The 4 P´s of Lesson Planning-Very helpful for Catedra II !

I wanted to share this information with my classmates,as it could be very useful for catedra II and of course our future as English teachers! The Four "P's" of Lesson Planning

by K.J. Wagner, M.A.

A sure ingredient in a recipe for disaster is "winging it." As in: "I'm not sure what I'll do today, I'll just wing it." Good classroom managers plan the lesson, procure the products needed, list the procedure to follow, and prepare for potential problems and pitfalls. Proper planning leads to less stress for you and more learning for your students! Preparing a Lesson Lesson plans do not consist of statements such as: "Today we'll cover Chapter 4 in the text book." Rather, lesson plans are designs for learning. They include these basics: Objectives. What is your objective or objectives for teaching this? Generally, you should write the objective in terms of learning outcomes. In other words, what do you want the student to learn as a result of the lesson or unit? It should be observable and measurable. For example: -The student will be able to recite the letters of the alphabet. -The student will be able to sing a song in three part harmony. -The student will be able to access information from an Internet search engine. -The student, given informational-type text, will be able to identify the main idea. -The student will be able to define basic literary terms and apply them to a specific British work. -The student will be able to describe the causes of acid rain. There are categories of objectives including: knowledge and skills. Knowledge, of course, involves cognitive functions. Students categorize, analyze, recall, synthesize, recite, define. A skill concerns performing an action. Students measure, sing, play. Objectives should begin with an action verb. (A list of verbs to use for writing learning objectives is appended to the end of this article.) When appropriate, you should include performance standards or information on how the student will be evaluated. For example: The student will, within a thirty-minute period, write a five-paragraph essay which includes a thesis statement and contains no more than three grammatical and mechanical errors. Or, the student will be able to perform all five take off and landing foot patterns. List of materials needed. This is extremely important to think through ahead of time. Will you need chart paper? A chalkboard? Overhead? Handouts? Art supplies? Power cords? Procure your materials ahead of time and have them ready before you begin your lesson. Much can happen in a classroom of rambunctious fourth graders while the teacher searches for the handouts she wanted to use. Procedures. State, step-by-step, how you are going to implement your plan. How are you going to introduce the lesson? How will you activate prior knowledge? If you are using handouts or manipulatives, when and how will you hand them out? Will you close with a review? How will you tie the lesson together?   Potential Problems and Pitfalls. What will you do if you suddenly realize the students do not have the requisite background necessary for the lesson plan? What will you do if your overhead projector light burns out? What will you do if you plan on showing a video during a history lesson and a student informs you that she feels uncomfortable watching this particular video? Do you have an alternative assignment ready? A place to send her? What will you do if . . .? Think through potential problems and pitfalls ahead of time and have a contingency plan. (Example, in a hands-on science lesson involving rubber bands and a group of eighth graders,when should you pass out the rubber bands? Hint: Not during the introduction.) Method(s) of Evaluation. How will you determine whether or not the student has met the learning objectives? Evaluations do not always have to be the formal, pencil and paper type. You may: observe whether the student has met the objectives, conference with the student,orally review as a group. There are many possibilities. Go here for a list of ways to evaluate learning. As stated earlier, these are just the "basics" of a lesson plan. The type of lesson plan you design will depend upon your individual circumstances, the lesson being taught, and the type of students involved. You students will learn more with a properly designed lesson in which you have paid careful attention to detail. It is a truism that "students don't do downtime." Students are astute. They know when their teacher is unprepared. And, unfortunately, on occasion, some students will take advantage of the situation to misbehave. Finally, when you are prepared, you are less stressed and more comfortable while teaching the lesson. Action Verbs for Learning Objectives Abstract Activate Acquire Adjust Analyze Appraise Arrange Articulate Assemble Assess Assist Associate Breakdown Build Calculate Carry out Catalog Categorize Change Check Cite Classify Collect Combine Compare Compute Contrast Complete Compose Compute Conduct Construct Convert Coordinate Count Criticize Critique Debate Decrease Define Demonstrate Describe Design Detect Develop Differentiate Direct Discuss Discover Distinguish Draw Dramatize Employ Establish Estimate Evaluate Examine Explain Explore Express Extrapolate Formulate Generalize Identify Illustrate Implement Improve Increase Infer Integrate Interpret Introduce Investigate Judge Limit List Locate Maintain Manage Modify Name Observe Operate Order Organize Perform Plan Point Predict Prepare Prescribe Produce Propose Question Rank Rate Read Recall Recommend Recognize Reconstruct Record Recruit Reduce Reflect Relate Remove Reorganize Repair Repeat Replace Report Reproduce Research Restate Restructure Revise Rewrite Schedule Score Select Separate Sequence Sing Sketch Simplify Skim Solve Specify State Structure Summarize Supervise Survey Systematize Tabulate Test Theorize Trace Track Train Transfer Translate Update Use Utilize Verbalize Verify Visualize Write

