Reversing Teacher-Driven Lessons

Lessons ought to be driven by learners. Since most of the plans and delivery style teachers adopt are teacher-centered, it is imperative to reverse our strategies. Reversing our strategies begins with a learner-driven consciousness. This means the mind of the teacher must be brooding over how the learner learns what she teaches.

The step-wise process taken to achieve learning is the learning sequence. There are learning styles which learners themselves employ by preference. These are apart from learning strategies which are consciously put to work by learners. When teachers work with these in mind, they put learners in charge of their own learning, conducting the process with the instrumentality of the styles and strategies of the learners.

LEARNER-DRIVEN LESSONS

Learner-Driven Approach

To achieve learning the learner’s way, teachers adopt one or more methods of teaching. The key is to split the time in two so that one part favours preliminaries as well as the shortest concept introduction possible, whereas the other part centers around activities. Both lesson plan and lesson delivery ought to be structured in this way.

·  Preliminaries and briefest concept intros – 30 min

·  Activity-centered delivery – 30 min

Another approach is to split the period in three as highlighted below:

·  Preliminaries and briefest concept intros – 15 min

·  Activity-centered delivery – 15 min [advance]

·  Management, corrections – 15 min [redress]

Learner-Driven Options

There are many options available online in use by many teachers already. Whatever helps give the learning process to students may be created by a teacher so long as lessons objectives are achieved and the strategy is not at variance with school policy. A few of them are suggested below:

Student-Centered Instructions

Ø     Discussion

Ø     Presentation

Ø     Experiment/Workshop

Ø     Project

Ø     Debate

Instructional Strategies

§ Practice

§ Reciprocal teaching

§ Comparison matrix

§ Learning feedback

LEARNER-DRIVEN ASSESSMENTS

Once students have been put in charge of their own learning, it is only fair to assess them with that strategy in mind. For instance, multiple choice questions, fill-in the blank spaces and essay type questions may be categorized as theoretical while projects, experiments and performances are practical. Assessment should therefore reflect these in appropriate proportions.

A Sandwich strategy may put practical work in between essay and objectives – 50/50 standard

1.      Written [theory] – 30 min

2.    Practice [activity] – 60 min

3.    Written [objectives] – 30 min

An ice cream strategy may simply adopt one theoretical instrument and another practical one.

a.     Written [theory] – 30 min

b.    Practice [activity] – 30 min