Hi everybody,
Welcome to Forum 2. I want to thank you for your participation in Forum 1 and I hope you keep the good pace. This time, I'd like you to read a short article that describes the characteristics of an effective lesson. Once you have done that, post a comment describing which of the characteristics you personally consider most important and the reasons behind your choice.
Don't forget to comment on a partner's opinion. Deadline for forum 2 is Sunday, March 13 at midnight.
Have a lovely weekend!!
I couldn't agree with Kelly more . Currently, the teaching methods are based on Critical thinking maybe, because students( specially children) today more than ever are analytical and they are attracted by innovation in all fields, that's why We as teachers have to obligation to plan activities that develop critical and creative thinking and of course, in our lesson plan we must to include student's needs and interests since learners are the center of learning.
ReplyDeleteErica, I do agree with you, I think that develop critic and creative thinking is very important in these days, because is a tool that can be use in every aspect of life, not just in the teaching-learning field, but in general, having our own opinion about a topic, and question other people, enriched our knowledge and the creative thinking help us to find new ways of learning and not just be attached to old methods but to improve them and make them work for the actuality based on the student needs.
DeleteI agree, I think that activities that develop critical and creative thinking are really important in an effective lesson because that allow the students to discover how to implement their knowledge in any context and in better new creative ways, and that is a very important skill that students should develop.
DeletePersonally, I think that one of the most important characteristics is to give students space to think and discuss. I consider that the best way to get students learning is by getting them to think, critically, and expressing those thoughts and opinions as well as the reasoning behind them. Another important part is to get them engaged, by taking into account their needs, interests and wants. A student is gonna be much more willing to participate and actively think if you engage him or her with something that is relevant to their life. Along with this comes the fact that the activities that are chosen to teach a class with matter a lot too. As teachers, we must get the student thinking, making connections, and figuring things out on their own!
ReplyDeleteYes, this characteristic is also very important. I believe that by making students analize the lesson, question themselves and discuss their opinions until they truly understand why an answer is correct will make the lesson easy to remind and will make more sense to them.
DeleteThe characteristic that I consider one of the most important when preparing an effective lesson is to incorporate student interests into your lesson. I really believe in this, because if our students are comfortable about the topics they want to learn, they would be more receptive to learn; also if they don’t enjoy what we are teaching is pointless to force them to do the activities we have planned for them. Is known that the things we are passion about, are the things we barely are going to forget, and this could be applying for learning as well, because those things they are interested about, we can incorporate it to the lessons and this way the result could be a positive experience for us as teachers, feeling that the students are learning, and for them knowing that we care about what they want to learn in our classes. In the other hand the teachers have to be able to develop new lessons, based on student interests, but we have to give the direction and have an objective, even if we didn’t pick the topic, we can shape it in order to reach the goal we had.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Cristina! It is important to incorpore students interests in lessons in order to keep the focus of a class going. Students are much more likely to participate and discuss if they are interested in what is being learned therefore teachers should find a way to make it pertinent to the students.
DeleteI think one important characteristic that this article mentions is making lessons relevant. We as future teachers want our students to remember what is being taught in class and make them have purpose in current society, not just making them memorize and completely forget lessons.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with Tanya. Lessons need to be relevant. If you want a student to be learning for real, you need to teach him/her things that help him/her to better develop as an individual in the world of today, not something irrelevant and archaic just because a coursebook says so. So yes, Tanya is right when she says that you don’t learn through simple memorization: you need a purpose, something that fuels your teaching.
DeleteTanya, I debated added "relevance" as my third important factor in my response. This is one of the most under-represented focuses in education: connecting the information to the student's needs and experience. Especially in language learning, where we learn crazy, odd phrases we will never utter or random language facts long ago retired from use. The difficulty is that keeping anything relevant means adapting constantly as the tecnology changes, social platforms change, and language evolves (very quickly as we have already noted). For instance, here is an example of not being relevant: many schools in USA still teach African American contricbutions only during Black History month and focus on the contributions of people from the civil rights era and before; but there are many contemporary contributions to be discussed and encourage our youth. As much as I love MLK Jr, there are others who made great impacts.
DeleteI do agree, the whole idea of teaching is to well prepare your students for society. to become a better person and to get good jobs.
DeleteHey everyone! I think the article was interesting and resourceful. Everything makes sense and is useful for us as future teachers. The approach that inspired me the most, was Schoenfeldt’s. It’s particularly important that students feel included and represented in the classroom. Students want to feel important and they want to be acknowledged either by their classmates or the teacher. If you feel part of something, you feel welcomed and therefore you will pay more attention. They will be more than willing to participate if they feel comfortable to be who they are and talk about their true interests, not just some boring thing that does not relate to them in any way. That’s why I also agree with Cedo’s point of view, because it’s important to provide our students with an environment where they can agree, disagree, explain their choices, their reasons. It will help them build confidence in themselves, as well as their communicative skills. We will be teaching to happier students who feel included and validated.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100 percent, It’s very important that students feel included and represented in the classroom.Tha's why in most of my classes I try to bring real-life examples and ask them including their names and give more examples.
Delete100% agreed. You and Erika say it much better than me (and in fewer words).
DeleteI think that one characteristic that is very important in an effective lesson is the creation of a space for student thinking and discussion. A nice and safe environment is essential in a classroom in order to allow the students to feel confident and motivated to participate in class, to be engage and focus. Also to consider the students' interests and needs can be really useful to create a good enviroment cause this will probably increase the motivation and interest of the students and this will lead to achieve the goals of the class easier.
