In action research which I conducted on mentoring teachers, the first step of the initial cycle included an orientation on lesson planning which was initially started from a brainstorming activity about a “what is a lesson? What is planning? and what is the lesson planning? From the responses of research participants, it was revealed that they were unaware of the general picture of a lesson, planning, and lesson planning. They did not provide any response which would show background information for planning a lesson and they could not explain the importance of background information in planning a lesson. That meant that they had no idea of psychological perspectives in educating children (Wolfolk, 2007). There was another problem for novice teachers to sequence their lessons due to a lack of knowledge of the components of a lesson plan particularly students’ practice and application of their new learning as well as an overall assessment.
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I
briefly explained the terms lesson and planning and asked the teachers to
define lesson planning. According to Parker, Ndoye and Imig (2009), when novice
teachers are supported, they tend to be motivated towards teaching and
learning. Then I shared the importance of background information for planning a
lesson to be taught in classroom by relating background information with
reference to Jean Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories (Wolfolk, 2007) as examples.
These small actions helped novice teachers provide relevant examples regarding
a lesson and planning. In reflective
session, the research participant teachers expressed that the relationship of
background information for planning a lesson with psychological perspectives
for educating children was a new learning for them. They shared to incorporate
such information in their lesson plans afterwards. It was revealed from their
statements during reflective sessions or feedback sessions (Flesh, 2005) that
they got insights about engaging activities to start an interactive teaching,
guided practice and application stages of a lesson plan.
Second
step of the cycle one included co-planning where I planned some lessons with research
participants as co-planner to find out the challenges faced by them in planning
their lessons. Side by side I observed as participant observer (Koch &
Appleton, 2007) and filled a checklist to see what extent teachers plan their
lessons as Jones (2001) found that the role of a mentor is also assessor. My reflections on daily sessions and filled
checklists revealed that most challenging thing for them was designing an
activity to initiate an effective lesson. Another challenge for them was
selecting and organizing activities for students’ practice and application of
new learning during teaching. While
co-planning, I frequently asked them thought provoking questions regarding how
to incorporate activities in lessons to explore students’ prior and current
learning.
Resta (2001) stated that the mentors benefit by applying cognitive
skills such as asking probing questions. I
provided them clues and hints regarding incorporating activities for guided
practice and application in line with the set objectives. Gradually after many
efforts they developed skills to plan activities to start a lesson. Their ideas
in reflective sessions and my own reflection on daily sessions revealed that
the co-planning sessions were thought provoking and most of the time they were
intensively busy in planning their lessons. They said that after planning
sessions their classroom teaching improved to some extent (Field note, Dec 5,
2012). In the last sessions of this step the research participants developed
warm up activities, guided practice tasks and application task by their own and
I provided feedback to improve the planed lessons.
The
third step contained co-teaching where I carried out pair teaching with research
participants (novice teachers) one by one to teach the lessons which were
co-planned in the last step. Rest of them observed and filled observation
checklist. I found that while delivering the planned lessons, they did not ask
the students the higher order questions to develop their understanding in early
sessions. The teachers used resources in classroom needed to be visible and
effectively used in classroom. They lacked monitoring students’ work in group,
pair and individual tasks during guided practice and application stage of the
lesson.
In
my pair teaching with the research participants, whenever I found the occasions
where the teachers needed to ask relevant thinking questions, I asked higher
order questions so that the teachers may learn to ask such occasional
questions. While using resources I showed them up in the class and asked the
students whether the resources are visible to all of them or not. Then I taught
the lesson by using the resource. My intention was to make the teachers learn
how to effectively use resources. For monitoring students’ task I went to all
the students in groups, pairs and individual students to observe what they are
doing. These actions brought about changes among research participants as they
started to use resources by making sure that all students can see the resources
easily. Filled checklists by observer teachers showed that the use of teaching
aids were rated on ‘very good’ (on a scale of Need Improvement, Good, V. Good
and Excellent). Teacher’s monitoring improved as they went to students to make
sure all students perform their assigned task.
Throughout
the three steps of the first cycle of my action research I observed that novice
teachers who were my research participants were oriented with basics of lesson
planning, their skills of planning and delivering a planned lesson developed.
Although some areas still needed to be improved such as time management,
elaborating concepts through sharing examples beyond the textbook, effective
use of teaching aids and ask relevant higher order questions. Therefore these
areas I decided to work on in the next cycle.
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