HOMEWORK

"Learning Teaching" by Jim Scrivener

PPP as a lesson sequence

The most basic and maybe common teaching sequence, that teacher use for all type of classes, is known as PPP, Presentation-Practice-Production.

The PPP model is one way of categorizing/planning main stages of a lesson.

• First, the teacher presents an item of language in a clear context to get across its meaning. This could be done in a variety of ways: through a text, a situation, a dialogue etc.

• Students are then asked to complete a controlled practice stage, where they may have to repeat target items through choral and individual drilling, fill gaps or match halves of sentences. All of this practice demands that the student uses the language correctly and helps them to become more comfortable with it.

• Finally, they move on to the production stage, sometimes called the 'free practice' stage. Students are given a communication task such as a role play and are expected to produce the target language and use any other language that has already been learnt and is suitable for completing it.

Here some examples of classical PPP lesson plans, labeled with the E-S-A stages(Harmer):

1. Build up a situation or context                 (Engage)
2. (Present) Introduce the grammar point    (Study)
3. (Practice) Controlled/restricted practice    (Study or Activate?)
4. (Produce) Freer practice                          (Activate)

1. Warm up                                    (Engage)
2.  Listening or Reading                         (Activate)
3. Careful listening or reading                    (Activate)
4. (Present) Highlight the grammar point     (Study)
5. (Practice) Controlled/restricted practice   (Study or Activate)
6. (Produce) Freer practice                         (Activate)

Conclusion – my personal opinion and proposal

During Methodology I and II we came around with different models of lesson planning, like SIOP lesson plan , Boomerang and Patchwork Lessons (J. Harmer's "How to teach English").  We have learned that structuring a lesson is complex and should be focused on the teaching objectives, the purpose of the task or topic (grammar or vocabulary) or covering a specific language skill( reading, listening, writing, speaking). Reading about PPP in Jim Scrivener´s “Learning Teaching “and how he refers to the first of three steps in traditional lesson design seems to go back to the very roots of lesson planning.

PPP offers a very simplified approach to language learning. It is based upon the idea that you can present language in neat little blocks, adding from one lesson to the next. However, research shows us that we cannot predict or guarantee what the students will learn and that ultimately a wide exposure to language is the best way of ensuring that students will acquire it effectively. Teachers therefore have to adapt their planning to the necessity and level of their students.  Not every lesson has to be (and cannot be) based on a PPP model. There are also other ways of structuring/using the stages of a lesson.

Overall, I think PPP lesson plans are very limited.  It would be convenient if good lessons only needed 3 key steps, but I think good lessons need a lot more. 

During my research I found a really interesting model that called especially my attention. I would like to share it here with you and don’t hesitate to comment! It is called EDUCARE? Normally used in general education, but I think it is very useful for language learning:

EDUCARE?

Explanation (= clarification of language or skills by the teacher, through reading, through discovery tasks, etc.)

