Methods of Teaching

Reflecting on your own experience with collaboration (10 minutes)
Working with their observation partners, ask Student Teachers to think about their 
own experience with collaboration (using among other experiences, the Think Pair 
Share experience during the previous class session the experience with cooperative 
learning in Unit 4) for the purpose of identifying the skills and attitudes they think are 
important to collaboration.
In-class writing (15 minutes)
This writing assignment combines the interpretive paper about observations and 
the observation data with a one-page paper about Student Teachers’ reactions to the 
concept of student collaboration in the classroom. Their papers should address the 
following questions:
• Are you persuaded that you can teach children to collaborate as the main
way to interact in the classroom and that the benefits will be a calm, comfort
able environment that will improve all childrens’ school achievement? 
• Do you think you might want to create a collaborative learning environment
when you become a teacher?
• Do you have any reservations?
Closing (5 minutes)
Ask four Student Teachers, chosen at random, if they believe that a collaborative 
classroom environment is possible and desirable.
Week 11, session 3 homework
Have Student Teachers finish the paper that they started in class. It should be submit-
ted within the next week.

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UNIT
6 
DESIGNING INSTRUCTIONS:
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES,
ASSESSMENTS, PLANS,
AND MATERIALS

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66
UNIT 1
UNIT 4
UNIT 5
UNIT 3
UNIT 6
UNIT 2
UNIT 7
ASSOCIATE DEGREE IN EDUCATION/B.ED. (HONS) ELEMENTARY
Unit overview
Teachers started using learning objectives (also called learning outcomes) about 
50 years ago. Previously, lessons were named by a topic (for example, addition of 
two-digit signed numbers) rather than a learning objective (all students will correctly 
solve at least 8 of 10 problems involving the addition of two-digit signed numbers).
Teachers have more than one way to write learning objectives. Probably, the most 
comprehensive approach to constructing learning objectives is found in an instruc-
tional design process called understanding by design, or backward design. This is a 
three-stage process that involves (1) the teacher writing learning objectives (knowl-
edge, skills, and understanding), (2) the teacher selecting procedures that will be used 
to obtain evidence that the objectives have been attained (assessment), and (3) the 
teacher writing an instructional plan. This process is assumed to be backwards from 
the way teachers normally design instruction.
In theory, objectives and assessments are written first, but teachers actually move back 
and forth between objectives, assessments, and a teaching plan as they design lessons. 
Understanding by design, or backward design, is not illustrated in this course because 
the back-and-forth nature of the design process is confusing. When Student Teachers 
have had more experience with basic lesson planning, it will be easier for them to 
understand and evaluate a lesson (or lesson plan) based on backward design. 
This course has covered two different formats for lesson plans that derive from 
different theories about learning and instruction formats (direct instruction and 
indirect instruction). Although there are different lesson plan formats, all lesson plans 
have objectives, a plan for attaining those objectives (including the resources needed 
to teach the lesson), and the means for collecting evidence that students achieved the 
learning objectives. This unit includes supported practice for writing learning objec-
tives, creating assessments, and writing a teaching plan. 
Student Teachers will develop a lesson plan with their classroom observation triads. 
Some work will be in class and some will be done as homework.
During week 15, the last week of the unit, Student Teachers will review what they 
have learnt about methods of learning and instructional principles in the course and 
compare that knowledge with their personal theories of teaching and learning held at 
the beginning of the course.

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COURSE GUIDE: Methods of Teaching
67
UNIT 1
UNIT 4
UNIT 5
UNIT 3
UNIT 6
UNIT 2
UNIT 7
Learning outcomes
By the end of this unit, Student Teachers will be able to do the following: