"Education has missed the boat, with respect to instructional design. Teachers come up with lesson plans on the fly, with little thought to why they are presenting information or even who their audience is. Teacher traning, at the university level and during Professional development, needs to focus on helping teachers become comfortable with instructional design principles."
I happen to agree with this statement. When I first began my teaching career, I was completely lost at lesson planning and had no idea where I go next. Student teaching did of course clear up some of this for me, but student teaching in the spring did not allow me to see the beginning of the year and how what was taught at the beginning impacted what happened in the end. Now as I am in my sixth year teaching, I have instructional design now. I know what my students need to know. I know the importance of what I am teaching and how it will impact them in the future. I tell my students..."when you get to middle school, this is why you need to know this." I build on what they have learned in the past and show them how it can impact the later on in their educational career.
In our first years of teaching, we do just build plans on the fly because we are new to the profession and haven't seen how they impact to other grades. As we become familiar with our curriculum and the curriculum of other grades, we can start to see the impact we get from younger grades and how we assist the grades our students are heading to.
Don't get me wrong...I loved my time for my undergraduate work, but I was not as prepared as I would have like to be. I was taught different techniques for teaching, but seeing the importance of instructional design and how every grade impacts each other and builds on each other would definitely help!
So far, in our blogs, I have been one of the only ones to disagree with this quote. I am a first year teacher. I graduated last December and spent my Spring semester assisting with the 5th grade at my current school. I spend many hours every Thursday planning for my lessons and feel that this quote has it wrong. I may just be an exception from this quote because I spent the extra time in another grade and my mother is a principal and another local school so I know what is expected in the planning process.
ReplyDeleteAs I read your quote it gave me some hope that it will get easier by the time I get to my 6th year. I sure hope so! I spend tons of hours working at it and I still don't always feel as prepared as I should.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you! For most of us, the first couple years of teaching are hard to get through and we are just learning as we go. You get more familiar with the curriculum and with what your students need to know with experience.-Darci
ReplyDelete