Demonstration (= in ELT, listening to or reading examples of English in use)

Use                (= the more controlled/restricted practice steps, including drills)

Check/correct (= self/peer/teacher correction; tasks to check understanding; CCQs, etc.)

Aide-memoire (= getting handouts, writing summaries of the lesson, etc.)

Review/recycle (= seeing and using the language again, and again, and again)

Evaluate          (= free/realistic/authentic use and consideration of the effectiveness of that use)

?                    (= a chance to ask questions)

The aim is to ensure that over a period of every few classes, with a good degree of flexibility in the exact order, learners should be provided with all of the above.

Glogster - Reading Lesson Plan

Prezi Presentation Teaching Reading

TEACHING READING

Summary
To The Queen
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

This poem is the epilogue of Tennyson´s most notable work “Idylls of the King”, a series of twelve poems retelling part of the story of Arthur and his knights. It  is  addressed  to  Queen  Victoria,  encouraging her in  her grief  over the death of her beloved Prince Albert not to allow Britain to lose strength  in carrying out her  destiny.
The work is, he says,

''an old imperfect tale,
New-old, and shadowing sense at war with soul.''

By ''new-old" he means that he will re-tell these old stories as a nineteenth-century poet, and with the best ideals of his own age in full view ; that, while retaining the mediaeval imagery, he will adapt the legends to the feelings and sentiments of his own generation.

Summary
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead 
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The body of a dead soldier is brought home to his wife and she cannot show her sorrow because she is in shock. The maid believes that her mistress should cry out her pain, otherwise the grief will kill her. She tries to make her weep by praising the dead husband but the wife stills without showing any reaction. Then the maid removes the cloth that covers the face hoping the grief to flow out, but it does not. A ninety year old nurse puts their child upon her knee,  suddenly tears roll down and she can finally show her pain.

Summary

An ecology of houses
by Kevin Burke

The article “An Ecology of Houses” by Kevin Burke brings us face to face with the relationship between nature and human beings, the process of changing the environment and altering it by natural selection.

As human beings we have made up a romantic picture of nature in our minds during the time. Sceneries which don’t include people and idealistic landscapes show up in our imagination.

But currently we are far away from such an idyllic set and are in constant conflict with our environment. The modifying of the methods of natural selection has consequences for human evolution, as nature is in part created by humans.

The process is the transforming of the environment by the subjects themselves being an essential part of it and the fact of the capability of changing it. We call this ecological niche construction.

In the United States the suburban sprawl has been the main cause of modification of environment. Natural selection in this case is strongly related with profit and economic growth. But can we talk about natural selection then? It seems that the terms ecology and economy actually don’t fit together in sense of sprawl and construction, even if they have the same root.

In the 1950s in USA, people in many cities tended to move their residences to the countryside. The land that was used for farming before was now converted into residential neighborhoods and that fact had bigger consequences for local and global environment.

In global terms sprawl has caused global warming because of higher emissions from cars that are necessary to move to outside the cities. 

But the most serious problem due to the sprawl is water contamination and consequently water depletion which has been a great concern in modern US cities.

In conclusion we have to reconsider the meaning of natural selection. We must be aware in what way we are altering evolution by creating our urban living spaces.  That doesn't  instantly mean that we have to put behind our romantic picture of nature and how we should include it in our city planning. We have to be conscious that we are part of nature and nature is part of us and that we depend each from another.

Summary

The Velociraptor-Like Robot That Could Save Your Life

by Valerie Ross

In this article we learn about biologist Robert Full’s design of search and rescue robots by studying the behavior of lizards.

Especially African agama lizards have an enormous capacity to make a perfect landing after a flight by moving their tails up and down. Full wants apply the technique to the robot that must persist upright when climbing difficult landscape.

Full has built a four-wheeled vehicle with a tail, which he and his team call Tailbot. By lifting its tail before jumping from a ramp it is able to land even more perfectly than the lizards.

