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
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.
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