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As my mother was, and still is today a teacher in the USA, she has given me lots of advice about teaching. One of the best things she and I discussed recently, in coalition with my submission of Unit 9 of this ittt course, was with regards to lesson planning. Though she has been teaching for decades, I have still much to learn. For this summative task, I chose to analyze why lesson plans are so useful and effective for the classroom. To begin my understanding of what goes into lesson planning, unit 9 really helped me to understand that being organized early (long term and short term), having learner objectives, and having personal aims are all important aspects of a strong lesson plan and a overall healthy classroom. What is interesting about this however, is that even in the “personal aims” aspect of lesson planning, which focuses on what I as a teacher wish to achieve and which usually is an area of ones teaching that one would like to improve, even this—over time—is focused on curating a better learning experience for students. Only through tracking ones own goals for students through a lesson plan can a teacher better understand not only their strengths and weaknesses but what aspects of their teaching style or methods work, and what types of teaching styles or methods do not work. Learning what aspects of ones teaching style that one needs to prune is truly invaluable. More than this, however, the unit 9 ittt course helped me to understand that, though thorough planning is good and expected, that a certain amount of flexibility—as teachers often need to make changes to their lesson plans during lessons—is expected and necessary. As I have been a student for many years, this is one aspect of teaching that can be crucial for early teachers. Without disregarding what needs to be completed in a timely matter, it is imperative for teachers to (in varying degree) hold lesson plans both firmly and loosely. With this in mind, when flexibility is necessary, this means that revisions to the original lesson plan are also necessary. As the ittt course noted, lesson content needs to be continually reviewed over a sequence of lessons to ensure students retain this information. So not only do lessons need to be continually edited and modified to fit the students, but these lesson plans should also necessarily fit in a number of lessons that are review to help students to solidify what they have learned. To conclude, one of the best lessons that I learned from unit 9 regarding lesson plans was how important it is to plan various activities into ones lesson plan. Activities within lesson plans are not (for the most part) sporadic games that one makes up on the spot to accommodate lessons, but rather thoroughly preplanned activities that are fitted to ones students within the lesson plan prior to the lesson. Along with this, lesson plans can be very useful, besides critique for what did and didn’t work, but also as a record of what a class has done and which materials have been used. Like the ittt course noted, if you don’t make a record of what a class has learned, you are likely not to accurately remember what a class has learned during that time. Overall the lesson planning that this course taught me was one of the most valuable aspects of this course. It helped me to understand hoe important flexibility is, but also how necessary it is to thoroughly preplan ones lessons and come prepared to class. Though I have learned many lessons from my mother regarding teaching, I have also learned a lot from taking this course!
