"Act of Teaching"

Chapter 6 Planning Instruction

Outline
1. Pros and Cons of Instructional Planning
2. Planning is especially beneficial for new teachers
3. Deciding what to teach
4. Instructional Objectives
5. Writing Specific Objectives
6. Preparing Instructional Plans of Varying Duration

Chapter 7 Four Instructional Alternatives: Presentation, Discussion, Independent Study, and

Individualized Instruction
Outline
1. Presentation: Teaching as telling and showing
2. Discussion: Learning through Informative Interaction
3. Independent Study: Teaching as Giving and Guiding Seat Work and Homework Assignments
4. Individualized or Differentiated Instruction: Tailoring Teaching
5. Matching Instructional Alternatives to Learners
6. Overview of 31 Instructional Alternatives
7. Using Technology in Teaching

Chapter 8 : Four More Instructional Alternatives: Cooperative Learning, Discovery Learning,

Constructivism, and Direct Instruction
Outline
1. Cooperative Learning: Teaching Learners to Like and Care for One Another
2. Discovery Learning: Figuring Things Out for Yourself
3. Constructivist Teaching and Learning: Problem Solving under Teacher Guidance
4. Direct Instruction: Teaching in the Most Efficient and Effective Way
5. Is There a Single Best Instructional Alternative?

Chapter 6 Planning Instruction

Note
1. Pros and Cons of Instructional Planning
- Instructional planning is the process by which teachers decide ( 1) what to teach,
(2) how to teach it, and (3) how they will determine whether students learned and
were satisfied.

2. Planning is especially beneficial for new teachers

- Expect to spend a lot of time and energy planning instruction. Here are four reasons
why. First, you will have little or no teaching experience to draw upon. Second, and
understandably, you will be apprehensive and unsure of yourself and your teaching
skills. Third, you likely will not know what students are expected to know and do. Finally, given time to
think and plan, teaching will be more creative and fun. Corny, but remember, only birds can wing it.

3. Deciding what to teach

- State Standards and how they are developed
: Social expectations
: The nature and needs of learners also are considered when standards are set.
- there are two kinds of curriculum: (1) the formal, required kind following from work done by state
standards and school district curriculum committees and resulting in documents such as state
guidelines, local curriculum guides, and other documents and (2) the taught curriculum that includes
items from the formal curriculum teachers actually teach plus anything else deemed important by the
teacher.

4. Instructional Objectives
- An instructional objective describes what learners must know and be able to do. Specific objectives
are much like benchmarks (see page 172). When one is developed that allows a learner's progress to
be precisely observed and measured, then objectives and benchmarks become identical.
- Cognitive, humanistic, and behavioral learning.
- Cognitive Domain: Bloom's taxonomy : Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis,
Evaluation.
- Affective Domain: Receiving or attending, Responding, Valuing, Organization, Characterization
- Psychomotor Domain: Perception, Set, Guided response, Mechanism, Complex or overt response,
Adaptation, Origination.

5. Writing Specific Objectives

- Clear, specific learning objectives in mind. Communicates them to learners.
- Tells learners exactly what to do.

6. Preparing Instructional Plans of Varying Duration

- How much, how long and what kind?
1. Your objective . Where specifically do you want to go and what do you want to
accomplish? Is your aim to spend considerable time at a few sites, to see all the
sites you can, or to experience the local culture?
2. Your time line. How much time can you spend in each place you wish to visit?
Where do you want to be by certain dates in order to get everything done?
3. Needed resources. What will you need to take along or secure along the way to
ensure that the vacation is successful?
- Unit plans : Resource units, teaching units, experience units, integrated units.
-Parts of a Unit plan: Title, introduction, general objectives and preassessment of student prior
knowledge, body (topical outline, activities, resources, time frame), assessment, bibliography.
- Lesson plan: describes specifically what and how something will be learned within a brief period,
usually one or a few class hours.
- Parts of a lesson plan: Objectives, resources, set induction, methodology, assessment, closure,
reflection.

Reflection
In this chapter, we can learn differences between lesson plan and unit plan. I was able to learn about
practical strategies about making unit plan. It helped me to think what I want to teach and why I want
to teach about the unit that I chose. It has specific instructions to come up with effective objectives
and how to align the lesson with the objectives.

Chapter 7 Four Instructional Alternatives: Presentation, Discussion, Independent Study, and

Individualized Instruction
Note
1. Presentation: Teaching as telling and showing
- an informative talk a more knowledgeable person makes to less knowledgeable persons.
- presentation is to inform an audience of certain facts, ideas, concepts, and explanations.
- Preparation, delivery, handouts, closure
- It is most appropriate for you to present knowledge to your learners when (1) they don't know much
about what is to be learned, (2) the new knowledge is not available in a better, more understandable
form (e.g., in a book) , (3) the knowledge need not be remembered for a long time, or ( 4) the
knowledge is a basis for what will be explored later in depth.

2. Discussion: Learning through Informative Interaction

- A discussion is a situation wherein students, or students and a teacher, converse to share
information, ideas, or opinions or work to resolve a problem.
- To review what students have learned, encourage students to reflect on their ideas o r opinions,
explore an issue, resolve a problem, or improve face-to-face communication skills
- Characteristics: the interaction pattern, group size and composition, and group arrangement.
- If the interaction is strictly among students, the teacher serves as observer, recorder, and perhaps
arbitrator.
- Preparation, delivery, closure.