That invents led Full to another area, paleontology. He discovered that the dinosaur velociraptor used much the same skill. He made a model that shows that the raptors were apparently even better at staying upright by using their tails. Despite of not being able to confirm his theory he could show his knowledge in the movie Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs jump and move in a perfect way.

LESSON PLAN CITIES 6TH GRADE

LESSON PLANS METHODOLOGY II UNIT CITIES

CATEDRA 1 LESSON PLANS DETAILED

Rationale
Rubric for speaking activities

HERE YOU'LL FIND TWO LINKS THEY LEAD YOU TO 
 MY CLASSMATES', BARBARA's AND MARIA DE LOS ANGELES' PRESENTATIONS WHO DID THE  "ADAPTING" AND "ADDING" PART, RESPECTIVELY :

          ADAPTING   

ADDING

AFTER DISCOVERING THIS NEW TOOL FOR PRESENTING MEANINGFUL INPUT I'LL PRESENT YOU HERE MY FIRST GLOG! IT INCLUDES THE PART FROM OUR PRESENTATION WHICH REPRESENTS THE REPLACING PART FROM THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH INTERNATIONAL, UNIT 4 CATASTROPHE! ENJOY IT!

GLOGSTER EDU WORKING ON TEXTBOOKS

PAIRWORK WITH BARBARA VALENZUELA:

HERE YOU CAN SEE OUR PATCHWORK LESSON PLAN FOR AN ACTIVITY FROM CATEDRA I , CLICK THE LINK ABOVE

PATCHWORK LESSON PLAN

METHODOLOGY II

HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH BY JEREMY HARMER


IN CHAPTER 4 "HOW TO DESCRIBE LEARNING AN TEACHING" WE LEARNED ABOUT 

• ELEMENTS NECESSARY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING LIKE EXPOSURE, MOTIVATION AND USE
• THREE ELEMENTS FOR SUCCSESSFUL TEACHING AND LEARNING IN CLASS: E (ENGAGE), S (STUDY) AND A (ACTIVATE) 
• THREE DIFFERENT LESSON SEQUENCES WHICH CONTAIN THE E-S-A ELEMENTS: STRAIGHT ARROW LESSONS, BOOMERANG LESSONS AND PATCHWORK LESSONS
• MOST APPROPIATE METHODOLOGIES FOR ENGLISH TEACHING ARE PPP, CLT AND TASK BASED LEARNING 
• AND THAT GOOD TEACHERS VARY THE ESA SEQUENCES THEY USE WITH THEIR STUDENTS TO AVOID MONOTONY AND OFFER A RANGE OF  LEARNING SEQUENCES 

CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO SEE A CONCEPT MAP OF CHAPTER 4 

CONCEPT MAP - CHAPTER 4

Open the links to see the slides elaborated in teamwork with Maria de los Angeles and Bárbara with Grammar Activities bases on the book "A Rough Guide to Language Awareness"

GRAMMAR ACTIVITIES Part 1 POWERPOINT
GRAMMAR ACTIVITIES Part2 POWERPOINT 

Why Teach Grammar At All?

When a student understands grammar and the patterns in language, he or she is more able to comprehend any type of communication.

In addition, understanding grammar enables a student to write and speak more effectively.

GRAMMAR APPROACH
To see our teamwork ( with Barbara Valenzuela and Maria de los Angeles Rojas) click here: We included the following tecniques: 

• Dictogloss
• Cloze Procedure
• Error detection and correction

Here is my work on the lexical approach. I included it to my original Lesson Plan and decided to replace some activities. Share this link!

The Lexical Approach

In this Lesson Plan various metacognitive activities are included. We used the CALLA Lesson Plan for this  activity. Here can you share it!



