A teacher can enhance his or her teaching effectiveness by accurately assessing their students’ developmental state and direct their planning and impel their teaching. The teacher will have to sit down and develop a formal teaching plan but in cases, he will be confronted with a “teachable moment” when the student is ready to learn and is asking pointed questions. Invariably, these moments seem to come at the most unexpected times. It is at this time that the teacher faces a dilemma as whether he needs to teach or not. Having knowledge of basic learning principles will help the teacher to take best advantage of these sudden moments. Here are some principles proven to enhance teaching and learning.

Seize the moment: Teaching becomes more effective when the learner feels the need for it. Teacher should make every effort to teach the student when he or she asks. When the student is ready to learn, it is necessary the teacher satisfies that immediate need for information at the very moment, and augment your teaching with more information later.

Involve students in the planning process: Just presenting information to the student does not ensure learning. For learning to occur, it is necessary that the teacher involves the student in identifying his learning needs and outcomes. The teacher should help the student to develop and attain objectives. Once the teaching process continues the teacher can further engage the students and make them involved by selecting teaching strategies and materials that require the student’s direct involvement, such as role playing and return demonstration. Regardless of the teaching strategy it would be good if the teacher give a chance to the students to test his or her ideas to take risk and be creative will surely promote learning.

Start with what the student knows: The entire process on learning becomes easy when the teacher starts with the very basis thing that the student already knows. With that limited knowledge of the student it is easier for the teacher to build up. Teaching begins by comparing the old, known information or process and the new, unknown one allows the student to grasp new information more quickly.
Start from simple and then move on to the complex: The student will find learning more interesting and rewarding when he is given the opportunity to master simple concepts first and then apply these concepts to more complex ones. It should always be kept in mind that what one student finds simple, another may find complex. A careful assessment takes these differences into account and helps you plan the teaching starting point.

Accommodate the student’s preferred learning style: Students learning style should also be taken into consideration. The quick response of the student to respond to things many depends not only on the student’s intelligence and prior education, but also on the student’s learning style preference. Visual learners gain knowledge best by seeing or reading what you are trying to teach auditory learners, by listening and tactile or psychomotor learners, by doing. So teaching students is not an easy job.
You can improve your chances for teaching success if you assess your student’s preferred learning style, taking that into consideration the teacher needs to plan the teaching activities and use teaching tools appropriate to that style. To assess a student’s learning style, it is necessary to observe the student, administer his or her learning style inventory or by asking the student how her or she can understand the best.

The teacher can also experiment using different teaching tools, such as printed material, illustrations, videotapes, and actual equipment, to assess learning style. Teacher should never assume that his student can understand a subject by plainly reading though.

You can combine your knowledge of the student’s preferred learning style with your knowledge of learning domains. Categorizing what the students need to learn into proper domains helps identify and evaluate the behaviors you expect them to show.
Learning behaviors fall in three major domains: cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. The cognitive domain deals with intellectual abilities. The psychomotor domain includes physical or motor skills. The affective domain involves expression of feeling about attitudes, interests, and values. Most learning involves all three domains.

Make material meaningful by connecting it to real life situations.
Another way to improve the learning process is to relate material to the student’s lifestyle. The more meaningful the material is to a student, the quicker and easier it will be learned.

Allow immediate application of knowledge: Giving an opportunity to the student to apply his or her knowledge and skills reinforces learning and builds confidence in them. This immediate application translates learning to the “real world” and provides an opportunity for problem solving, feedback, and emotional support.
Plan for periodic rests: While you may want the students to push ahead until they have learned everything on the teaching plan, it is necessary on the part of the teacher to remember that periodic plateaus occur normally in learning. Moreover when the instructions are especially complex or lengthy, the students may feel overwhelmed and appear unreceptive to your teaching. Be sure to recognize these signs of mental fatigue and let the students relax. The teacher can use this time to review the teaching plan and make any necessary adjustments with regard to the plan.

