Jim Berger, Special Instructional Programs

Making It All Work :

One of the hardest parts to incorporating all of these concepts into my teaching is remembering to rethink my methodology when I get in front of each class. Toward this end, I develop what might be considered a lesson plan but it is so much more than that. The following document (Click here for Lesson Plan) is one that I use which can be modified to suit your needs depending on your students and the material you are teaching. You will notice a few things:

1. I begin the document with a brief section of goals and objectives. These are helpful to students who need to know what they are learning before they get to the learning and provide a framework to work with.
   
2. You will notice a place for an outline. In this outline, I put the meat of the material I want them to learn. It is essential to try to keep your lecture outline down to about twenty minutes because students tend to doze off or become distracted if the amount of information thrown at them is longer than twenty minutes.
   
3. You will need to define activities you will use to engage students actively in their learning. Be creative and innovative; make the activities relevant to current events or the students’ lives outside of class, not just academic. You may decide to get the students into groups, give them case studies, provide books and tasks, etc. I tend to develop activities where they can work within small groups or as part of the whole class. Sometimes, these activities take only five minutes; sometimes they can take up to thirty minutes. It is up to you and the activity to figure out how long it will take.
   
4. I try to leave my students with at least three things to remember, to help them to organize the large amount of information they receive in class and to know what is really important to retain. I say to them is, “If there is anything I want you to get from today’s activities, it is the following:”
   
5. Finally, there are extra resources that I give them and bring to class.

It takes some practice to use this document but with a little effort while you are preparing for the class, you can provide them with an exciting and in-depth teaching experience.