            Metacognition Lesson Plan

Strategies for Developing Metacognitive Behaviors

from http://www.education/ .com

1. Identifying "what you know" and "what you don't know."  At the beginning of a research activity students need to make conscious decisions about their knowledge. Initially students write "What I already know about..." and "What I want to learn about...." As students research the topic, they will verify, clarify and expand, or replace with more accurate information, each of their initial statements.
2. Talking about thinking.  Talking about thinking is important because students need a thinking vocabulary. During planning and problem-solving situations, teachers should think aloud so that students can follow demonstrated thinking processes. Modeling and discussion develop the vocabulary students need for thinking and talking about their own thinking. Labelling thinking processes when students use them is also important for student recognition of thinking skills. Paired problem-solving is another useful strategy. One student talks through a problem, describing his thinking processes. His partner listens and asks questions to help clarify thinking. Similarly, in reciprocal teaching (Palinscar, Ogle, Jones, Carr, & Ransom, 1986), small groups of students take turns playing teacher, asking questions, and clarifying and summarizing the material being studied.
3. Keeping a thinking journal.  Another means of developing metacognition is through the use of a journal or learning log. This is a diary in which students reflect upon their thinking, make note of their awareness of ambiguities and inconsistencies, and comment on how they have dealt with difficulties. This journal is a diary of process.
4. Planning and self-regulation.  Students must assume increasing responsibility for planning and regulating their learning. It is difficult for learners to become self-directed when learning is planned and monitored by someone else. Students can be taught to make plans for learning activities including estimating time requirements, organizing materials, and scheduling procedures necessary to complete an activity. The resource center's flexibility and access to a variety of materials allows the student to do just this. Criteria for evaluation must be developed with students so they learn to think and ask questions of themselves as they proceed through a learning activity.
5. Debriefing the thinking process.  Closure activities focus student discussion on thinking processes to develop awareness of strategies that can be applied to other learning situations. A three step method is useful. First, the teacher guides students to review the activity, gathering data on thinking processes and feelings. Then, the group classifies related ideas, identifying thinking strategies used. Finally, they evaluate their success, discarding inappropriate strategies, identifying those valuable for future use, and seeking promising alternative approaches.
6. Self-Evaluation.  Guided self-evaluation experiences can be introduced through individual conferences and checklists focusing on thinking processes. Gradually self-evaluation will be applied more independently. As students recognize that learning activities in different disciplines are similar, they will begin to transfer learning strategies to new situations.

 

Establishing the Metacognitive Environment

A metacognitive environment encourages awareness of thinking. Planning is shared between teachers, school library media specialists, and students. Thinking strategies are discussed. Evaluation is ongoing.
In the creation of a metacognitive environment, teachers monitor and apply their knowledge, deliberately modeling metacognitive behavior to assist students in becoming aware of their own thinking.
Metacognitive strategies are already in teachers' repertoires. We must become alert to these strategies, and consciously model them for students.
Problem-solving and research activities in all subjects provide opportunities for developing metacognitive strategies. Teachers need to focus student attention on how tasks are accomplished. Process goals, in addition to content goals, must be established and evaluated with students so they discover that understanding and transferring thinking processes improves learning.

In this rapidly changing world, the challenge of teaching is to help students develop skills which will not become obsolete. Metacognitive strategies are essential for the twenty-first century. They will enable students to successfully cope with new situations. Teachers and school library media specialists capitalize on their talents as well as access a wealth of resources that will create a metacognitive environment which fosters the development of good thinkers who are successful problem-solvers and lifelong learners.

Metacognition and Three Types of Knowledge 

watch this video about metagognition

To increase their metacognitive abilities, students need to possess and be aware of three kinds of content knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional.

1. Declarative knowledge
is the factual information that one knows; it can be declared—spoken or written. An example is knowing the formula for calculating momentum in a physics class (momentum = mass times velocity).
2. Procedural knowledge is knowledge of how to do something, of how to perform the steps in a process; for example, knowing the mass of an object and its rate of speed and how to do the calculation.
3. Conditional knowledge is knowledge about when to use a procedure, skill, or strategy and when not to use it; why a procedure works and under what conditions; and why one procedure is better than another. For example, students need to recognize that an exam word problem requires the calculation of momentum as part of its solution.

