Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    100 Ways to Teach: Seven Elements of Effective Lesson Planning
    100 Ways to Teach: Seven Elements of Effective Lesson Planning
    100 Ways to Teach: Seven Elements of Effective Lesson Planning
    Ebook231 pages2 hours

    100 Ways to Teach: Seven Elements of Effective Lesson Planning

    By Shane Dixon, Chelsie Acedo, Jere Van Patten and Emily Wilson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    100 Ways to Teach: Seven Elements of Effective Lessons is designed to give teachers instant access to dozens of creative and engaging ideas, explained clearly and illustrated with examples from real-life classrooms.

     

    The book demonstrates 20 basic yet foundational skills that teach some of the essentials of active learning. In addition to these skills are 80 activities, all organized according to the 7 elements of effective lessons.

     

    By learning these skills and activities, teachers will develop the ability to motivate students, organize curriculum, and enhance student learning gains.

     

    Finally, the book boasts simple templates that serve as a valuable tool to structure lesson planning. By using these templates, teachers can demonstrate to evaluators their organizational skills as well as their subject mastery and creativity.

     

    A chapter dedicated to evaluators offers tips on how to engage teachers in effective feedback in pre- and post-observation meetings.

     

    In short, this book is for teachers and evaluators to improve teacher effectiveness on any campus.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWayzgoose Press
    Release dateAug 7, 2024
    ISBN9798227773463
    100 Ways to Teach: Seven Elements of Effective Lesson Planning

    Read more from Shane Dixon

    Related to 100 Ways to Teach

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Adobe Education Exchange

      Jun 24, 2018

      Collegiality and collaboration in education are vital to teacher success and wider school improvement: they’re big factors in professional growth, job satisfaction and job success. But … that’s not always possible in teaching. There are a number of f

      10 min read

    • Article

      Back To School

      Aug 11, 2019

      Back To School
      7 min read

    • Article

      Classroom Capers

      Dec 15, 2023

      Classroom Capers
      9 min read

    • Article

      John Marsden Teaches Courage

      Aug 1, 2018

      John Marsden Teaches Courage
      19 min read

    • Article

      Learning experience

      Dec 30, 2021

      Learning experience
      10 min read

    • Article

      Seasoned Teacher Shares Her Insights

      Feb 24, 2024

      SHELLY MATTHEWS, a seasoned educator with a passion for excellence, took on the role of head of college at Reddam House Waterfall in January. With a career dedicated to fostering inclusive learning environments and promoting academic achievement, Mat

      2 min read

    • Article

      Seasoned Educator Shares Her Insights

      Feb 24, 2024

      SHELLY MATTHEWS, a seasoned educator with a passion for excellence, took on the role of head of college at Reddam House Waterfall in January. With a career dedicated to fostering inclusive learning environments and promoting academic achievement, Mat

      2 min read

    • Article

      Brave New Work

      Aug 25, 2020

      Brave New Work
      4 min read

    • Article

      Why Virtual Classes Can Be Better Than Real Ones: An engineering professor takes online-course critics to school.

      Oct 29, 2015

      I teach one of the world’s most popular MOOCs (massive online open courses), “Learning How to Learn,” with neuroscientist Terrence J. Sejnowski, the Francis Crick Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The course draws on neuroscienc

      11 min read

    • Article

      Education: What We Can Do Better

      Jun 1, 2021

      AS COVID-19 SWEPT THROUGH THE WORLD, SOME AREAS OF OUR lives were more deeply affected than others, one of them being education. Before the pandemic, technology had started taking a more prominent place in education, and online learning was being int

      3 min read

    • Article

      Teacher Appreciation: Our Role In Encouraging Excellence

      May 24, 2021

      Great teachers are passionate about their subjects and make a lasting impact on their students. Appreciating teachers can inspire that greatness.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Class of 2021

      Aug 3, 2021

      The Class of 2021
      18 min read

    • Article

      Education is Better

      Mar 5, 2024

      Education is Better
      3 min read

    • Article

      Lifelong Learners

      Sep 26, 2023

      Lifelong Learners
      3 min read

    • Article

      LIVE & Learn

      Aug 6, 2020

      LIVE & Learn
      3 min read

    • Article

      Back to School, Ready or Not

      Aug 26, 2020

      How did you adapt last March when you began to do full-on distance learning? Some teachers recorded lectures and had them posted for students to watch on their own time, but I felt that I needed to do something more interactive. So I would invite eve

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for 100 Ways to Teach

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      100 Ways to Teach - Shane Dixon

      100 Ways to Teach Copy

      7 Elements of Effective Lessons

      Shane Dixon, Chelsie Acedo, Jere Van Patten, Emily Wilson

      image-placeholder

      Copyright © 2024 by Shane Dixon

      All rights reserved.

      All rights reserved. Permission is granted to purchasers of this work to photocopy the Lesson Templates for personal use with their own classes. No other part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

      Edited by Dorothy Zemach.

      Published in the United States by Wayzgoose Press.

