Well-Structured Units and Lessons
While knowing the content is the basic prerequisite for teaching, well-structured lessons and units are the true backbone. Clear and organized lesson and unit plans are equally important for teachers and students. Setting the flow and pace of the unit allows you to have a timeline that includes all of the necessary standard content that students need to master in an order that makes logical sense to them. Students learn best when they can connect new material to what they already know. Therefore, each lesson needs to build off of the lessons that came before it. By thoroughly planning the flow of each unit before it begins, you can have a strong sense of how to connect each lesson so that the material makes more contextual sense for students. This additionally allows you as the teacher to know when you will cover all of the necessary material, making lesson planning much simpler.
Once your unit plan is complete, you now have a framework from which to build your lessons. At the beginning of my student teaching experience, my lesson plans were overly detailed, rigid, and instructional. I had an exact step-by-step lesson in mind before coming to class, and prepared only for the lesson to be seamless and go exactly as planned. I quickly found that, when working with 7th graders and technology, no lesson goes as planned. This harsh awakening taught me to make all of my lessons flexible and focused on objectives, not on precise steps. Creating a scaffolded and easily alterable structure for lessons allows you and the students to have a strong idea of the goals of the lesson and what direction you can start in to reach those objectives, but it also allows for changing directions if the lesson is not working.
The trophic pyramid above is an example of an effectively structured lesson. This lesson particularly utilized the online format to provide an interactive and detailed exploration of the trophic levels. By dragging shapes on the slides, the class was able to discuss each of the trophic levels one at a time. At the same time, definitions for vocabulary could be provided and edited in a continuously visible location. While discussing each level of the trophic pyramid, students would offer their own examples for the organisms that would fit on that level. Throughout the lesson, students were engaged and demonstrated their understanding through answering questions and providing examples.