4 ms·

I'm going to go out on a limb here, you've never taught a class before, have you? Good teaching is not something you can package up, and lesson plans are very i

by twstws 16y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb here, you've never taught a class before, have you? Good teaching is not something you can package up, and lesson plans are very idiosyncratic creative works. They are not readily transferable between teachers. No matter how good the teaching materials you get, from the school/textbook/other teachers, that's just the start of a good lesson. You have to review the material yourself, and tailor it to your own style and preferences, and then revise it based on how well it actually worked. I can still spend hours revising lessons I've delivered several times before. It is possible to deliver a pre-packaged lesson from another teacher or the textbook company. But if you haven't put your own effort into customizing it, the students will recognize it as a sub-standard effort. And they'll treat you accordingly.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Good teaching is not something you can package up, and lesson plans are very idiosyncratic creative works. They are not readily transferable between teachers. This simply isn't true. Direct Instruction (pre-scripted lesson plans given to all teachers) is well known to produce excellent results. http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/honestft.htm http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/honestft.htm It's just fought against tooth and nail by teachers unions because a) it's boring to the teacher and b) it makes teachers easily replacable. But it works. (Incidentally, I taught math for 5 years at the university level. I was flying blind - I probably would have done better if I had a script to follow.)
- twstws 16y ago
  Thanks, that's quite interesting. I can see the advantage of that approach to 'hard skills' like reading, phonetics, computation. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can envision it being applied to complex issues in biology, english or social studies. I'm starting my fourth semester teaching undergraduate biology, hopefully a little less blind each semester. So far I've never seen a lesson plan from any source that I could just read over and then deliver to a class, but maybe they do in fact exist? Wouldn't that be nice!
- andrewce 16y ago
  Direct instruction works great for mechanical skills, because there is a 1:1 correspondence between that which is tested and that which is assessed, and because the goals are clear and discrete. If we're talking something like multiplication by two-digit numbers, or properly using semi-colons, those skills are mechanical enough that direct-instruction will work, and will probably work at least somewhat well, assuming that it does not become a slog for the students. Personally, I'm willing to put up with scripted lessons, so long as the script works the way it should most of the time and so long as I've got the ability to modify if it needs modification. There is a distinct difference between a strong script and an incredibly constrictive script. I'll still argue that teaching is as much an art as it is a science, but you're right that lesson plans can be transferred between teachers. I have no compunctions about stealing good ideas and good methodology, and have had success doing so. Here are some broader concepts we can appropriate, which should be palatable to most good teachers: 1) Have a concrete goal, and reinforce it consistently until students are able to meet it. 2) Group students by ability (within a class, if necessary), so that everyone is constantly moving forward. 3) Make sure that there is a deliberate progression, or at least as close to one as possible. Not everything has a deliberate progression (writing, for example, is a pretty non-linear process once you get past a certain ability level). 4) Judge classroom progress by student achievement, rather than by the calendar. The one reservation I have about Direct Instruction is that it removes some the ability of a lesson to go useful places. If I am teaching a lesson on metaphors while my class reads "The Great Gatsby" (which has impeccable metaphors), and a student says "Hey, when it describes Gatsby as 'dispensing starlight to casual moths', that's a metaphor, and it's parallel in theme to this poem we read two weeks ago"; this is exactly the type of thinking I want my students to be able to do, because it is the type of thinking that will be important later. That said, if they do not know how to write grammatically complete sentences or how to multiply without a calculator, then I guess all the metaphors in the world can't save them. (TL;DR: I generally agree in principle, but have reservations regarding practice)
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I don't think there is any problem with a highly constrictive script if it works. Again, the teacher might be bored, but the purpose of school is educating the students, not entertaining teachers [1]. As for students advanced enough to make connections between metaphors in various literary works, go ahead and get off script. In fact, the few examples of DI scripts that I've seen do allow this - they tend to be flow charts, not screenplays. They instruct the teacher to skip/redo sections based on student performance on standardized diagnostic quizzes (i.e., go ahead and teach metaphors if they understand the use of commas.) [1] Side note. I believe that "entertaining teachers" is why we tend to have so many literature classes, and a dearth of classes on factual writing. Teaching students to distill a spreadsheet+employee status reports into a department status report using only simple language is boring, but incredibly useful. I developed a lots of bad writing habits while an undergrad, which increased page count and obscured the vacuousness of my literary opinions. It took my PhD advisers about 2 years to beat those habits out of me.

