ROLE AND NEED OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF PLANNING IN EDUCATION

Approaches to Planning

Our educational practice is still based on limited ‘lesson

plans’ aimed at achieving measurable ‘behaviours’;

according to this view, the child is akin to a creature

that can be trained, or a computer that can be

programmed. Hence, there is too much focus on

‘outcomes’, and presenting knowledge divided into bits

of information to be memorised directly from the text

or through activities after ‘motivating’ children, and

finally on evaluating to see if children remember what

they have learnt. Instead, we need to view the child as

‘constructing knowledge’ all the time. This is true not

only of ‘cognitive subjects’ such as mathematics and

science, language and social science, but equally of

values, skills and attitudes.

This perspective on the learner may sound ‘obvious’,

but, in fact, many teachers, evaluators, and textbook writers

still lack the conviction that this can become a reality.

• The term ‘activity’ is now a part of the registerof

most elementary schoolteachers, but in many

cases this has just been grafted onto the

‘Herbartian’ lesson plan, still driven by ‘outcomes’

at the end of each lesson. There is now more

talk of competencies, but these competencies are

still pegged onto lessons much in the manner of

‘outcomes’. Instead, teachers need to develop the

ability to plan ‘units’ of four or five sessions for

each topic. The development of understanding

and of competencies is also possible only through

repeated opportunities to use the competencies

in different situation, and in a variety of ways.

While the development of knowledge,

understanding and skills can be assessed both at

the end of a unit, and revisited at a later date, the

assessment cycle for competencies needs to be

longer.

• Activities could enable teachers to give

individualised attention to children, and to make

alterations in a task depending on their

requirements and variations in the level of

interest. In fact, teachers could also consider

involving children and older learners in planning

the class work, such variety would bring

tremendous richness to the classroom processes.

It would also allow teachers to respond to the

special needs of some children without making

it seem as if it is an obvious exception. There is

still not enough engagement on the part of the

teacher with the learning ofeach child; children

are treated en masse, and only those who are

regarded as ‘stars’ or ‘problematic’ are noticed.

All children would benefit from such attention.

• A lesson plan or unit plan for an inclusive class

should indicate how the teacher alters the ongoing

activity to meet the different needs of children.

Failure to learn is currently being mechanically

addressed through ‘remediation’, which usually

means simply repeating lessons. Many teachers

are also looking for ‘cures’ to set right the

problems that some children may experience.

They still f ind it difficult to individualise learning

for children by building upon the strengths that

children may have.

• Teachers need to understand how to plan lessons

so that children are challenged to think and to try

out what they are learning, and not simply repeat

what is told to them. A new problem is that in

the name of ‘activities’ and ‘play way’ methods, a

lot of learning is being diluted by giving children

things to do that are far below their capability.

One concern is that a focus on activities would

become too time consuming and make greater

demands on teachers, time. Certainly, doing

activities requires that time be spent in planning

and preparing for activities. Initially, teachers

need to make an effort to establish the classroom

culture for activities and to establish the rules that

will govern the space and use of materials.

• Planning with the support of appropriate material

resources for individualised, small group and

whole group work is the key to effective

management of instruction in a multigrade,

multia bility or vertically grouped classroom.

Instead of finding ways of juggling lesson plans

based on mono-grade textbooks, teachers would

need to devise, in advance, thematic topic plans

in order to engage learners with exer cises created

for their level.

• The practices of teachers in classrooms, the mate

rials they use, and the evaluation techniques

employed must be inter nally consistent with each

other.