3. Independent Study: Teaching as Giving and Guiding Seat Work and Homework Assignments
- Independent study is any assignment learners complete more or less on their own.
- Teachers use independent study for many reasons, some more justifiable than others. It is most
justifiable when students need to rehearse or practice something;
- to encourage students to acquire study skills that will serve them throughout life .
- you must have confidence in your students' ability to work alone.
- independent study seems preferable when the purpose is to have learners ( 1 ) practice or rehearse
information, (2) acquire better self-study or learning skills, or (3) remain occupied in some legitimate
way so you can undertake another teaching task, perhaps work with students who need help.
- independent study should mostly be used (1) when learners need to rehearse or practice information
or a skill to get it into long-term memory or (2) when learners need to learn how to learn independently.

4. Individualized or Differentiated Instruction: Tailoring Teaching

- Individualized instruction and differentiated instruction are terms used to refer to any instructional
maneuver that attempts to tailor teaching and learning to a learner's, or a group of like-learners' ,
unique strengths and needs. Said another way, individualized instruction means responding
educationally to individuals.
- differentiated instruction-teachers working to accommodate and build on student's diverse learning
needs.
- the teacher's role is to know and care about individuals, about the diversity of students.
- Another characteristic that sets individualized instruction apart is the unique way in which it deals
with five variables: the goals of instruction, learning activities, resources, mastery level, and time.

5. Matching Instructional Alternatives to Learners

- ( 1 ) high ability-independent, (2) high ability-conforming, (3) low ability-independent, or ( 4) low ability-
conforming.

6. Overview of 31 Instructional Alternatives

- Academic games or competitions, Brainstorming, cases, centers of interest and displays, colloquia,
constructivism, contracts, cooperative learning, debates, demonstrations, direct instruction, discovery,
discussion, drill and practice, field observation, fieldwork, field trips, independent study or supervised
study, individualized instruction, learning modules, mastery learning, oral reports, presentation,
problem solving, programmed and computer-assisted instruction, project or activity method, protocols,
reciprocal teaching, recitation, role playing, simulation games, simulations, student-team, pupil-team,
cooperative learning, tutoring.
Chapter 8 : Four More Instructional Alternatives: Cooperative Learning, Discovery Learning,
Constructivism, and Direct Instruction
Note
1. Cooperative Learning: Teaching Learners to Like and Care for One Another
- Cooperative learning (formerly called student-team learning) is the term used to
describe instructional procedures whereby learners work together in small groups
and are rewarded for their collective accomplishments.
- Generally characterized by (1) the way the groups or teams are made up; (2) the kinds of tasks
they do; (3) the groups' rules of behavior; and (4) their motivation and reward systems.
- student teams, jigsaw etc.
- two kinds of preparation are essential: (1) you must be prepared to provide information in the most
effective way, and (2) students must be prepared to engage in group work so they can master the
information.

2. Discovery Learning: Figuring Things Out for Yourself

- Discovery or inquiry learning refers to learning that takes place when students are asked to find out
or figure out something for themselves as Sherlock Holmes
does. Here are some classroom examples.
- First, they want learners to know how to think and find things out for themselves.
- Secondly, users of discovery learning want learners to see for themselves how knowledge is
obtained.
- Third, these teachers want learners to use their higher-order thinking skills.
- decide specifically what students should know.
- main purposes: (1) to get students to think for themselves, (2) to help them discover how
knowledge is created, and (3) to promote higher-order thinking.

3. Constructivist Teaching and Learning: Problem Solving under Teacher Guidance

- Constructivism is a way of teaching and learning that intends to maximize student
understanding.
- To enable students to acquire information in ways that it is most readily understood and usable.
- Active learning (when students are directly involved in finding something out for themselves) is
preferable to passive learning (when students are recipients of information presented by a teacher).
- Learning takes place best in communities of learners, that is, group or social
situations.
- Learners should engage in "authentic and situated " activities, that is, the tasks
they face should be real problems versus hypothetical ones: concrete rather
than abstract.
- Learners should relate new information to that which they already have (called
bridging) .

4. Direct Instruction: Teaching in the Most Efficient and Effective Way

- To directly cause students to learn academic content or skills.
- Teacher provides strong direction, orientation is very academic, concern is for achievement; high
expectation that students can/will learn, student accountability, cooperation demanded, students
made to feel psychologically safe, student behavior is controlled.
- Explicit teaching
- Research based: Derived from observations of effective teachers- basic practice, explicit teaching,
active teaching.
- Learning theory-based: Derived from what is known about learning - mastery teaching, DISTAR
Reflection
In Chapter 7 and 8, There are eight different instructional modes. Which are presentation, discussion,
independent study, individualized or differentiated, cooperative, discovery, constructivist, and direct
instructions. These chapters not only describes what the instructional mode is like, but also shows the
purpose of the each instructional mode. By looking at the characteristics of the instructional mode, I
was able to distinguish differences between different modes. Also it tells me when or what setting is
the best to use for the specific instructional mode. It is very helpful to know the setting of the
classroom for each instructional mode. Which means there are no best instructional mode. The
teaches mixes different modes in one lesson. It is depends on the teacher and the students.