Often I speak to pre service teachers (PST’s) during their placements in schools/classrooms and the feedback they are receiving is that their lesson timing needs to be tightened or a goal. This is fine if there is a shared understanding of what that means. In a practical sense I often use a model or theory to start with and in this case I’m using David de Sousa work around how the brain learns.
I then find myself drawing a picture similar to the one below:
I suggest we write up lesson plans as a timed document with the clock time in the first column as you usually look at a clock (on the back wall if your lucky). Next you specify the amount of time a section of the lesson takes e.g. 5 min lesson opening. In this post I won’t go into the specifics of what happening – just the timing. In the explicit instruction phase of the lesson say 10 min I suggest they use their phones count down timer set for 8 minutes (on vibrate only) – it allows the teacher to make a decision do I plough on with the skill or information I have cover or finish well with the few points I have made and leave the rest to the next lesson. Suggest the later = teach less best.
Not all lessons are 40 minutes in length and hear I note the following: because you have a longer lesson does not mean students can take more of the demonstrations of the skills or content. A trap for inexperienced players.
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