Act of Teaching

Chapter 6
Planning Instruction
Outline
Pros and Cons of Instructional Planning (167)
Planning Is Especially Beneficial for New Teachers (167)
Deciding What to Teach (169)

State Standards and How They Are Developed (169)

The Power of State Standards (172)
What Happens at the School District Level (172)
The Formal and Taught Curricula (173)

Instructional Objectives (174)

What Instructional Objectives Look Like (174)

Instructional Objectives Differ in Two Ways (175)
The Kinds of Objectives We Use Result in Three Different Kinds of
Learning: Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor (176)
Another Way of Classifying Learning Outcomes (179)

Writing Specific Objectives (179)

The Value of Specific Objectives (181)

When Are Objectives Good? (182)

Preparing Instructional Plans of Varying Duration (182)

The Long and Short of Planning (182)

Preparing Long-Range Plans: Yearly and Semester Plans (183)
Preparing Unit Plans (185)
Preparing Lesson Plans (187)
The Backward Design Idea of Lesson and Unit Planning (192)
Resources Useful When Planning (195)
Collaborative, Cooperative or Team Planning (195)

Notes
Pros and Cons of Instructional Planning (167)

Instructional planning is the process by which teachers decide:

o What to teach
o How to teach it
o How will they determine whether students learned and were
satisfied (167)
The pros and cons of planning
o Some like planning more than others
o Some likes to be organized than others
o Some likes to improvise more than others
o Some are more flexible with time more than others
Planning Is Especially Beneficial for New Teachers (167)

Why New Teachers need to plan:

o little or no teaching experience to draw upon (167)
o unsure of yourself and your teaching skills (167)
o likely will not know what students are expected to know and do
(168)
o teaching will be more creative and fun (168)
o may be mandated (168)

Deciding What to Teach (169)

State Standards and How They Are Developed (169) basically

government standards
o Factors Influencing State Requirements (169)
Societal Expectations (170)
The Nature and Needs of Learners (170)
Professional Societies with Interests in Education (170)
The Power of State Standards (172)
o In Indonesia we have the national exam (UN)
What Happens at the School District Level (172)
o "Developing a vision for a high quality school curriculum.
o Determining programs of study (English, math, social studies, etc.).
o Determining courses within each program of study and describing
general course content.
o Identifying useful instructional materials related to courses.
o Ensuring that the present or proposed curriculum is aligned with
state standards and state testing (172)
The Formal and Taught Curricula (173)
o Teachers sometimes dont teach all the formal curricula because:
A teacher is more interested and knowledgeable in some
parts of the curriculum
Outside forces
Parents involvement
Something of importance is happening in the life of a
student (173)
Instructional Objectives (174)

What Instructional Objectives Look Like (174)

o instructional objective describes what learners must know and be
able to do (174)
Instructional Objectives Differ in Two Ways (175)
o General: the big picture of what we want students to do
o Specific: what the students will do and are expected to learn during
the lesson
The Kinds of Objectives We Use Result in Three Different Kinds of
Learning: Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor (176)
o Cognitive - engage in mental or intellectual tasks (176) Blooms
Taxonomy:
Knowledge (177) recall or recognize information (177)
 Comprehension (177) understand and can explain
knowledge in their own words (177)
Application (177) are able to use [knowledge] in practical
situations (177)
Analysis (177) are able to break down complex concepts
or information into simpler, related parts (177)
Synthesis (177) are able to combine elements to form a
new, original entity (177)
Evaluation (177) are able to make judgments
o Affective attitudinal, emotional, and valuing goals for learners
(177) Bloom:
Receiving or attending (177) are willing to attend to,
concentrate on, and receive information (177)
Responding (177) respond positively to the information
by actively engaging with it. (177)
Valuing (177) express an attitude or belief about the
value of something (177)
Organization (177) compare and integrate the attitude or
value they have expressed with attitudes and beliefs they
hold, thus internalizing the value (177)
Characterization (178) act out their values. (178)
o Psychomotor relate to learning physical skills (178)
Perception (178) use sensory cues (such as vision) to
guide their later attempt to perform a skill (178)
Set (178) ready to perform a skill or an action (178)
Guided response (178) practice the skill under the
supervision of an expert (178)
Mechanism (178) become more proficient in the skill
through practice (178)
Complex or overt response (178) perform the skill with a
high degree of proficiency (178)
Adaptation (178) modify previously learned skills to
perform related skills (178)
Organization (179) create new, original performances
based on previously learned skills (179)
Another Way of Classifying Learning Outcomes (179) Gagne and others
(2004)
o Verbal Information. This term is used to describe the vast amount
of information obtained and stored in our memory (179)
o Intellectual skill. This refers to learning how to do something
mentally (179)
o Cognitive strategies. This refers to learning ways of thinking and
solving problems, including learning how to learn (179)
o Motor skills. Although Gagne does not refer to the Bloom or
Simpson designations of psychomotor skills, they seem to be the
same type of learning outcome as Gagne's motor skills. (179)
o Attitudes. Gagne likens attitudes to Bloom's affective domain
(179)
Writing Specific Objectives (179)
A stands for the audience the objective is written for (179)
B stands for the behavior expected of the learner (179)
C stands for the condition under which the learner identifies every verb (179)
D stands for the degree of proficiency or correctness that the learner must
display (179)

