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Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teacher’s Guide to Effective Instruction
This jump-start of a book offers four planning models and provides novice and experienced teachers with step-by-step, essential guidance in the challenging task of lesson planning.
- GenresEducation
176 pages, Paperback
First published April 20, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 16, 2024
Useful but a little dated
This book certainly contains useful information for teachers and those planning Instructional Design, but it follows the kinds of approaches which were popular among Educationalists in the 1980s, before serious cognitive Psychology and neuroscience started to look at the educational processes.
For example, John Dewey and Jean Piaget feature heavily in sections of the book. They are among the giants of the Educationalist field, but they did not have access to the kinds of equipment which is now enabling neuro-imaging of aspects of learning processes. This means that there are new evidence bases which can be used to ask very real questions about how accurate Dewey and Piaget were.
One of the implications of Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory is that there is a significant difference in how ‘novices’ and ‘experts’ learn. Yes children can do Problem based learning, as the book recommends (75%) but is that the most efficient and effective way for novice learners to acquire information and build their mental schemas? There may be motivational reasons for using that approach occasionally, so it should not be discounted. But in the light of research such as Sweller’s, there are questions which need asking, which the book does not press.
There also seemed to be some support of ‘learning styles’, or rather ‘intelligences’ (in Howard Gardner’s sense). The author states: ‘therefore it makes sense to provide students with activities that will allow them to use their preferred intelligence to perform at their best’ (48%). But is that really so? And that question is even more pertinent in educational systems where children are going to be assessed in a very particular way, which will require a specific use of intelligence (such as written exam papers).
The ‘learning styles’ movement has been debunked in recent years, or at least shown to be pressing opinions which are not evidenced. I would expect a modern book on lesson planning to be warning teachers to be, at the very least, careful of Learning Styles kinds of methodologies. But that was not clearly the case.
Overall, this book does contain useful information but it does not reflect the recent cognitive science of education, and the kinds of educational insights which can be found in authors like Daniel Willingham in books like ‘Why Students Don’t Like Schools.’
This book certainly contains useful information for teachers and those planning Instructional Design, but it follows the kinds of approaches which were popular among Educationalists in the 1980s, before serious cognitive Psychology and neuroscience started to look at the educational processes.
For example, John Dewey and Jean Piaget feature heavily in sections of the book. They are among the giants of the Educationalist field, but they did not have access to the kinds of equipment which is now enabling neuro-imaging of aspects of learning processes. This means that there are new evidence bases which can be used to ask very real questions about how accurate Dewey and Piaget were.
One of the implications of Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory is that there is a significant difference in how ‘novices’ and ‘experts’ learn. Yes children can do Problem based learning, as the book recommends (75%) but is that the most efficient and effective way for novice learners to acquire information and build their mental schemas? There may be motivational reasons for using that approach occasionally, so it should not be discounted. But in the light of research such as Sweller’s, there are questions which need asking, which the book does not press.
There also seemed to be some support of ‘learning styles’, or rather ‘intelligences’ (in Howard Gardner’s sense). The author states: ‘therefore it makes sense to provide students with activities that will allow them to use their preferred intelligence to perform at their best’ (48%). But is that really so? And that question is even more pertinent in educational systems where children are going to be assessed in a very particular way, which will require a specific use of intelligence (such as written exam papers).
The ‘learning styles’ movement has been debunked in recent years, or at least shown to be pressing opinions which are not evidenced. I would expect a modern book on lesson planning to be warning teachers to be, at the very least, careful of Learning Styles kinds of methodologies. But that was not clearly the case.
Overall, this book does contain useful information but it does not reflect the recent cognitive science of education, and the kinds of educational insights which can be found in authors like Daniel Willingham in books like ‘Why Students Don’t Like Schools.’
May 17, 2017
another text book we had to purchase and didn't use.
July 18, 2022
I read the ebook.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews