Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

form of authentic assessment. The cooperating teachers enjoy ushering me through the
building and, with great pride, show me what their classes have done. Inevitably, they thank
me for teaching them how to do the projects. But the irony is, I really did not teach them
these things. I did introduce the idea of a project approach to teaching and showed them
some sample activities, but the projects were never as elaborate, and I was not as effective
as they are working on projects with middle school and high school students. I shared my
ideas with them, but the projects are the invention of these teachers and their students, not
mine.
Frank Sinatra had a big hit song late in his career, “I Did It My Way.” That song could be
about any of these teachers. Each of them is or was outstanding. Each of them did it his or
her own way.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION—TEACHERS YOU ENJOYED

Questions to Consider:

Think of three secondary school teachers who you really enjoyed. How were they similar

and how were they different? What strategies did they use as teachers? Why did you en-

joy these approaches to teaching?

SECTION D: WHAT DOES A LESSON LOOK LIKE?^1

What Is a Lesson Plan?

·Lesson planning is part of the process of making pedagogical, intellectual, and ideologi-

cal choices.

·Lesson planning is the process of figuring out the intermediate steps necessary to

achieve long-term goals.

·Lesson planning includes researching information for your lesson.

·Lesson planning means deciding what are the major ideas that students need to consider

during a lesson.

·Lesson planning involves translating abstract concepts into concrete examples that teen-

agers can critically examine, struggle to understand, decide to accept or reject, and use

to reshape their own conceptions of the world.

·Lesson planning means making decisions about the most effective ways to organize

classrooms and learning activities so students become involved as active learners.

·Lesson planning means thinking of creative ways to motivate students to explore topics

that might not initially attract their interest and thinking of questions that help them

draw connections between ideas and events.

·There are a number of different ways to organize a lesson plan. Some school districts al-

low teachers to use the lesson design they are most comfortable with as long as their les-

sons are effective. Other districts require that teachers use a specific format. In that case,

teachers learn to adjust the requirements to meet their personal needs. In this chapter,

PLANNING 69

1 1 This section expands on material originally published for social studies teachers in Singer,Social Studies for Sec-
ondary Schools, Teaching to Learn/Learning to Teach(LEA, 1997).