Topic: Planning

10-second review: Demonstrate planning by sharing with students the teacher’s plans.

Summary: “The best way to demonstrate the value of long-term planning is to plan all the work which the class will do, to explain the plan to them, to make sure that they keep it in mind, and after the work has been completed to look back over it and sum it up; the young have very little ability to make long-term plans; they live from day to day, or at least from one Saturday to another.”

Source: Highet, The Art of Teaching, p. 69. Highet’s book gives common-sense advice on how to teach effectively. Emphasizes lecture, but there are good lecturers and lecturers who put their students to sleep. Highet tells the reader how to be a good lecturer. Victims of boring lecturers will appreciate his advice.

Comment: Highet’s approach to teaching students long-term planning is called “modeling” in today’s educational lingo, demonstrating the skill by using it with the class.

The most significant question that students ask themselves every day in class is “Why am I learning this?” Purpose for learning needs to be an important part of lesson planning.

But Highet is also right. Teachers need to help students plan long-term projects. I remember being assigned long-term projects like term papers, but was never taught how to plan for them. RayS.