussion, peer interaction, and so on. This design is student-centered as it encourages learners to be active. Moreover, the teacher delivers lessons using varied or multiple styles of delivery in different parts of the room. These may include anecdotes, storytelling, small-group collaborative exercises, and hands-on activities involving the entire class, partnerships, some individualization, and learning centers where the teacher serves as lesson facilitator.

6. Types of Comprehension

          Comprehension involves memory, cognition and metacognition. Memory is the storing and then recalling and retrieving of thoughts and feelings. Cognition and metacognition are recognized as being lower-and higher- level thinking. Comprehension is the use of one´s memory and these leveled thinking processes with the ability to understand or have knowledge about something. It is the main goal of education. We want students to gain an understanding of things. Thinking is recognized through “comprehension” to produce “understanding”.

 

         Comprehension may or not be verbalized, but regardless of this, it is demonstrated through things said, or actions and behaviors in three applications, which include the following:

  Literal is “fact-based” evidence of comprehension. For instance, “ warm-ups must be  carried out at the beginning of the class”

 Applied is “comparison and contrast comprehension”, resulting from making connections to one´s own experience, read or heard material. For example, “after reading some information about warm-ups, I think that they are essential for starting a class successfully.”

  Implied is “inferential comprehension”, based on context or illustrative material being presented in oral, visual, or tactile formats. For instance, “after observing some classes, I have come to think that classes are more interesting and successful when warm-ups are carried out since students are cheered up and full of energy to continue learning.”

         Undoubtedly, students gaining meaningful learning is the main goal of education. Furthermore, we, as teachers, want our students to comprehend and understand content so that they put their knowledge into practice in real life situation. We teachers need to focus on our students´ meaningful learning as this is more important than mechanical learning. Meaningful learning is for all our lives; meanwhile rout learning will be forgotten by the students in a short period of time.

5. Giving Effective Feedback

“Feedback to any pupil should be about the particular qualities of his or her work, with advice on what he or she can do to improve, and should avoid comparisons with other pupils. Feedback has shown to improve learning where it gives each pupil specific guidance on strengths and weaknesses, preferably without any overall marks.”

         “Feedback is the information communicated to a student in regard to their understanding of shared learning objectives of a given task against an agreed set of criteria.” This information will include guidance on how to improve. Moreover, feedback is the information that is relayed to the student about their progress and can be based upon a variety of forms of evidence including: marked work, un-graded teacher checked worked, oral contribution, practical displays, draft work and re-drafted work.

        Traditionally in education, feedback has been given by a letter grade on a paper. An “A” student will often continue to be an “A” student throughout his/her educational career. Likewise, students who see themselves as academic failures become discouraged by continually seeing failing grades on their assignments and often will give up on learning. The power of using effective feedback in the classroom has the potential to change a student with the mindset that they are a failure, into a student who believes that success is possible and that they can achieve far more than they ever thought they could. 

      Giving feedback to students is an essential part in teaching; as teachers, we need to look for the best words so that our students do not misinterpret what we say. Our comments must be phrased positively. Furthermore, we need to focus on looking for the ways to improve learning and we need to focus on helping them know what they need to do to become better students. Moreover, feedback is most effective when it is delivered promptly and reflection time is planned into the lesson to allow students time to respond to the comment and if possible act upon it immediately. By delaying feedback students forget the original purpose of the work and the challenges they faced when completing it. The impact of prompt, criteria based feedback on selected pieces of work will have greater long-term impact on a student’s learning and their results and it is of greater benefit than an inadequate attempt to mark everything in detail at irregular intervals.

“Effective feedback encourages students´ motivation, growth, and independent thinking.”

4. The purposes of teacher´s classroom questions.

Questioning . . . led to richer discourse, in which the teachers evoked a wealth of information from which to judge the current level of understanding of their students. More importantly, they had evidence on which to plan the next steps in learning so the challenge and pace of lessons could be directed by formative assessment evidence rather than simply following a prescribed agenda.

 Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall and Wiliam (2003)

        Questioning serves many purposes such as helping teachers to assess students´ knowledge and making students be active learners. Questioning is a means of developing and extending student dialogue and it is an essential tool for both teaching and learning.

        Teachers ask questions for many reasons, ranging from less demanding comprehension and recall questions to synthesis and evaluation questions making greater cognitive demands of the student. We, teachers, need to be actively asking questions to our students so that we realize how much they know about the topic we are teaching, but most importantly students must be actively participating in the classroom. Furthermore, by answering questions, students have the opportunity to openly express their ideas and thoughts; moreover, by asking questions to our students, we get to know their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this, we can look for the best ways to help our students get over their weaknesses, and help them increase their knowledge.

 

        Questions need to be prepared in advance of a lesson in order to ensure that lesson objectives can be met. The lesson objectives therefore need to go beyond a content based delivery and focus on the skills and concepts that students are aiming to develop. When objectives are clearly defined effective use of questioning can be made to secure student understanding in this area. Planning is essential, as is the strategic use of questioning with students and finally the following consolidation of learning which follows in subsequent lessons. A range of question stems to support different phases of learning are suggested below and can be applied to most subject areas.

Knowledge and Comprehension.

Who . . .? Which . . .? When . . .? What . . .?

Application and Analysis.

Why . . .? How else . . .? What effect . . .?

Synthesis and Evaluation.

How far . . .? What if . . .? How similar . . .?