Planning and Preparation
In order to engage all students in meaningful learning, lessons must be successfully implemented by the teacher, and this can not happen without careful planning and preparation. And while planning and preparation are important, it will not benefit student learning if we do not collect student data, study the results and then change our plans to better meet student needs.
The chart to the right helps to demonstrate how I view successful planning and preparation. After a lesson has been carried out, we (the subject level or grade level teams) analyze and study the student data. Once we find out what students learned and what students did not learn, we can plan for remediation and enrichment. However this opportunity for reflection also allows us to decide what changes need to be made to improve student learning. Once the plan is revised, the cycle begins again. It is a never-ending cycle of improvement with student learning as the objective. As you can see from the curriculum documents below, we have made significant changes to the Economics Curriculum based on student needs, interests and assessment data. Using this system requires time and courage, because not only are you constantly changing all facets of your teaching process, you also have to look for and admit your own weaknesses, before you are able to grow. The number of Units was cut from eight to four, business and investment were emphasized, and real-life skills became a greater focus. In addition, we shifted away from the text-book to a more hands on approach to learning Economics. You can view the curriculum maps for Year 1 and Year 2 below. |