What is the first thing that comes to a teacher’s mind upon entering the classroom? A forceful yearning to achieve the learning targets through effective teaching strategies and techniques. The desire to attain students’ learning objectives effectively is why teachers spend hours planning and preparing to deliver the lesson successfully and achieve their teaching goals. Effective lesson delivery ensures that all learners achieve their learning objectives by the end of the class. Therefore, educators worldwide greatly emphasize the importance of smooth lesson delivery in improving students’ academic achievement.
Let’s discuss some of the best practices educators implement in their classrooms to improve lesson delivery.
Ensuring lesson alignment with the curriculum
The first step towards seamless lesson delivery is ensuring that the learning targets and activities align with the curriculum pacing and sequence, which calls for a clear understanding of the curriculum. Successful teachers regularly consult and use the curriculum document for the content, learning targets, and material as a guide to cater to the students’ different learning styles. The curriculum provides teachers with a measurable plan and structure to improve their lesson delivery. Moreover, it offers ideas and suggestions to support teaching in the classroom.
Most importantly, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to decide on the teaching strategies that align with the curriculum targets. Critical thinking skills are indispensable when analyzing and evaluating the curriculum document to assess students’ progress. It explains why most academic institutes encourage their staff members to earn an online degree and learn to develop consistent curriculum plans. An online degree in educational administration is instrumental in achieving the expertise required to understand curriculum design.
Learning objectives that guide the lesson
Learning objectives are essential for students and teachers to guide them during lesson delivery. While devising lesson plans, teachers spend considerable time selecting instructional strategies, learning material, and assessment methods to meet learning objectives. Moreover, learning objectives assist learners in focusing on what they are expected to know and understand how they will be assessed.
Well-written and measurable learning objectives are an essential component of lesson delivery. More importantly, they help teachers stay focused on what skills and abilities they need to develop in their students by the end of the lesson. Using the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy while drafting the objectives helps determine the intended learning outcomes for the students. In addition, it helps teachers identify the progress they want to see in their students from the beginning to the end of the lesson. Today, several studies show that sharing the learning objectives with the students benefits them as they can regulate their learning.
Captivating starters to grab students’ attention
An exciting starter activity instantly captures the students’ attention, sets the tone of the lesson, and gets them excited to learn. The purpose of a starter activity is to hook the students, understand the class’s objectives and intentions, and make connections with their prior learning. Well-developed and age-appropriate starter activities allow learners to immediately engage with the learning objectives.
Therefore, teachers can enhance the classroom experience by beginning with exercises that quickly hook the learners and keep them engaged. For example, graphic organizers and visual aids prove beneficial in grabbing students’ attention. Simply bringing an odd object in the classroom also does wonders in getting their attention and keeping them focused. Seasoned teachers also utilize prompts with critical thinking questions to set the stage for the lesson and ensure student engagement.
Formative assessments techniques
Today, teachers can use various formative assessment techniques to improve their lesson delivery. Formative assessments are tools that help monitor students’ progress. They’re mostly in the form of tests, quizzes, or any activity that assists teachers in evaluating how well the student is learning. Formative assessments also provide teachers with the feedback needed to adjust their teaching methodologies. The outcome of the formative assessments helps teachers reflect on their teaching practices and the effectiveness of the lesson delivery.
Additionally, when students attempt formative assessment tasks, they recognize their strengths and weaknesses alongside areas of improvement.
Plenaries to consolidate learning
Plenaries are as crucial as the starter activities. They require careful planning as they are instrumental in determining what learning has occurred. Nowadays, teachers design plenaries to review the lesson objectives and consolidate their students’ learning. It serves as an effective tool to summarize the lesson, identify the students’ learning pace, and address misconceptions.
Carefully devised plenaries allow students to reflect on how well they have achieved the lesson objectives. Moreover, it helps students identify and acknowledge their level of learning and take the plenary session as an opportunity to clarify any misconceptions.
Conclusion
In short, teachers can enhance their lesson delivery and improve students learning experience by making a conscious effort to align the learning content with the curriculum. For this reason, they must come to the class with a clear set of learning objectives they want their learners to achieve. The learning objectives serve as the ultimate guide for the entire lesson duration and help teachers remain focused. Moreover, successful teachers greatly emphasize using engaging starters and plenaries to implement their tasks effectively and help students improve their academic achievement.