      Cover design by GetCovers.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Dr. Shane Dixon

      1: Basic Active Learning Skills

      Introduction

      Skill 1: Lower the Affective Filter

      Skill 2: Make It Stick Like Mud

      Skill 3: The 80/20 Rule

      Skill 4: Body Language

      Skill 5: Improve Teacher Talk

      Skill 6: Scaffolding

      Skill 7: Notetaking

      Skill 8: Asking Questions

      Skill 9: Teach Learner Strategies

      Skill 10: Employ Warm Language

      2: Lesson Planning and the 7 EELS

      Introduction

      Anticipatory Sets

      Activity 1: The Big Reveal

      Activity 2: Memory Magic

      Activity 3: Building Blocks (Interleaving)

      Activity 4: Once upon a Time

      Activity 5: Imagine This!

      Activity 6: A Picture Is Worth… a Word!

      Activity 7: The Easiest, Most Basic Anticipatory Set Ever

      Activity 8: Picture Prompt

      Activity 9: Decoding Secret Messages

      Activity 10: Dress the Part

      Activity 11: What’s in the Box?

      Activity 12: I Like to Move It, Move It!

      Activity 13: Find the Mistake

      3: Clear Learning Objectives

      Introduction

      Activity 14: Make Your Objectives SMART

      Activity 15: Provide the WHY

      Activity 16: Engage in Objective Discussions

      Activity 17: Avoid Busy Work!

      Activity 18: Make It Meaningful

      Activity 19: Return to the CLO

      4: Teaching and Modeling

      Active Learning Starts Here

      5: Guided Practice

      Introduction

      Activity 20: Think-Pair-Square-Share

      Activity 21: Interaction Lines

      Activity 22: Fishbowl (Circle Speaking)

      Activity 23: Magic Memory (Summarizing with a Twist)

      Activity 24: Find the Mistakes!

      Activity 25: Students Write the Quiz

      Activity 26: Student Reteach

      Activity 27: Competition Time

      Activity 28: Cornell Notes Discussion (You Got What I Got?)

      Activity 29: Group Flashcards

      Activity 30: Jigsaw

      Activity 31: Gallery Walk

      Activity 32: Free Write

      6: Check for Understanding

      Introduction

      Skills 11 - 18

      Activities 34 - 52

      7: Adjust and Reteach

      Introduction

      Skill 19: Recursion

      Skill 20: Scaffolding

      Skill 21: Recursive Scaffolding

      Activities 53 - 59

      8: Independent Practice

      Introduction

      Activities 60 - 74

      9: For Observers, Trainers, and Administrators

      Introduction

      Activity 75: Pre-Observation Meeting

      Activity 76: Post-Observation Meeting

      Activities 77 - 80

      Conclusion

      Appendix: Lesson plan templates

      About the Authors

      Introduction

      Dr. Shane Dixon

      It was in the winter of 2020, just a few months before the pandemic would wreak havoc on the world. Strangely enough, I was only about six hundred miles west of Wuhan, which we now recognize, with post-pandemic eyes anyway, as the epicenter of the global coronavirus crisis.

      I was in Chengdu, China, standing in a fancy western-style hotel room. It was replete with mahogany-stained furniture, framed prints of large Van Goghs, and a waterfall shower. I leaned toward my 12th story window and looked out across the Sichuan university campus. Down below in the student plaza, next to giant lotus flowers, I saw a dozen elderly professors performing tai chi, their breath visible in the brisk morning air. A flock of birds elevated over now empty ping pong tables, which by afternoon, I knew would be filled with hundreds of would-be competitors. I saw the bustle of students rushing to breakfast before they attended their first morning class. 

      For a moment, I admit, I got nervous. I always did. In a few hours, I would be training a department full of teachers about one simple topic. It is a topic I never grew tired of, and one that I had found was, surprisingly, seldom discussed in academic circles. My theme, put in inelegant if not downright offensive terms, was this: Why do so many teachers stink at being teachers? Put more delicately, the question was this: What is it that prevents us from being our best? 

      My teacher training career took off in 2015 after I launched a series of online teacher training courses at Arizona State University. The courses went viral, reaching now well over a half million prospective teachers from over 190 different countries. Within the next few years, I would be invited to train teachers from Mexico, Peru, Jordan, Lebanon, Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, Paraguay, and China. I boarded planes, took taxis, and carried around boxes of books wrapped in too much packing tape. I admit, it was both a thrilling experience and one that made me constantly reflect on the phrase, imposter syndrome. 

      You see, there is an inherent arrogance associated with teacher training and teacher trainers, and I was personally aware of dozens of professional development workshops wherein trainers stood up at a lectern without knowing the audience at all. Once in front of an audience, they would have the audacity of giving platitudinous answers to questions teachers never asked. Teacher trainers like this reminded me of that snobby parent that tells you how to be a good parent when he sees you struggling with your difficult toddler.

      "You know, what I used to do..." 

      Ugh. I hate that guy.

      So, aware of the potential for me to preach to an already exhausted and misunderstood crowd, I spent most of my time doing what Walt Whitman suggested halfway through his famous, Song of Myself. He states:

      Now I will do nothing but listen

      To accrue what I hear in song,

      To let sounds contribute towards it.

