ROLE OF HEAD TEACHERS IN DEVELOPING TEACHERS’ LESSON PLANNING SKILLS
BY: BASHIR AHMED KHAHN (PDT)
Introduction
The purpose of this action research was to develop teachers professionally through improving their lesson planning skills.
The paper discusses the background of the research problem, its rationale, the main research questions and research setting. It also includes the reconnaissance, literature review and research methodology. The reports on research cycles are also the part of this paper, which follow the findings, challenges and recommendation for the further study.
Background of the Problem
In my school, six teachers were experienced and eight were inexperienced teachers. Inexperienced teachers did not develop lesson plans and taught without proper planning. They were not given any training on developing lesson plans. On the other hand, experienced teachers developed lesson plans but they were ineffective for teaching and learning as there were no coordination between objectives, activities and assessment. An experienced teacher planned a lesson to develop speaking skills among the students but teacher developed activities for silent reading whereas s/he assessed writing skills in his/his plan. This was not an effective plan as there was no link between objectives, activities and assessment (Barry & King, 1997).
Rationale
It is a common belief that planning of classroom lessons is essential for successful teaching. A lesson plan gives direction to the teacher about what to teach and what to achieve at the end of the lesson (Reddy & Praha, 2004). As lesson planning is one of the important components for effective teaching. It arouses students’ interest in the lesson because teachers consider students’ interest before developing activities. In my context, I did not find any example of effective lesson planning. Therefore, I selected this area for my understanding as head teacher’s role in developing teachers’ lesson planning skills.
Main Research Questions
“To what extent a head teacher helps teachers to improve their teaching through developing their lesson planning skills.”
Subsidiary Questions
• How to improve the teachers’ skills of designing objectives for a lesson?”
• How to improve the teachers’ skills of designing activities for a lesson?”
• How to improve the teachers’ skills of assessing students’ learning outcomes during a lesson?”
Research Setting
I conducted this action research in Little Angels’ Public School Faizabad . It was situated in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. There were 16 teachers, seven were professionally qualified and nine were not professionally qualified. There were 331 students, 136 were male and 195 were female students. All the students were from different cultural and socio-economic background.
Reconnaissance
As a head teacher, I was realizing the importance of lesson plans and its effectiveness for teaching and learning but could not support in developing lesson-planning skills among teachers due lack of having professional experience in myself.
When I observed the lessons of novice teachers in their classroom, I found that their method of teaching was based on giving lecture and did not use any teaching aids. Cole and Chan (1994) examine that teaching aids and learning activities help in developing the lesson more stimulating and effective. I used a checklist (see appendix A) to collect the data about their teaching methods and activities in the classroom. I also conducted a semi-structured interview (see appendix B) with novice teachers to know their understanding on developing lesson plan. As a result of it, I came to know that the novice teachers did not know about lesson planning.
. As a head teacher, I was observing the lessons of experienced teachers for their annual appraisals. They developed ambiguous objectives with boring activities, which did not had any room to challenge the students. They were not using appropriate assessment tools to check students’ learning outcomes.
To analyze the actual level of experienced teachers I evaluated some of their developed lesson plans where I found that there was not any relation between objectives, activities and evaluation part but in reality they are the integral par of a lesson plan (Barry & King, 1997). One of the previously developed lesson is attached (See appendix C).
Ethical Considerations
I conducted an orientation session with all teachers including the head teacher to share my plan of action research and its purposes. Then I conducted a meeting with three experienced and two novice teachers with whom I had to conduct my research. I assured teachers to keep their data confidential and used pseudonym instead of their real names.
Literature Review
The literature emphasized on lesson planning and its importance for teaching and learning. As Aggarwal (1997) states that lesson plan is a comprehensive chart of classroom teaching-learning activities. It is an emotional and mental visualization of a teacher regarding classroom experiences as teacher hopes to achieve as a result of teaching. In addition, Barry and King (1997) emphasize that sound planning in teaching helps the teachers in making learning more purposeful, efficient and effective. A lesson plan also reminds the teacher of the specific goals of education to be attained through classroom teaching (Reddy & Praha, 2004). It enables teacher to save a lot of time and cover wider field of education in a limited time. As lesson planning is considered as a basic component for teaching, therefore it is very much applicable in any context. Lesson planning is also considered an important tool for teachers’ appraisal in my context. Therefore, every teacher is required to develop two effective lesson plans on every day with SMART objectives of different subjects.
