Q.3
Why is outlining of goals/objectives necessary before planning a lesson?
A lesson plan is a detailed plan of the objectives and activities for a particular class. It is an important part of the teaching and learning process. A lesson plan reflects what a teacher wants to achieve in each class and how it will be achieved? Planning a lesson helps a teacher to control class time and its effective use. A teacher’s effectiveness is usually judged by the ability to design and implement instruction that promotes learning.
Teaching goals, objectives, teaching methods and assessment forms all come together in a lesson plan, which ideally facilitates student learning. A good lesson plan contains the description and application of the instructional methods being used in a particular class to meet the needs of different learners. At the end of the lesson, the teacher evaluates how effective the plan was and makes any additions or revisions for future use. The lesson plans vary in degree of detail. Some teachers write only a few notes of the plan, while others carefully write the details of each step of the plan. The teachers discover the system that works best with them.
Setting clear lesson goals
Setting goals is how you guide yourself down your intended path. Having objectives in mind provides a way to align your actions in service of those big-picture targets.
Sure, you can keep things moving day-to-day without a long-term strategy. But without larger goals, you’ll find yourself standing in the same spot months down the line.
This is why lesson goals in the classroom are so important. They are your veritable north star for teaching, guiding every session with your students.
Your lesson goals should clearly define the ‘why’ behind your teaching so that everyone understands the reasons for learning a given subject.
Without these goals in place, you risk a lack of focus in the classroom and you won’t have a way to measure successes and failures for your lesson plans.
Importance of defining goals before lectures
A lesson plan is a road map of the instructions. It shows what will be taught and how it will be done effectively during class time. Teachers require a lesson plan to describe their course of instruction for one class. The lesson plan is necessary to guide the instruction. A lesson plan is required to describe the preferences of the subject being covered, activities being held in the class, and to ensure the progress of the students about the lesson being taught to them. A well-developed lesson plan reflects the interests and needs of students. It contains the objectives of the lesson formulated in behavioral terms (indicate the change in behavior). The best and appropriate practices of teaching methodology and techniques to achieve the objectives are included in the lesson plan. The content to be covered in a class is indicated in a lesson plan. The evaluation procedures are also included in the lesson plan. Lesson planning is beneficial for the teacher in many ways; such as:
• It helps in achieving goals and objectives, and the same can be said on the part of the students.
• It helps to get rid of problems or avoid them.
• It gives a reality check of everyday performance.
• It improves the habits and attitudes of the students.
• It improves teaching skills.
• It makes teaching ordinary and easy.
• It makes the teacher organized during teaching.
• Lesson planning determines when to include the interesting facts to attract the students’ attention.
• It enables the teacher to impart the things the students can do to the best of their abilities.
How To Set Effective Lesson Goals?
1. Ask Yourself Pointed Questions
Your lesson goals should outline what your students will ideally be able to accomplish once the lesson is completed. In order to understand what these goals might look like, ask yourself some key questions, like:
What will students accomplish during this lesson?
What does success look like to me?
IE: To what specific level will the students perform a given task in order for the lesson to be considered accomplished?
How will the students show that they understood and learned the goals of your lesson?
Beginning with these questions will set the stage for some of your goals and can inform your metrics (more on that later).
2. Frame Your Goals With A Growth Mindset
A growth mindset focuses on effort as the core factor behind learning. When your classroom takes this approach, they believe their abilities can change as a result of effort, perseverance, and practice.
All of your lesson goals need to be formulated with a growth mindset framework. This means:
Stating the goal in a positive way. Ex:
“We will learn to ….”
“We will be able to …”
“We will succeed in …”
Ensuring it’s challenging but also achievable.
Including growth in a capacity or skill set.
Adhering to overall learning values.
Taking barriers or potential challenges into account.
Following the above criteria forces you to create a goal that is centered around a growth mindset.
3. Set Metrics
Lesson goals help you measure whether or not you are achieving your learning objectives through set metrics. Metrics should be set up in a way that makes it easy to identify whether or not goals are being met.
If your core lesson goal is for the entire class to learn the members of each food group, your metrics would be based on how many foods and groups your class can identify. You can then set milestones within certain timeframes.
For example, I expect the classroom to be able to identify the five food groups independently by week two.
4. Communicate These Goals With Your Students
Once you have decided what your goal is going to be, it’s time to communicate it to your classroom. It’s important for everyone to understand what you’re working towards, that way your students can aim for the finish line together.
Depending on your class dynamic, it might be a good exercise to turn this into a lesson in itself. Gather your class and ask them thought-provoking questions about the goals you’ve set, such as:
How do you see us reaching this goal?
Where can you see problems coming up?
How can we work through those issues together?
What will it look like when you achieve this goal?
Having a class discussion about these things can lead to increased engagement with your objective. When students are asked their opinions on a goal, they tend to feel more connected to it.
5. Reflect On The Process
You should look back on every lesson goal and ask yourself what worked, what didn’t, and how you plan to change moving forward.
It’s common to either set lesson goals that are too ambitious or not ambitious enough. Use your reflection time to decide if you need to dial-up or dial down. This can also be a good time to elicit more class participation. Ask your students how they felt about the goal and use their feedback to shape your future goal-setting.
Process of lesson planning
First of all, a teacher needs to identify the learning objectives for the class, then design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:
• Objectives for student learning
• Teaching/learning activities
• Strategies to check student understanding Objectives specified for student learning help in determining the kinds of teaching and learning activities to be used in class. These activities will define the achievements of learning objectives.
Detailed planning of a lesson is emphasized through the following stages:
Pre-Planning Stage
The Post-Planning Stage
Pre-Planning Stage
Before teaching the teacher has to think about the lesson plan for a particular class. The Center of Excellence in Teaching (1999) recommends that the answers to the following questions may help the teachers to proceed with effective planning: - What are my objectives for this class? Objectives are the statements of what the teacher wants students to learn. The objectives are most likely to be the same, or close to, the goals outlined during course planning. These are specific for a particular class. - What are the objectives for this class? Objectives are the specific goal statements written in behavioral terms. They state exactly what the students should be able to do, in a class/ on a paper/ in an exam, etc. Objectives also specify the conditions under which the students should learn the material. - Why is this material important? The teacher thinks about the importance of the skills or knowledge being taught to the students. - What content will be covered in the particular class? Statement of the rationale (logical reasoning) will help the teachers to decide What content needs to be conveyed? Or What will students need to know to meet the goals and objectives laid down in the course? Or What content is most essential for them to understand?
The Post-Planning Stage
The teacher’s lesson planning process should take into consideration the need to assess whether students have learned? How effective was the lesson? This assessment is not a complicated or difficult task. It is very simple and informal. For instance, using part of the class to let students work on problems you have given them, or discuss issues and apply concepts, can give you a good sense of what and how much they have learned. The one-minute writing about the lesson or homework problems can be similarly helpful.
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