Reflection on Prior Instructor-Led Learning
- Determine the Objective
- Pre-test for existing knowledge
- Outline the Objective for the students
- Give step-by-step instructions on how to reach the Objective
- Show examples
- Have students practice examples
- Give post-test to see if Objective has been achieved.
The very first thing is for the Instructor to think about what the objective of the lesson is to be. What do you want the students to learn? All instructions and learning materials should be geared to the objective. You wouldn’t come to a Science class with ingredients for making a salad for example. A good lesson plan also takes the time into consideration. The lesson cannot be too long or the students will get tired and tune out. A lesson should be short and get right to the point, and have enough time left over for practice or discussion in class.
Depending on the demographics of the class you may want to design a pre-test to determine how much knowledge the students already have on the subject you are going to teach. It is important to know how much or how little they know so that you have a proper starting point. If the student demographic is non-uniform and you don’t know their background, it is strongly advisable to give a pre-test. Additionally if the objective of the lesson is too advanced for the student’s knowledge and experience, you will lose them. They will tune out because they have no idea what you are talking about. If, on the other hand, the student already has experience and sufficient prior knowledge, they will be bored with the lesson and tune out. There is nothing more counter-productive than a bored student as that will lead to all kinds of classroom management issues.
The pre-test does not have to be a paper and pencil test as such. The instructor could simply ask questions and engage students in conversation to find out how much they already know about the subject. The pre-test and how much detail to delve into with the lesson depends on the subject matter. If the student demographic is uniform it might not be important. For example in Math, it is safe to assume that following the curriculum on a lesson-by-lesson basis is a safe judge of students’ experience without giving a pre-test.
Outlining the objective is the easy part. You simply state the objective in one sentence or write it on the board or have it ready in the power point presentation. “Today we are going to learn how to prepare solutions of different volumes with equal concentrations.” This is simple and straightforward. Everyone now knows what’s going on.
The step-by-step instructions should always include a bit of a review at start. Not only does it refresh prior knowledge but also puts everyone on the same page or the same starting point. Make sure to ask students questions to engage them. Never ask close-ended questions which require a “yes” or “no” answer. Always ask questions in such a way that needs an explanation. If you are going to demonstrate the objective of the lesson by using learning materials, have one of the students come to the front of the class and be your assistant. If no materials can be used, be sure to interject the lesson with questions to keep students on track and engaged. For example, a lesson in English literature might include questions to have students think about what they are reading and how they interpret the author. What does it mean to them? How would they feel if they were in the protagonist’s shoes?
Using lots of examples is very important as it gets students thinking and using the newly acquired knowledge to solve new problems or examples. This will allow students to be able to apply the newly learned knowledge to become independent and solve problems on their own. You might want to call on students to help with the class demonstration, or engage students in a class discussion using the newly acquired knowledge.
Next the students should be able to use the newly acquire knowledge to practice examples and solve problems on their own. This should be done in the classroom during the lesson so that the student has some experience with this before doing it on his own at home for homework. If the student is unsure, he can call upon the instructor for help or clarification during class time.
Lastly, to make sure that the objective of the lesson has been achieved, the instructor plans a post-test to see how much the student has understood. If the results show that everyone did really well, perhaps the lesson was too easy. The flip side is that if the average mark on the post-test is really low, then the lesson was too hard, or the lesson was not well taught or understood, in which case it must be repeated using a different approach. The post-test should incorporate four different measures including a) true and false, b) fill-in the blanks, c) short answers and d) an essay, or extrapolation or an application not discussed in class. This will give an indication of how well did the student understand the objective and how it can be applied.
