This week's reading is all about lesson planning and curriculum design. I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of designing a curriculum all by myself, although technically, I've done it for my comp class, but I guess I would manage it if need be.
I think no one would argue about the necessity to have a lesson plan and be prepared for hard day's work. At least, I wouldn't. I would like to note on a couple of things that our books modestly keep from mentioning.
First of all, it's the need to have a back-up plan. Yes, sometimes that would mean a full-lesson back up. Second of all, I think that teachers should be trained to improvise. Just today I had to produce an hour-long tutoring session, like a rabbit out of a hat. And I don't wear hats, so that was quite a feat in itself. And all events leading to this unfortunate circumstance happened well outside my sphere of control. I know that different people deal with stress (and an impromptu lesson/activity facilitation is a stress) in different ways. Some work well under pressure, others don't. Given the likelihood of having to improvise an activity somewhere in the career, I think that improvisational planning skills should be another standard we have to meet.
5 comments:
You're right about improvisation, Mariya. Unfortunately, that's always a feature of experience, teaching experience generally and teaching a particular course again.
I agree with Dr. Smidt. Improvisation becomes easier the more one teaches and creates lessons. When I need to come up with a back-up lesson--fast--I usually think back on what I have done before that would work with the set of circumstances I am dealing with at that moment.
I just need to chime in with a "hear hear!" The more experience we have the easier the improv is.
I agree that improvisation skills depend on experience, but that does not mean that they can't/shouldn't be taught and practiced. Ability to write an effective lesson plan also commensurates with experience, but we do learn how to do that.
I also think that it is all about experience by the time you gain automaticty.
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