Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Reflection 8 - Reflection on the Lesson Plan 4 - The why and the how of a lesson: Building bridges


In this reflection I will talk about how teachers should work in the why and how of a lesson when planning, and making things understandable for students is a bridge that could help; this taking into account my lesson plan and its implementation and the one of my classmates. A teacher should understand the deep meaning of the topic they are presenting and how students can they use it in their lives (the why), and use all of the tools they deem necessary to make this topic and its meaning understandable for the students (the how); the tools include multimedia, activities, acting, among many others.
Sometimes the teacher get distracted on how to implement a lesson plan and forget why they are carrying out that plan, or concentrates on the why but neglects the how; this is why it is very important to achieve a balance between the why and the how. In my lesson plan I used many of the tools learned in the Bilingual Education class, and took into account the SIOP model features and many of the activities proposed for each SIOP item (the how). The plan was based on the comprehensible input topic we saw in the class, where I wanted, through different activities, to make abstract and controversial, but very important concepts, clear for them (the why). Also, the students would learn to make founded decisions based on understanding instead of judging; to achieve this they would carry out different activities following a sequence that would lead them there. I wanted to show them their progress, letting them know they can understand and have opinions about many topics, with the necessary tools.
From the why to the how there is a huge gap, we could see it as a cliff and as we saw in this class there are ways to build bridges that help us get from one side to the other, as the bridges we help them build by planning for their language needs. The bridges from the why to the how can be built by using the different SIOP features in the planning; the content and language objectives, and the comprehensible input item, are examples of bridges that if you use correctly will help us connect the why and how of your lesson. In my lesson, I had difficulties between the why and the how that were worked throughout the lesson, where the comprehensible input was the bridge that I used to achieve the connection. Another very important thing is the planning of time, which in my case was something that made difficult that connection. However, with practice and the use of all the tools learned we can be able to carry out lessons that have the mentioned balance.
Watching the lessons of my classmates and taking into account mine, we can see very different methods and styles of teaching; each of them can be successful if they balance the why and how using what we learned in the Bilingual Education class, particularly on the SIOP model. These SIOP tools that we use we can also teach them to our students along with self-knowledge for them to use in their daily lives; for example, by teaching them to connect concepts with their background experiences, or if they learn about the importance of practice and application. I learned a lot from this Bilingual Education class, and with continued practice I will be able to apply it to my teaching career.
 

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