Give a feed back: Learning becomes much easier when the students are aware of their progress. Positive feedback can motivate them to greater effort because it makes their goal seem attainable. It is necessary on the part of the teacher to ask the student how they feel and are they comfortable with the teaching style. They probably would want to take part in assessing their own progress towards learning goals, and their input can guide the teacher in assessing the feedback he gets from a student.

Reward desired learning with praise: Praising the students’ successes associates the desired learning goal with a sense of growing and accepted competence. Reassuring them that they have learned the desired material or technique can help them retain and improve on it.
These are some of the ways by which a teacher can enhance the effectiveness of his or her teaching.

Source: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/enhance.htm

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I agree to the fact that time waits for none and that time is an important factor in life. A teacher cannot effort to take the very same portions once taken, day after days. It is necessary that there should be proper planning. Effective teachers systematically and carefully plan for productive use of instructional time.

One of the major roles that you will perform as a teacher is that of designer and implementor of instruction. Teachers at every level prepare plans that aid in the organization and delivery of their daily lessons. These plans vary widely in the style and degree of specificity. Some teachers prefer to construct elaborate detailed and impeccably typed outlines; others rely on the briefest of notes handwritten on scratch pads or on the backs of discarded envelopes. Regardless of the format, all the teachers ought to make wise decisions about the strategies and methods they will employ to help students move systematically toward learner goals.

Teachers need more that a vague, or even a precise, notion of educational goals and objectives to be able to sequence these objectives or to be proficient in the skills and knowledge of a particular discipline. An effective teacher also needs to develop a plan to provide direction toward the attainment of the selected objectives. The more organized a teacher is, the more effective the teaching, and thus the learning, is. Writing daily lessons, preparing selected questions of importance ect helps a lot in improving the interest of the student toward the subject.

Several lesson plan outlines will be presented. You as a teacher will probably begin by choosing a desirable outline and sticking fairly close to it. Planning and classroom delivery innovations usually come once you are in the classroom with your own set of learners, have developed your own instructional resources, and have experimented with various strategies. Although fundamental lesson planning elements tend to remain unchanged, their basic formula is always modified to suit the individual teacher’s lesson preparation or style of presentation.

It is important that a teacher plans the lessons to be taken well in advance since that can help him deliver the right attitude of the subject to the student. And at such a situation the students will also be happy to be a part of the class. It nevertheless provides a guide for managing the learning environment and is essential if a substitute teacher is to be effective and efficient. Three stages of lesson planning follow:

Stage 1: Pre-Lesson Preparation
1. Goals: Indicate to the students that these are the list of goals we need to work for.
2. Content : Teachers should explain the content of the book so that it would be helpful for the student to give his view point about the subject he would be studying
3. Student entry level

Stage 2: Lesson Planning and Implementation
1. Unit title
2. Instructional goals
3. Objectives
4. Rationale
5. Content
6. Instructional procedures
7. Evaluation procedures
8. Materials

Stage 3: Post-Lesson Activities
1. Lesson evaluation and revision:
This is a method of checking upon whether every thing taught is well understood. Lesson planning involves much more than making arbitrary decisions about “what I’m going to teach today.” Many activities precede the process of designing and implementing a lesson plan. Similarly, the job of systematic lesson planning is not complete until after the instructor has assessed both the learner’s attainment of the anticipated outcomes and effectiveness of the lesson in leading learners to these outcomes.

All teachers who develop highly structured and detailed plans rarely adhere to them in lock-step fashion. Such rigidity would probable hinder, rather than help, the teaching-learning process. Planning is necessary. The elements of your lesson plan should be thought of as guiding principles to be applied as aids, but not blueprints, to systematic instruction. Precise preparation must allow for flexible delivery. During actual classroom interaction, the instructor needs to make the class lively and interesting enough by adding in artistry to each lesson plan and classroom delivery.

Source:

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/lesspln1.htm

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