by twstws 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Good teaching is not something you can package up, and lesson plans are very idiosyncratic creative works. They are not readily transferable between teachers. This simply isn't true. Direct Instruction (pre-scripted lesson plans given to all teachers) is well known to produce excellent results. http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml http://www.jefflindsay.com/EducData.shtml http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm http://www.projectpro.com/ICR/Research/DI/Summary.htm http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/honestft.htm http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/honestft.htm It's just fought against tooth and nail by teachers unions because a) it's boring to the teacher and b) it makes teachers easily replacable. But it works. (Incidentally, I taught math for 5 years at the university level. I was flying blind - I probably would have done better if I had a script to follow.)

twstws 16y ago
Thanks, that's quite interesting. I can see the advantage of that approach to 'hard skills' like reading, phonetics, computation. On the other hand, I'm not sure I can envision it being applied to complex issues in biology, english or social studies. I'm starting my fourth semester teaching undergraduate biology, hopefully a little less blind each semester. So far I've never seen a lesson plan from any source that I could just read over and then deliver to a class, but maybe they do in fact exist? Wouldn't that be nice!
andrewce 16y ago
Direct instruction works great for mechanical skills, because there is a 1:1 correspondence between that which is tested and that which is assessed, and because the goals are clear and discrete. If we're talking something like multiplication by two-digit numbers, or properly using semi-colons, those skills are mechanical enough that direct-instruction will work, and will probably work at least somewhat well, assuming that it does not become a slog for the students. Personally, I'm willing to put up with scripted lessons, so long as the script works the way it should most of the time and so long as I've got the ability to modify if it needs modification. There is a distinct difference between a strong script and an incredibly constrictive script. I'll still argue that teaching is as much an art as it is a science, but you're right that lesson plans can be transferred between teachers. I have no compunctions about stealing good ideas and good methodology, and have had success doing so. Here are some broader concepts we can appropriate, which should be palatable to most good teachers: 1) Have a concrete goal, and reinforce it consistently until students are able to meet it. 2) Group students by ability (within a class, if necessary), so that everyone is constantly moving forward. 3) Make sure that there is a deliberate progression, or at least as close to one as possible. Not everything has a deliberate progression (writing, for example, is a pretty non-linear process once you get past a certain ability level). 4) Judge classroom progress by student achievement, rather than by the calendar. The one reservation I have about Direct Instruction is that it removes some the ability of a lesson to go useful places. If I am teaching a lesson on metaphors while my class reads "The Great Gatsby" (which has impeccable metaphors), and a student says "Hey, when it describes Gatsby as 'dispensing starlight to casual moths', that's a metaphor, and it's parallel in theme to this poem we read two weeks ago"; this is exactly the type of thinking I want my students to be able to do, because it is the type of thinking that will be important later. That said, if they do not know how to write grammatically complete sentences or how to multiply without a calculator, then I guess all the metaphors in the world can't save them. (TL;DR: I generally agree in principle, but have reservations regarding practice)
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I don't think there is any problem with a highly constrictive script if it works. Again, the teacher might be bored, but the purpose of school is educating the students, not entertaining teachers [1]. As for students advanced enough to make connections between metaphors in various literary works, go ahead and get off script. In fact, the few examples of DI scripts that I've seen do allow this - they tend to be flow charts, not screenplays. They instruct the teacher to skip/redo sections based on student performance on standardized diagnostic quizzes (i.e., go ahead and teach metaphors if they understand the use of commas.) [1] Side note. I believe that "entertaining teachers" is why we tend to have so many literature classes, and a dearth of classes on factual writing. Teaching students to distill a spreadsheet+employee status reports into a department status report using only simple language is boring, but incredibly useful. I developed a lots of bad writing habits while an undergrad, which increased page count and obscured the vacuousness of my literary opinions. It took my PhD advisers about 2 years to beat those habits out of me.