This notion of three kinds of knowledge applies to learning strategies as well as course content. When they study, students need the declarative knowledge that (1) all reading assignments are not alike; for example, that a history textbook chapter with factual information differs from a primary historical document, which is different from an article interpreting or analyzing that document. They need to know that stories and novels differ from arguments. Furthermore they need to know that there are different kinds of note taking strategies useful for annotating these different types of texts. And (2) students need to know how to actually write different kinds of notes (procedural knowledge), and (3) they need to know when to apply these kinds of notes when they study (conditional knowledge). Knowledge of study strategies is among the kinds of metacognitive knowledge, and it too requires awareness of all three kinds of knowledge

Metacognition and Motivation

Metacognition affects motivation because it affects attribution and self-efficacy. When students get results on tests and grades on assignments (especially unexpected results such as failures), they perform a mental causal search to explain to themselves why the results happened. When they achieve good results, students tend to attribute the result to two internal factors: their own ability and effort. When they fail, they might attribute the cause to these same internal factors or they might, in a self-protective rationalization, distance themselves from a sense of personal failure by blaming external causes, such as an overly difficult task, an instructor’s perverse testing habits, or bad luck. This tendency to attribute success to ability and effort promotes future success because it develops confidence in one’s ability to solve future unfamiliar and challenging tasks. The converse is also true. Attributing failure to a lack of ability reduces self-confidence and reduces the student’s summoning of intellectual and emotional abilities to the next challenging tasks; attribution theory also explains why such students will be unwilling to seek help from tutors and other support services: they believe it would not be worth their effort. In addition to blaming failure on external causes, underachievers often “self-handicap” themselves by deliberately putting little effort into an academic task; they thereby protect themselves from attributing their failure to a painful lack of ability by attributing their failure to lack of effort (Stage et al, 1998)

Metacognition and Study Strategies

students need to monitor their application of study strategies. Metacognitive awareness of their learning processes is as important as their monitoring of their learning of the course content. Metacognition includes goal setting, monitoring, self-assessing, and regulating during thinking and writing processes; that is, when they’re studying and doing homework. An essential component of metacognition is employing study strategies to reach a goal, self-assessing one’s effectiveness in reaching that goal, and then self-regulating in response to the self-assessment.





 
















Metacognition ....

is thinking about thinking, knowing "what we know" and "what we don't know." Just as an executive's job is management of an organization, a thinker's job is management of thinking. The basic metacognitive strategies are:

• Connecting new information to former knowledge.
• Selecting thinking strategies deliberately.
• Planning, monitoring, and evaluating thinking processes. (Dirkes, 1985)

A thinking person is in charge of her behavior. She determines when it is necessary to use metacognitive strategies. She selects strategies to define a problem situation and researches alternative solutions. She tailors this search for information to constraints of time and energy. She monitors, controls and judges her thinking. She evaluates and decides when a problem is solved to a satisfactory degree or when the demands of daily living take a temporary or permanent higher priority.

Studies show that increases in learning have followed direct instruction in metacognitive strategies. These results suggest that direct teaching of these thinking strategies may be useful, and that independent use develops gradually (Scruggs, 1985).

Learning how to learn, developing a repertoire of thinking processes which can be applied to solve problems, is a major goal of education. The school library media center, as the hub of the school, is an ideal place to integrate these types of skills into subject areas or students' own areas of interest.

When life presents situations that cannot be solved by learned responses, metacognitive behavior is brought into play. Metacognitive skills are needed when habitual responses are not successful. Guidance in recognizing, and practice in applying, metacognitive strategies, will help students successfully solve problems throughout their lives.