      . . .

      I hear the sound I love,

      The sound of the human voice,

      I hear all sounds running together …

      Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, section 26

      What I love about Whitman’s sentiment is that he recognized that his best poetry would come only first by listening. For me, it is a reminder that, as a teacher trainer, I do not prescribe anything without knowing the teachers I instruct, and only if the advice I am giving is desired and required. With that in mind, instead of starting training workshops based on my assumptions of teacher needs, I started most workshops by first identifying pain points. 

      Now, please do not misunderstand, this is nothing novel. Most trainers follow some basic adherence to the ADDIE model of instruction (ADDIE stands for analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate), and so it is quite common in my field to create a needs analysis to determine what shape the training might take for clients and trainees. What was so novel was not anything I did, but the fact that in every case, in every country, in every organization (high school or university), the answers I got back were not only similar, but they were identical. That was something I simply did not expect. How is it possible that the teachers in the Za’atari Refugee Camps bordering the Syrian border were facing the same struggles as teachers from Lima, Peru, or even the teachers in Phoenix, Arizona? 

      Diverse Teachers Have a Lack of Diversity?

      Let’s get to the answers. You should know that teachers around the world all have, in my view, what I call a shared heart. I am happy to report that teachers everywhere, with a few exceptions, wish to have influence beyond a monetary one. Additionally, teachers all want students and administrators to care just as much as they do (which, to be honest, is a tall task, because teachers care a lot). Without fail, teachers feel undervalued, underpaid, and understaffed...and a little bit unseen. You see, teachers often feel as if they are castaways on far off desert islands, constantly sending out messages in a bottle. The messages may vary in specifics, but in the end, each message boils down to the same simple word: help! 

      Ask any teacher what they might purchase or otherwise obtain to be successful, and you will discover a lengthy laundry list. Teachers are constantly clamoring for resources to take their classroom from the perceived dark ages of the stark present to the golden ages of a utopian future.

      These similarities among such disparate groups may or may not surprise you as much as they did me. As I hopped from country to country, no matter how different the country was, the same teacher story emerged. However, what surprised me even more is another detail that I uncovered. Most teachers, regardless of their years of culture, education, location, gender, first language, access to resources, or any other factor, have yet another thing in common: their style of delivery. Despite years of active learning seminars and teacher training events held throughout the world, teachers still teach the same...including those with masters or PhDs in education. 

      Let me explain why this is so shocking to me. In the 1980s and 90s, many educational training programs devoted billions of dollars to active learning programs. There was a fervor and energy about these programs that suggested that teachers would finally get the resources and techniques they need to be successful. There were discussions of flipped classrooms replete with group and pair work, portfolios, experiential learning, and more. These very same programs then morphed into the dynamic, tech-infused adaptive learning craze of the 2000s and beyond. All these models pointed to student-centered, collaborative learning models that would revolutionize the way we teach. However, the truth of the matter is, despite painstaking planning, overt instruction, and thousands of conferences around the world with titles such as The Future of Learning is Now, we still pretty much, well, give lectures. That is just what teachers do. We simply cannot get away from our box. Whether in Japan or Germany, Vietnam or Egypt, New York, or Los Angeles, giving lectures simply feels comfortable to us. 

      Let me bring my message home before we move on just so you can mull over its implications. My colleagues and I have spent thousands of hours moving about the world, training on the newest innovations, techniques, and advantages that education has to offer, to the tune of billions of dollars allocated by governments, businesses, and schools, and in all my teacher training experience, the number one discovery I have is...that none of it works. We teachers just do not change. We will not give up our true blue, dyed in the wool technique of getting up and talking too much. Trust me, I include myself in this formal accusation, and you will see in Chapter 8 one of the ironies for teacher trainers is that we ask teachers to model, but then we fail to provide models for teachers ourselves. We ask teachers to do guided practice, and then we ourselves as teacher trainers get up and talk during our own presentations about guided practice. 

      In short, like Linus with his iconic blue blanket, we are unlikely to let go of our favorite comfort tool. Regardless of evidence, training, and wide agreement in academic circles to the efficacy of more active-style techniques, we just will not change. 

      Why Teacher Training Does Not Work (and What We Might Do About It)

      But if research and education techniques have improved so much, why isn’t our efforts to train working? Why is it that most training fails? A couple of easy answers may have already come to your mind. For many teachers, giving the stage up to students is scary. Most of us prefer to have the mic rather than give the mic to an unknown group of singers. Furthermore, what if, in our efforts to make active learning part of our classrooms, students answer incorrectly? What if they do not know or don’t care when asked questions? What if they stare at you blankly and simply wait for you to move on? The prospects are terrifying. 

      A second reason teachers do not and won’t change? Teachers universally feel that turning control of the classroom over to students necessarily means that certain material will not be covered. For many teachers, having students collaborate or discuss is code for going too slow. 

      And let’s not forget yet another reason. Teachers like the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1