Research Methodology
AKU-IED gave a chance to conduct an action research of any problem, which were hindering school practices and ultimately affected students learning in the school context. Finding this as a unique chance, I selected the action research paradigm to overcome the problem. As Rashid (2005) states that action research is a systematic examination conducted by individuals or groups’ studying their own practices in search of sound answers to unresolved problems in their work. I used observation and interview techniques for data collection during my intervention and at reconnaissance stage. To collect valid data, I used reflective diaries and field notes during my interventions with the teachers.
Action Research Report
In the school, both experienced and inexperienced teachers had been working for many years. Their teaching was based on lectures and explanations; they wanted to be dominant by their fluency of language. The experienced teachers were working for a long time but repeating the same practices in teaching-learning process.
I divided my action research into three cycles, in the first cycle I had developed teachers’ skills of designing SMART objective, in the second cycle I had developed teachers’ skills of designing activities and in the third cycle I had developed teachers’ skills of assessing students learning outcomes.
REPORT ON CYCLE I
Developing Learning Objectives
Keeping all the initial levels of teachers, I decided to implement my action plan (see appendix D) for cycle 1. My expectation about competency level of the teachers was: to design learning objectives, which can be achievable and measurable at the end of the lesson in their classrooms. On October 19, 2007, I conducted a session on developing objectives with the teachers. I noticed that teachers were not well aware about the importance of objectives in teaching. I decided to conduct a session on practical demonstration of developing objectives to make their skills perfect. On October 24, 2007, I involved teachers to develop objectives in groups first then pairs and finally individually. Initially teachers were confused about how to develop objective on the given topic but gradually they developed objectives and shared them with the whole group on a chart. After this session, I suggested teachers to develop objectives for the next three days and shared them with me for further feedback. I monitored their progress while checking their developed objectives regularly. I observed that the teachers’ skills of developing SMART objectives were improving day by day.
At this stage, one of experienced teacher was not developing objectives, when I asked her to share an objective with me; she argued that she did not had enough time for developing objectives that day. At last, she shared an objective with me where I realized that she had a problem in developing objectives. Therefore, I closely monitored her work individually and provided constructive feedback on his/her skills developing objectives. After continuous feedback, I observed that s/he had improved his/her skills of developing objectives. I decided to move to next cycle, which is on helping the teachers to design activities.
REPORT ON CYCLE II
Developing Learning Activities
On the finding of cycle one, I planned cycle II (see appendix E) to developed teachers’ skills of developing activities. According to Barry and King (1997) by designing variety of activities for a lesson, teacher can involve students in his lesson to create an effective learning. I conducted sessions on November 8 & 15, 2007, I came to know that novice teachers were unfamiliar with importance of activities and different strategies of developing activities in teaching-learning process. The experienced teachers shared many strategies on developing activities, which showed they had ideas but were not implementing ideas in developing activities. On November 20, 2007, I involved my research participants in a session, where they developed some activities for their teaching subjects. At the beginning, teachers were confused about developing variety of activities that would be according to needs, interest and abilities of the students. Although in the group discussion, teachers were able to know their lacking in developing interesting activities. I suggested my teachers to develop activities for next three days. I monitored their progress through providing constructive feedback on their work, which further developed their conceptual understanding on designing learning activities (Sparks & Horsley, 1989).
At this stage, I decided to move to the next cycle in which I worked with the teachers to develop tools for assessing the students learning during or at the end of a lesson.
