There are many factors that a teacher needs to consider when planning lessons. Students learn better when they are able to connect past experiences with current learning objectives. If the student has learned something about the topic in the past, helping the student to connect that information to a new dimension of the topic will help it make more sense. It is also best to start off with a broad scope of a topic and then methodically narrow it down and refine it. For example, in a grammar lesson about verb tense usage, the teacher may present sentences for correction that include various mistakes. By asking the students to correct the mistakes, she is letting them revisit prior skills of editing while introducing new skills.
The sentences may include errors in punctuation, capitalization, and wrong verb tense. The new content may focus on verb tenses, but allowing students to make corrections on capitalization and punctuation which they already studied and enjoyed doing, will boost their confidence and let the teacher gauge how well they may already recognize verb tense usage. This is a method of activating prior knowledge which is key to helping students understand new knowledge (Slavin, 2006, p. 198). When students apply prior knowledge to a new concept it makes more sense and helps them make a connection in order to process the information. Once she has developed a base of understanding she can focus more on verb tenses. The students have made the connection that editing involves not only what they have already learned, i.e. capitalization and punctuation, but also whether the verb is in the correct tense. The teacher has successfully incorporated prior knowledge and learning into the lesson in order to solidify her lesson.
The lesson example above relates to the schema theory. “The schema theory is information that fits into an existing schema is more easily understood, learned, and retained than information that does not fit into an existing schema (Slavin, 2006, p. 191)”. In the example, the teacher has linked prior editing skills to her new lesson and shown the students that verb tense is also an integral part of the editing process. By employing their past knowledge of editing, she is using that knowledge background to further embed the information. “Learners who know a great deal about a subject have more well-developed schemata for incorporating new knowledge (Slavin, p. 191)”. Again, using the editing of sentences, which the students were already familiar with, helped them to understand that verb tense usage is also part of the editing process.
The next step is for the teacher to teach verb tenses outside of editing because in order for the students to be able to find the mistakes while editing, they need to have a good command of verb tenses. This starts the levels-of-processing which is a method of refining information so that it becomes relevant and retainable. The theory of levels-of-processing means that a person only retains the information that has been thoroughly processed (Slavin, 2006, p. 175). In the next step the teacher is now singling out how to use different verb tenses. This lesson will stand alone from editing but she should explain why knowing how to do this leads to better editing, a task they do well at and enjoy. Once the students have mastered verb tense usage, she can again give them sentences or even stories to edit to practice their new skill as well as prior editing skills. Having the students return to editing and employing their new knowledge will make the new concept more relevant. They now know that in addition to capitalization and punctuation, that verb tense usage is an editing skill. Relevance in a lesson means that the teacher has successfully linked prior knowledge to new knowledge and students understand how it all fits together (Slavin, p. 198).
When these connections are made, and the student is given the opportunity to practice and refine, neural connections are made in the brain. These connections are what keep the knowledge in long term memory for future use. The more a student practices and demonstrates a new skill them more it becomes imbedded in long-term memory due to the neural connections formed within the brain (Slavin, 2006, pgs. 171-174).
Incorporating student interests in all lessons may seem like a daunting task as it can be hard to cater to twenty-five or more different tastes, but there are other ways a teacher can arouse interest. For example, some students may not like math no matter to what it is applied. However, those students may prefer to learn hand-ons, so incorporating more activities that require students to physically move in order to learn math concepts will appeal to the interests of those students. Interest does not have to mean the topic is always geared towards what students like personally. Interest could apply to how a student learns. If the topic is more abstract then incorporating activities of various forms will assist in reaching more students in addition to catering to their interests. By mixing up the learning activities, the teacher is also having the students repeat their learning which further embeds the information. Finding creative ways to present topics through learning activities should be a top priority in every lesson. The more appealing the activity the more chance the students have for learning, processing, and retaining the new information.
These factors are important considerations when creating lesson plans. Teachers that do not consider how students learn and ways to activate learning will become ineffective teachers. Presenting new concepts is more than standing in front of the class lecturing or handing out worksheets. Teachers must have an in-depth understanding of how students learn, how to keep them interested, how to teach them to retain information, and how to allow them to use prior knowledge as a stepping stone for new concepts.