ReplyDeleteBy the other hand other characteristic which is very relevant is to encourage the students to think critically. I consider that letting the students discover and analyse information for themselves is key in the learning process of the students because they will develop creativity and autonomy.
Couldn't agree more with Angie. You said the magical word: autonomy.
Delete"Safe environment..."
DeleteYes, Angie! It is especially important to make the classroom a safe learning environment because for many students it will be their main (or only) environment where focused learning can take place. Sadly, the classroom is a safe space for many students escaping bad home environments.
I will pick two important factors: 1) clear objectives 2) incorporate student interests. I firmly believe that a student who cannot connect with the material will struggle to learn the material.
ReplyDeleteSometimes lessons unwittingly alienate whole groups of students and the students then determine that the information is not relevant to them (and tune out). When students see themselves represented in the lessons, their affective filter is lowered and they are more likely to become engaged.
But if the teacher does not have clear objectives (clear to the student), that student interest can be lost or discouraged through confusing or unstructured instructions.
Exactly Patrick ! We as teachers,should think about clear objectives to the students no only for us. For that reason, at the end of the class we should make a reflection about the achievement of these learning goals.
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ReplyDeleteI think that all the characteristics are important in the lesson plan and they should be considered at the moment of preparing a class. The most important characteristics for me are to incorporate students' interests integrated with the selection of purposeful activities and assignments. These two are important to me since to have the students engaged in class helps them actually learn, willing to participate and motivated. But it is also important to keep in mind that those interests must have a purpose in the class, to be thought according to the objective and the students' needs in order to include these interests in a successful way and not just be in the lesson because they are fun for students. I truly believe that students learn when they are engaged, motivated and participating because this will help them to make the class more interesting and the learning memorable for students.
ReplyDeleteI agree that engaging with your students should be a priority, but I don't agree that there needs to be a purpose in their interests, the purpose is clear, making them interact and learn in a way they would enjoy. I do think that if you are teaching a science or math class, you can't broach all the subjects your students might be into, but our case is different because we perform in the humanities field. Communication can be used in all contexts even if it's not verbal, we are always communicating stuff even to ourselves, so saying that their interest don't have a purpose is absurd. If they enjoy talking about something, or they find something that gives them joy, that immediately becomes part of who they are as a person and it's something they'll need to share in new environments, so it's our duty, as language teachers, to help them express themselves about whatever topic they find fit, obviously keeping in mind the respect towards their classmates.
DeleteI totally agree with you in the fact that when students discuss they are communicating, no matter the interests. But I think they can not just talk about whatever they want because as teachers we also have to take into account the curriculum of the place where we are teaching. So what a teacher should do is to be creative and try to incorporate the curriculum to the students' interests so you can engage your students and they will learn what they are supposed to learn according to the curriculum.
Deletethe most important characteristics in my opinion is determine the purpose of the lesson, because is important to teach students how to be prepare for jobs cause this is why everybody wants to study,that way they be well prepare for jobs.
ReplyDeleteI agree, communicating the lesson's objective allows students to have a reference of both the purpose of the lesson and the skills to be learned.
DeleteAlso I believe making lessons relevant serves a great purpose. For instance if the student's interest is looking for jobs, then an attractive and effective lesson plan should incorporate activities geared towards job searching, like preparing for interviews or resume writing.
I also believe in the value of implementing a lesson plan that allows for students to develop critical thinking. As Lorena Kelly suggests in the article, incorporating open ended questions for students to discuss, it creates an opportunity for them to collaborate on problem solving, critical thinking as well as encouraging creative ways to address an issue.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that an effective lesson plan gets students thinking and allows them to interact and ask questions, and also help them to develop to build new skills. in addition, if the teacher discovers the student's interests and work them into the lesson plan, they will pay attention and learn more.
DeleteSo, in so many words, what the text is telling is us is to tailor what we need to teach to what our students want to learn. I'm a firm believer that what you must do first is get to know your students, try to make a sort of venn diagram of things they like and things you like, because it's really important that you show that whatever subject you are teaching has meaning and is exciting for you. Otherwise they'll be just or more bored than you, because at least you choose to teach whatever it is you are teaching, in a lot of cases student are forced to learn stuff that they don't really care about. So yeah, first you need to know your audience. They don't like english? then be sneaky about it and talk about futbol, Maluma or whatever it is they like, that's a sound way to get their attention, even if you don't know much about the subject they'll participate just to correct you.
ReplyDeleteSecond, making a "debate" or asking open ended questions can be a great way to make them interact, but you should probably have in mind what the goal of the discussion is, I've been in in a lot of courses where they start exchanging opinions about something and end up arguing over who was the best dressed at the oscars. So you need to control the discussion and get it back on topic if it strays too much. Also, you should procure to reach a conclusion, there is nothing more frustrating that arguing for hours and then not being able to sum up what they talked about and how they can use it later. Have in mind that a lot of your student will complain if they have to back up their ideas with arguments and prepare to not let them get away with vague answers. I think is very important that they learn debate with arguments behind their beliefs and this is something that will help them in the future.
The article is very interesting and all the theories compliment one another. Peter Burnn’s thinking about the “how” to produce an effective lesson plan where the students are the first and only one focus of the class is just right.
ReplyDeleteOne of the characteristics that I find appealing is the students freely engagement in the classroom to investigation and discussion as this promotes further thinking and productivity – the result is prominent, the development of the students skills. Besides, a characteristic that compliments to the latter is the incorporation of the student’s interests to the lesson plan – the result is also prominent, more attention and easy learning from the students.