The Value of Specific Objectives (181)

o Students will understand clearly what are expected of them.
o Counterpoint: Not all teachers think that specific objectives are
beneficial:
difficult to write (181)
Students only learn the knowledge of the objective, not other
knowledge
There are times when students should be given learning
situations without predetermined, specific learning
objectives (181)
Experienced teachers seldom write specific instructional
objectives (182)
When Are Objectives Good? (182)
o Sometimes we need to stop and reflect on our objectives.

Preparing Instructional Plans of Varying Duration (182)

We need to keep in mind the amount of content that we are going to teach and
for how long are we going to teach them.

The Long and Short of Planning (182)

o Long: plan about how we will teach generally for an entire year or
semester
o Middle: unit planning
o Short: lesson planning
Preparing Long-Range Plans: Yearly and Semester Plans (183)
o Think about:
The formal curriculum
The subject area
The students
The values
Preparing Unit Plans (185)
o Types of unit:
Resource units are mostly prepared by and are available at
minimal or no cost from state education departments, special
interest groups, government agencies, and businesses (185)
Teaching units are prepared by a teacher or teachers for use
with a particular group of learners (185)
Experience units are more of a "happening" than a
preplanned unit (185)
Integrated units combine study from several fields such as
social studies, language arts, science, and art around a
central theme or topic (185)
o Parts of a Unit Plan (185):
 The Title topic or theme
Introduction the reason why students must study this unit
general objectives and preassessment of student prior
knowledge (186)
Body:
topical outline presents the main points and
supporting points of the content (186)
activities section denotes in general what the class or
individuals can do in order to accomplish the unit
objectives (187)
resources that might be useful (187)
time frame describes when the unit will begin and
end (187)
assessment section describes how learners will be evaluated
in terms of achievement and satisfaction (187)
bibliography presents a list of resources useful to teachers in
preparing and teaching this unit (187)
o Benefits of Unit Planning (187):
Once completed, unit plans give clear direction for short-
term planning (187)
Good unit planning makes you more aware of your learners'
unique qualities (187)
Unit planning causes you to think imaginatively about how
to get the job done using a variety of instructional materials
and activities (187)
Unit planning asks you to consider how to help students
study some topic or phenomenon in an interdisciplinary, or
holistic, way (187)
Preparing Lesson Plans (187)
o A lesson plan describes specifically what and how something will
be learned within a brief period, usually one or a few class hours
(187)
o Parts of a Lesson Plan (188)
Objectives. The challenge here is to write objectives at the
lesson level that meet as many of the criteria for good
objectives as possible. (188)
Resources. What is available to assist learners? (188)
Set induction. How will learner interest be obtained? (188)
Methodology. How will teaching and learning proceed?
(189)
Assessment. How will learning be determined? (189)
Closure. How will the lesson be concluded? (190)
Reflection. Now it's time to consider the experience you and
your students have had and to learn from it. (191)
o Evaluate your lesson plan
The Backward Design Idea of Lesson and Unit Planning (192)
o Stage 1 requires that the lesson or unit's objectives focus on six
particular understandings (193)
be able to explain: Cognitive domain, Comprehension
be able to interpret: Cognitive domain, Analysis
 be able to apply: Cognitive domain, Application
have perspective: Cognitive domain, Evaluation
be able to empathize: Affective domain, Valuing
have self-knowledge: Affective domain, Organization (193-
194)
o Stage 2 you must determine how you will know learners have
accomplished them. (194)
o Stage 3 coincides with normal planning procedure in that it asks:
What must learners do to produce the required performances?
(194)
Resources Useful When Planning (195)
o Curriculum Guides - A curriculum guide will tell you what you are
expected to teach (195)
o Instructional materials. Include those things that assist student
learning of the curriculum. They include: (195)
Resource units, which often are available from your state
education department, federal agencies, professional
associations, and special interest groups including business
and industry. (195)
Textbooks and other print material (195)
Nonprint material, for example illustrations, audio and
videotapes, and computer-related material as instructional
software (195)
Collaborative, Cooperative or Team Planning (195)
o Teacher-team planning: Collaborate with coworkers and the
principle
o Teacher-pupil planning: ask students for suggestions

Reflection
I am not they type of person who likes to plan, so I think lesson planning is very
useful for me. Not only does it help me organize better, but it helps me to think
things through. Initially, when I first did my lesson plan, I only draw from
experience, so I did not think much of Blooms Taxonomy. Hopefully next time I
could implement higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy in my lesson plan and help
my student to acquire a higher level of knowledge.