REPORT ON CYCLE III
Developing Tools for Assessment
I planed cycle III (see appendix F) to develop teachers’ skills of assessing students learning outcomes. As Print (1999) states, that without objectives there is no evaluation and without evaluation, there is no teaching. I involved my research participants in a session on December 15, 2007 on evaluation and importance of evaluation. After this session teachers reflected on themselves that they were assessing students learning outcomes, they did not know the real essence of assessment. On December 19, 2007 I conducted another session on different types of assessment and their uses in teaching. I observed that teachers were taking interest in the session because they were missing the important part of a lesson plan before this session. They discussed about when to do the process and when to do product evaluation by giving an example of preparing ‘Beryani as a dish’. One of the experienced teachers shared that s/he missed the important part of lesson plans on his/her professional career. On December 24, 2007, I conducted a session where I asked experienced teachers to share their previously developed assessment techniques from their lesson plans to see the relation between the intended learning outcomes with assessment. They reviewed their developed techniques and realized that there was not any relation between them, and then they modified the developed techniques. On December 29, 2007, I collected the diaries of my teachers and checked their evaluation techniques. I observed that the strategies were in line with the objectives and learning activities (Swain et al, 2005) through which they could assess the learning outcomes of their students during a lesson. At this stage, teachers came to know the process of developing effective lesson plans for effective learning.
Findings
Lesson plan makes a lesson effective and effective learning takes place when a lesson is developed in a correlated manner. After this action research teachers started developing objectives with SMART objectives, developed interesting activities to foster students learning and used appropriate tools for assessment.
My Own Learning
The role of head teacher is to developed teachers professionally and one of the important roles is to develop teachers’ lesson planning skills. I also learned that action research is a systematic process to develop teachers professionally and improve classroom practices with effective interventions.
Learning for the Participants
The action research was very useful to improve teachers existing practices in the field of teaching and learning. One of the teacher commented that in her 15 years experienced she did not know the gist of lesson plans. After attending these sessions, s/he came to know its effectiveness and efficient usage of lesson plans in the classroom.
Challenges
Being a novice researcher, I faced many problems. Initially it was difficult for me to conduct an action research on said problem but after reading literature on action research and regular feedback, I was able to conduct the research. Secondly conducting sessions for both experienced and inexperienced teachers was a challenge for me due to their different level of understanding on lesson plans.
The purpose of this action research was to develop teachers professionally through improving their lesson planning skills.
The paper discusses the background of the research problem, its rationale, the main research questions and research setting. It also includes the reconnaissance, literature review and research methodology. The reports on research cycles are also the part of this paper, which follow the findings, challenges and recommendation for the further study.
Background of the Problem
In my school, six teachers were experienced and eight were inexperienced teachers. Inexperienced teachers did not develop lesson plans and taught without proper planning. They were not given any training on developing lesson plans. On the other hand, experienced teachers developed lesson plans but they were ineffective for teaching and learning as there were no coordination between objectives, activities and assessment. An experienced teacher planned a lesson to develop speaking skills among the students but teacher developed activities for silent reading whereas s/he assessed writing skills in his/his plan. This was not an effective plan as there was no link between objectives, activities and assessment (Barry & King, 1997).
Rationale
It is a common belief that planning of classroom lessons is essential for successful teaching. A lesson plan gives direction to the teacher about what to teach and what to achieve at the end of the lesson (Reddy & Praha, 2004). As lesson planning is one of the important components for effective teaching. It arouses students’ interest in the lesson because teachers consider students’ interest before developing activities. In my context, I did not find any example of effective lesson planning. Therefore, I selected this area for my understanding as head teacher’s role in developing teachers’ lesson planning skills.
Main Research Questions
“To what extent a head teacher helps teachers to improve their teaching through developing their lesson planning skills.”
Subsidiary Questions
• How to improve the teachers’ skills of designing objectives for a lesson?”
• How to improve the teachers’ skills of designing activities for a lesson?”
• How to improve the teachers’ skills of assessing students’ learning outcomes during a lesson?”
Research Setting
I conducted this action research in Little Angels’ Public School Faizabad . It was situated in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. There were 16 teachers, seven were professionally qualified and nine were not professionally qualified. There were 331 students, 136 were male and 195 were female students. All the students were from different cultural and socio-economic background.
