The Importance of Lesson Planning
I believe appropriate planning and organizational skills are essential to be a good teacher. For students to learn properly, they must be engaged and enthusiastic about their learning. It is incredibly challenging to fulfill these requirements of intellectual engagement amongst students if lessons are underprepared, scattered, and unorganized (Jacobsen et al., 2013). In their article, Jacobsen et al., (2013) focuses on a concept known as knowledge building which “emphasizes a continual process of building and extending up, what is known in the social creation, sharing and improvement of new knowledge” (p.1). To understand certain aspects of this concept more straightforwardly, I think of teaching children how to do different math operations. For example, if I had no lesson plans in mind when it came to teaching young students how to do basic math operations and did not have a specific order in teaching them these concepts, they would not learn as efficiently. If I taught young students how to multiply before I taught them how to add, they would miss the essential background information needed to understand how to multiply. It is crucial to structure a lesson with an end goal and plan the steps required to achieve it. Additionally, good lesson plans consider the needs of students and structure teaching strategies based on students’ learning needs (Jacobsen et al., 2013).
Some basic planning elements I will be accountable for as a teacher are having a deep understanding of topics being taught, incorporating different strategies regarding instructing course content, being prepared to answer students’ questions, and ensuring that students will be engaged in learning during class. Furthermore, it is my responsibility to get to know my students and structure my lesson plans based on their style(s) of learning, interests, pre-existing knowledge, and more! Lastly, creating a learning environment that prioritizes teamwork and collaboration between classmates and educators is essential.
References
Jacobsen. M., Lock. J., & Friesen, S. (2013). Strategies for engagement: Knowledge building and
intellectual engagement in participatory learning environments. Education Canada,
53(1).https://www.edcan.ca/articles/strategies-for-engagement/