Teaching Best Practices: Lesson Preparation Without a Distorting Lens

Children in Classroom

It is the beginning of a new academic year: time for teachers to prepare lesson plans and to think about ways to engage students in learning material and activities. Truth be told, although the content of what needs to be taught can be well defined, our ability to predict how students will respond to the way in which we present the material—in other words, teaching—remains elusive.

How we presented material to students last year may not necessarily work for a new group of students. However, as we gain experience in teaching, we become more confident that we are able to trust our “sixth sense” or gut feeling when it comes to predicting how our students might respond. We often assume that, based on our years of teaching experience, we understand our students well enough to accurately predict how they could respond. We tend to trust our intuition to guide our teaching. Continue reading “Teaching Best Practices: Lesson Preparation Without a Distorting Lens”