Planning Lessons with Technology

Roblyer & Doering (2014) tell us to integrate technology we need to understand what outcomes we expect from using technology as well as knowing the best way of assessing the outcomes.

When planning for lessons I use DuFour’s four critical questions

1. What do we want our students to learn?
2. How will we know they have learned it?
3. How will we respond when they don’t learn?
4. How will we respond if they already know it?

These questions help me to make sure the curriculum is my main focus. 
Lesson plans are a planning tool (Simmons & Hawkins, 2009).  Every teacher plans their lessons in their own way and in varying styles. When planning my lessons I create a day book from my Key Learning Area programs.  While creating this day book I prepare my lessons for the coming week including all resources and tools need for those lessons. It is important to go through this lesson planning process for every lesson (Simmons & Hawkins, 2009) to ensure you are organised, the lesson runs smoothly and you are focused on the learning outcomes.

At the start of each lesson we discuss prior lessons and what we are learning to do this lesson - our lesson aim.  I will then do a warm up activity which is something to capture the children’s attention encourage them to want to be involved. I will then model or explicitly teach the content before the children complete an individual task on at their level. During this independent time I will assist any children who need it and give positive feedback to all students.  At the end of the lesson we will reflect and review our learning goal.  

I am not in the habit of using set lesson plans as I like to cater all lessons to the needs of the class that I have.  I did find The Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum Lessons, 2012-2015) website has a range of lesson plans. http://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/  

The greatest advice I would give to a new teacher is to plan ahead and be prepared.  There is always something happening at school which takes your relief from face to face teaching time when you had planned to get something done like extra-curricular activities, Professional Learning Team meetings, meetings with other teachers or staff, meetings with parents, OT, Speech Pathologists, Special Needs planning and meetings the list is endless.

Australian Curriculum Lessons. (2012-2015). Australian Curriculum Lessons. Retrieved February 1, 2016, from http://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/

Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H. (2014). Integrating Educational Technology into
Teaching. Essex:Pearson.

Simmons, C., & Hawkins, C. (2009). Planning to teach an ICT lesson. In Teaching
ICT (pp. 54-105). London: SAge Publications Ltd.