Resources for Instructors
UWP
Instructor's Guide
Running a Class
When you are designing a lesson plan, think about your goal(s) for
the lesson:
What do you hope to achieve through the
lesson?
What do you want students to learn?
How does the lesson relate to previous and upcoming lessons/assignments?
How much time will it take you to cover the material?
One common way to think about running a class is to break up the
lesson into three parts:
(1) introducing/explaining a concept
(2)
analyzing examples of that concept
(3) implementing the concept
This approach might include various teaching practices: a brief
"lecture," small- and/or large-group discussion, and in-class writing.
Student-centered, active learning works well in writing classes. You
can make the experience interactive by having students do as much of
the explaining of ideas and their significance as possible. Since many
students are visual learners, they may have an easier time
understanding and retaining information if you write key points on the
board or computer screen.
Students also appreciate it when you tell them the plan for the day--what you hope to cover, why it matters, and how it relates to the rest of the course. If the lesson doesn't have a purpose that the students understand, they may regard it as busywork.
Summarizing the lesson at the end of class is another way to
reinforce its purpose. Alternatively, having the students do the
summarizing shows you what they have learned and what confused them as
well as helps them develop their critical-thinking skills.
For new teachers, estimating time for activities and using class time
efficiently can be difficult. It's always helpful to have a backup
lesson prepared in case your lesson plan doesn't produce the results
you expected or takes much less time than you anticipated.
Of course, these are only a few approaches. Some instructors find it
difficult to sustain lengthy discussions and choose to design more
group work instead. You will need to discover which teaching methods
work best for you.