Reconnaissance
As a head teacher, I was realizing the importance of lesson plans and its effectiveness for teaching and learning but could not support in developing lesson-planning skills among teachers due lack of having professional experience in myself.
When I observed the lessons of novice teachers in their classroom, I found that their method of teaching was based on giving lecture and did not use any teaching aids. Cole and Chan (1994) examine that teaching aids and learning activities help in developing the lesson more stimulating and effective. I used a checklist (see appendix A) to collect the data about their teaching methods and activities in the classroom. I also conducted a semi-structured interview (see appendix B) with novice teachers to know their understanding on developing lesson plan. As a result of it, I came to know that the novice teachers did not know about lesson planning.
. As a head teacher, I was observing the lessons of experienced teachers for their annual appraisals. They developed ambiguous objectives with boring activities, which did not had any room to challenge the students. They were not using appropriate assessment tools to check students’ learning outcomes.
To analyze the actual level of experienced teachers I evaluated some of their developed lesson plans where I found that there was not any relation between objectives, activities and evaluation part but in reality they are the integral par of a lesson plan (Barry & King, 1997). One of the previously developed lesson is attached (See appendix C).
Ethical Considerations
I conducted an orientation session with all teachers including the head teacher to share my plan of action research and its purposes. Then I conducted a meeting with three experienced and two novice teachers with whom I had to conduct my research. I assured teachers to keep their data confidential and used pseudonym instead of their real names.
Literature Review
The literature emphasized on lesson planning and its importance for teaching and learning. As Aggarwal (1997) states that lesson plan is a comprehensive chart of classroom teaching-learning activities. It is an emotional and mental visualization of a teacher regarding classroom experiences as teacher hopes to achieve as a result of teaching. In addition, Barry and King (1997) emphasize that sound planning in teaching helps the teachers in making learning more purposeful, efficient and effective. A lesson plan also reminds the teacher of the specific goals of education to be attained through classroom teaching (Reddy & Praha, 2004). It enables teacher to save a lot of time and cover wider field of education in a limited time. As lesson planning is considered as a basic component for teaching, therefore it is very much applicable in any context. Lesson planning is also considered an important tool for teachers’ appraisal in my context. Therefore, every teacher is required to develop two effective lesson plans on every day with SMART objectives of different subjects.
Research Methodology
AKU-IED gave a chance to conduct an action research of any problem, which were hindering school practices and ultimately affected students learning in the school context. Finding this as a unique chance, I selected the action research paradigm to overcome the problem. As Rashid (2005) states that action research is a systematic examination conducted by individuals or groups’ studying their own practices in search of sound answers to unresolved problems in their work. I used observation and interview techniques for data collection during my intervention and at reconnaissance stage. To collect valid data, I used reflective diaries and field notes during my interventions with the teachers.
Action Research Report
In the school, both experienced and inexperienced teachers had been working for many years. Their teaching was based on lectures and explanations; they wanted to be dominant by their fluency of language. The experienced teachers were working for a long time but repeating the same practices in teaching-learning process.
I divided my action research into three cycles, in the first cycle I had developed teachers’ skills of designing SMART objective, in the second cycle I had developed teachers’ skills of designing activities and in the third cycle I had developed teachers’ skills of assessing students learning outcomes.
REPORT ON CYCLE I
Developing Learning Objectives
Keeping all the initial levels of teachers, I decided to implement my action plan (see appendix D) for cycle 1. My expectation about competency level of the teachers was: to design learning objectives, which can be achievable and measurable at the end of the lesson in their classrooms. On October 19, 2007, I conducted a session on developing objectives with the teachers. I noticed that teachers were not well aware about the importance of objectives in teaching. I decided to conduct a session on practical demonstration of developing objectives to make their skills perfect. On October 24, 2007, I involved teachers to develop objectives in groups first then pairs and finally individually. Initially teachers were confused about how to develop objective on the given topic but gradually they developed objectives and shared them with the whole group on a chart. After this session, I suggested teachers to develop objectives for the next three days and shared them with me for further feedback. I monitored their progress while checking their developed objectives regularly. I observed that the teachers’ skills of developing SMART objectives were improving day by day.
