This checklist about learning centered lesson plans drills down to essential steps learners use to adopt behavior patterns offered in each lesson.
TIPSheet 1.1: First, center on learning processes, next on content, and then on instruction.
Introduction: In a decisive school like NESI-CS, teachers use this list to insure that they fix attention on learning centered lessons.
Theoretical and heuristic ways exist to generalize to more complex instructional practices from the specific necessary items in this list.
Instructions: Follow these steps to reduce student trial-and-error during attempts to identify and adopt behavior patterns targeted by this lesson.
Instructional Principle: Instructional failure is not an option.
Learners’ View: Answer my generic questions: What do you want me to do? How much time, effort, etc., will it cost me? What do I get for this cost?
Learning Principle: Learning content occurs in one step between what a learner knows and adoption of a new behavior pattern. Trial-and-error by learners to find this step consumes the rest of lesson time. (Teachers: Think backward learning chain.)
Steps:
1.1 Distinguish between learning processes and learning (lesson) content.
1.2 Decide how many seconds you will use to make sure all students learn at least one content principle in the lesson. Use the rest of your class time to elaborate, explain, and discuss that principle.
1.3 Decide what you will count during the lesson, e.g., number of words you speak, frequency of student questions, etc.
1.4 Decide what students will do before the end of the class period for you to have confidence that each learner adopted the behavior pattern(s) you expect to result from the lesson.
1.5 Rank order sensory input (First-Order Learning – Adaptation Tasks) students will use to identify behavior patterns to adopt. For example, decide whether hearing your instructions is more important than seeing something written on their Tablet screens, whether muscle movement during writing/copying content principles is less important than seeing your written illustrations, etc.
1.6 Plan instruction of content to match these priorities. For example, if you decide that what you say takes priority. Then, decide whether you will say 1 or more core content principles and in what order in this lesson.
1.7 Select key words you will say, write, or have them do for learners to identify on their Tablet screens that represent each principle.
1.8 Select redundant cues (a different color, object size, object location as in an outline, an icon, etc. for each principle) to increase likelihood of learners identify those key words.
1.9 Correct misunderstandings learners have about the principle.
1.10 Summarize in one sentence the principle(s) and link it(them) to the next lesson. Keep the sentence simple and close to 10 syllables.
Note: This checklist series is part of the Teacher Input Planning System (TIPS) educators at New Era School Initiative charter school (NESI –CS) use to increase learning rates.
NESI – CS teachers store their plans in an online Teachers’ Mobile Learning Reference system. (I’ll introduce TMLR later.)
TIPSheets operationalize part of learning centered lesson planning (LCLP) based on A Learning Efficiency Analysis Paradigm (ALEAP). This strategy is to learning – content – teaching dynamics what tires are to cars: that’s where the rubber meets the road to yield traction for controlling movement.
As with other school learners, my awareness of the elegant simplicity of instruction with such items as in this list started in my first grade at Theodore Roosevelt Grammar School, Burlingame, California with Mrs. Hyatt, my teacher for two years. I added almost daily since then to this awareness of learning – content – instructional practices that guide adjustment and adoption of my behavior patterns.
Please let me know what checklists you’d like to see in this series.
Reference:
NESI TIPSheet 1: Learning Centered Lesson Plans Checklist