Planning to Teach and Facilitate Learning

Session aims and objectives

• to help students prepare for effective teaching and learning

• consider ways of adapting plans to include all learners

(Detailed) Planning opportunities for learningWhat do I want the children to learn?

Effective teachingTeacher employing

a range of strategies facilitating

opportunities to learn.

Sensitive and focused

assessment

Feedback to learner

Subject research

Reflection and consideration of ‘where next’

Why Plan? What is the point?

Wider framework (medium-term and long-term planning)

Selecting appropriate teaching and learning strategiesIdentify what you expect to see/hearConsidered all learners?Detail beforehand: e.g. layers of questioningWhat resources?How to organise What about you and your development?

Key elements of good lesson plans

• lesson objectives which can be shared with pupils

• a clear structure for the lesson

• notes on key questions and teaching points

• notes on specific activities

• notes relating to needs of individuals or groups

• a note of how any additional support will be used

Lesson plan template Section A

Within the context of this lesson, what specific actions are you going to take to advance your professional development in relation to Standards, Action Plan and National Priorities?

Using your previous lesson evaluation, identify specific actions to support pupil progressWhat are you carrying over from the last lesson?Consider the cycle (slide three).

Evaluation of the previous lesson will have highlighted some key considerations and implications for the current lesson. It may be that one of the learning objectives was not achieved – or you need to provide more interactive tasks – or that you need to regroup pupils to place them with particular partners, etc.

Spending time on this allows you to recognise how you need to shape this lesson, to support pupil learning.

Learning ObjectivesWhat is it you want your pupils to know, understand, or be able to do by the end of this lesson?

Create a list of ‘openers’, such as:solve. . ., use. . ., describe . . ., explain . . ., compare . . ., demonstrate . . ., contrast . . ., match. . ., draw. . ., measure . . ., justify . . ., select, etc. etc.

Three learning objectives is enough – any more than that and your lesson may become too complex. Keep them short – keep them simple – pitch them at an appropriate level - based on assessment.

Differentiated Learning Outcomes

• In an attempt to support a range of learners and to inform assessment of a wider spectrum of achievement within one class group, we can recognise three levels of response to the learning objective:

Pupils who are ‘working towards’… Pupils who are ‘achieving’… Pupils who are ‘working beyond’…

By thinking carefully about what you anticipate seeing or hearing at each level, this will help you to recognise more easily which pupils need more support or alternative tasks.

Learning Across the Curriculum• There may be links to other ‘moments’ of learning in the

day or the week to connect with

• It may be that the connection is between ‘subject areas’, or key concepts that have already been introduced

• You may also want to identify other types of learning such as social skills in working with others

• It may be (for example) that your focus is on how you are incorporating technology into this lesson

Resources

Thinking about resources needed for this lesson, will this help you to plan ahead and be ready before the lesson starts

Think about the detail there is nothing more annoying than not having a whiteboard marker when you need one.

Remember that people are a central resource in learning and teaching.

Time & Learning Objectives

• Time can either be written as how long each task takes e.g. 5 mins, or the time on the clock throughout the lesson e.g. 10.25am.

• Note which Learning Objective (LO1 etc) the activity relates to so that it is clear what the intention of the task is.

Pupil Learning ActivitiesThis will chart a step-by-step progression of the lesson

• Sometimes you may use description of the activity only

• Sometimes you may find it helpful to write exactly what you will say to introduce it

• Think about ALL of your learners so that any inclusion strategies you have identified that may help specific individuals, may be helpful to all pupils

• You may also want to identify the role of other adults here

Teaching Points/strategies/teacher role

Think of teaching points like ‘quality’ points.For example, if you were teaching a specific skill, you may want to add those ‘don’t forget to…’ statements that remind pupils of the correct techniques to use.

This is information that has the potential to enrich the outcome. There may be similarities here with what you have identified in your differentiated learning outcomes, as they might act as criteria to know whether the task is being done correctly, and at what level it is being demonstrated.

What role is/are the teacher/pupils taking in each activity?

Organisation and Risk Assessment

The management of groups in the space you have: e.g. how are you going to get them into groups or move between activities

Any health and safety considerations?

Assessment for Learning Strategies• How are you going to check to see if learning is taking

place? • For example, are you going to provide a short peer

assessment moment, where pupils use the given criteria to make judgments about their partner’s work? • Are you going to ask for responses from all, or target your

chosen pupils for that lesson who represent your ‘working towards’, ‘achieving’, or ‘working beyond’? • Are you going to use layers of questioning to search for

deeper understanding? • How will you extract the information you need, to know

how to proceed?

The Four basic Elements of AfL:

• Sharing Learning Goals• Effective Questioning• Self and peer evaluation• Effective feedback

You need to be able to utilise these

Lesson Evaluation (Section F)This is organised into 3 parts (2 parts ‘pupil’: 1 part ‘teacher’)

• Firstly, To what extent have the learning outcomes been achieved in relation to the learning objectives? :did the children learn what you hoped they would learn in relation to the learning objectives? If they did, what helped them? If they did not, why not? This helps you to focus on the three areas of differentiated pupil achievement.

• Then, Reflect upon your professional development including the impact and outcomes of the actions identified in Box A: What was good about your teaching today? Did you make progress with your personal targets? What will you focus on next?

Reflect upon pupil progress including the impact and outcomes of the actions identified in Box B:

Consider those children who found the tasks difficult and made less progress. What might you need to provide in the next lesson that presents the learning in a different way?

‘A rehearsal of thought on paper’

• Detail in the thinking beforehand is likely to contribute to a successful lesson• The more prepared you are,

the more confident you are likely to be• Your planning is a vehicle

for your learning – the more you invest, the more effective you become as a teacher