At this stage, one of experienced teacher was not developing objectives, when I asked her to share an objective with me; she argued that she did not had enough time for developing objectives that day. At last, she shared an objective with me where I realized that she had a problem in developing objectives. Therefore, I closely monitored her work individually and provided constructive feedback on his/her skills developing objectives. After continuous feedback, I observed that s/he had improved his/her skills of developing objectives. I decided to move to next cycle, which is on helping the teachers to design activities.
REPORT ON CYCLE II
Developing Learning Activities
On the finding of cycle one, I planned cycle II (see appendix E) to developed teachers’ skills of developing activities. According to Barry and King (1997) by designing variety of activities for a lesson, teacher can involve students in his lesson to create an effective learning. I conducted sessions on November 8 & 15, 2007, I came to know that novice teachers were unfamiliar with importance of activities and different strategies of developing activities in teaching-learning process. The experienced teachers shared many strategies on developing activities, which showed they had ideas but were not implementing ideas in developing activities. On November 20, 2007, I involved my research participants in a session, where they developed some activities for their teaching subjects. At the beginning, teachers were confused about developing variety of activities that would be according to needs, interest and abilities of the students. Although in the group discussion, teachers were able to know their lacking in developing interesting activities. I suggested my teachers to develop activities for next three days. I monitored their progress through providing constructive feedback on their work, which further developed their conceptual understanding on designing learning activities (Sparks & Horsley, 1989).
At this stage, I decided to move to the next cycle in which I worked with the teachers to develop tools for assessing the students learning during or at the end of a lesson.
REPORT ON CYCLE III
Developing Tools for Assessment
I planed cycle III (see appendix F) to develop teachers’ skills of assessing students learning outcomes. As Print (1999) states, that without objectives there is no evaluation and without evaluation, there is no teaching. I involved my research participants in a session on December 15, 2007 on evaluation and importance of evaluation. After this session teachers reflected on themselves that they were assessing students learning outcomes, they did not know the real essence of assessment. On December 19, 2007 I conducted another session on different types of assessment and their uses in teaching. I observed that teachers were taking interest in the session because they were missing the important part of a lesson plan before this session. They discussed about when to do the process and when to do product evaluation by giving an example of preparing ‘Beryani as a dish’. One of the experienced teachers shared that s/he missed the important part of lesson plans on his/her professional career. On December 24, 2007, I conducted a session where I asked experienced teachers to share their previously developed assessment techniques from their lesson plans to see the relation between the intended learning outcomes with assessment. They reviewed their developed techniques and realized that there was not any relation between them, and then they modified the developed techniques. On December 29, 2007, I collected the diaries of my teachers and checked their evaluation techniques. I observed that the strategies were in line with the objectives and learning activities (Swain et al, 2005) through which they could assess the learning outcomes of their students during a lesson. At this stage, teachers came to know the process of developing effective lesson plans for effective learning.
Findings
Lesson plan makes a lesson effective and effective learning takes place when a lesson is developed in a correlated manner. After this action research teachers started developing objectives with SMART objectives, developed interesting activities to foster students learning and used appropriate tools for assessment.
My Own Learning
The role of head teacher is to developed teachers professionally and one of the important roles is to develop teachers’ lesson planning skills. I also learned that action research is a systematic process to develop teachers professionally and improve classroom practices with effective interventions.
Learning for the Participants
The action research was very useful to improve teachers existing practices in the field of teaching and learning. One of the teacher commented that in her 15 years experienced she did not know the gist of lesson plans. After attending these sessions, s/he came to know its effectiveness and efficient usage of lesson plans in the classroom.
Challenges
Being a novice researcher, I faced many problems. Initially it was difficult for me to conduct an action research on said problem but after reading literature on action research and regular feedback, I was able to conduct the research. Secondly conducting sessions for both experienced and inexperienced teachers was a challenge for me due to their different level of understanding on lesson plans.
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