Learn how dividing your lesson into "slices" will help your students "consume" your lesson better.
In the last article, we learned about the 3 necessary steps for preparing your lessons:
- Prepare by reading through the materials,
- Introspect by thinking about how we personally relate to the materials, and
- Extrospect by preemptively understanding what will be going on for your students while you are delivering the lesson.
Now let’s take a look at how you can better engage your students by dividing your lessons into “slices.”
The lecturer who drones on and on in a monotone is not creating a very engaging learning environment. Conversely, the educator who begins their class with an activity, then segues into a discussion where students can share their thoughts, then has the students run an activity with each other to demonstrate the point, then shows a video which plays into that point, and finally has the students walk across the room to play a game… well, that educator just created a class with many different and engaging touch points.
By way of analogy, let’s consider how one goes about eating a pizza pie.
To easily consume a pizza pie, we need to divide it into slices. If we don’t have slices, it’s hard to hold and to consume.
Imagine your lesson as a pizza pie. Think about each part of your lesson plan as a unique “slice” in that pizza pie. The more “slices” you have in your “pizza pie” of a class, the easier it will be for your students to “consume." The more we use a variety of ways to engage students in our lessons, the easier it will be for our students to “consume” the material.
What kind of “slices” can we use in our lessons?
The most common way that educators “slice” their lessons is by dividing their lesson into the following 4 “slices”:
- The Trigger
- The Handout
- The Discussion
- The Evaluation
Let’s consider how each of these “slices” may fall short, and how we can upgrade them.
THE TRIGGER
A trigger is a compelling way to start your lesson. A trigger typically consists of openings like: “Have you heard of this thing on the radio?” or “Check out this article on this topic!” Sometimes, the trigger is a mystery, like, “Do you know what is red, round, delicious, and grows on trees?”
- Upgrade your trigger by using a video to introduce a concept, or by playing a game with students that introduces the concept. Google is your friend to find compelling and engaging ways to open your lessons!
THE HANDOUT
A basic handout is a sheet of paper that provides information and may also require student to fill in the blanks or define terms.
- Upgrade your handout by having the students respond to content dynamically – such as by pairing students to engage in group work, or by including questions on the handout that challenge students to formulate their own questions, instead of merely responding to fill in the blanks.
THE DISCUSSION
A discussion has the potential to be the most interactive mode of instruction, but often falls short. The educator is at risk of running a one-on-one conversation with the more motivated students rather than including the whole group.
- Upgrade your discussion by dividing your students into teams, and asking each team to carry the challenge of question and answer with each other. Your role as educator in this space is to facilitate students in bringing out all the sides of the issue, not to directly make any final conclusive point by yourself. Remember, the value of a discussion is that it creates a place for students to explore their understanding of the concepts on their own. Beware of one-sided discussions!
THE EVALUATION
An evaluation, in its most basic form, is an assessment of how well the students have integrated the ideas you presented. No one likes plain tests or quizzes, but assessing student learning is really important for the educator and for the student alike.
- Instead of using basic forms of evaluation, consider asking students to draw a picture that would demonstrate their understanding of the concept under discussion. Or you can have students come up to the front of the class and explain the concept orally to the group. Or pair up your students into groups of two, and allow them to explain the concepts to each other one-on-one (while you listen in).
So let’s sum up what we’ve learned:
Prepare for your class by using the method of ”Easy as PIE”. In the actually delivery of your class or discussion, consider dividing up the concepts and introduce them with many different “slices.”
To upgrade even further, spice up your slices in the class by adding pizza “toppings” (i.e. introduce and discuss the points of your lesson using as many novel and unique ways that you can). We’ll take a look at ways to add these “toppings” in the next article. Stay tuned!
Curious? Let’s connect about this stuff!
Yoni Colman