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Lesson Plan and the the Constructive Approach

EDUC 5210

Master of Education, University of the People

Dr. Maura Hobson

16 February 2022
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The lesson plan I usually work with has two main section, the guided play and the main activity.

The guided play is used to get the students prepared for the main activity later. It usually goes for

15 minutes and consists of short play time. The main activity is divided into introduction and

activities. In the introduction, teacher will do a warm up by read stories, play videos or showing

the models of the topic of the lessons. The lesson plan also consists of the goal of the lesson plan,

such as improving motor skills, improving creativity, building up team work and so on. Below is

the simplification of the lesson plan:

Term 3 Week 3

Theme: Chinese New Year

Day: Tuesday

Activity: Waterplay

Time Activity Objectives Materials

Guided play 13.30 – Tiger Origami  Improve fine and Materials of activity
13.45 Bookmark gross motor skill explained
(15’)
 Help to train
The details of concentration
activity explained
step by step
13.45 – 14.45 Opening:  Improve gross Materials of activity
(60’) Watching a video of motor explained
Chinese New Year  Build team
player ability
Activity:
Dragon painting
race
Step by step activity
explained
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As it can be seen, the learning process mostly happened by teacher giving the knowledge

and instruction to the students and students are expected to listen and do the instruction as it is told

to make sure that the activity is done according to the plan. While the teacher usually make the

instruction and rules of the activity more flexible for the students to follow, big change is not

expected to happen.

In the learning process based on this lesson plan, the constructivism usually happens. As

McLeod (2019) mentioned that constructivism is a learning theory that focuses on the learner’s

personal construction of meaning, done by their own experiences. In this lesson plan, the

experiences being taught are the Chinese New Year culture and team work to reach one goal.

Generally the main theory that is happening here is the reciprocal teaching. Reciprocal teaching is

when the teachers model the activity and then the students take turn to do what the teachers have

modeled (Schunk. 2012). The benefit of this approach is to develop the students’ comprehension

strategy in a particular context as well as their ability to predict, question and summarize the

instructions (education.vic.gov.au. 2018).

The other approach that is used here is peer collaboration. In the activity on the lesson plan,

they have to work together to win the painting race. To reach this goals, students have to work

together to follow the instruction correctly and finish the painting before the other groups. Their

social interaction in the process is needed and developed. According to Gates from nea.org (2018),

peer collaboration is important not only to develop their higher thinking ability, but also improve

their self-esteem and confidence. Unfortunately, the students of this school come from various

background and the common obstacle for doing peer collaboration is language barrier. Some of
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the students do not understand English pretty well and it affects the interaction to the other

students.

From the social learning aspect, self-efficacy usually happens in the daily life learning

process. As some students have pretty low self-esteem due to their lack understanding in English,

teachers often have to push the students to believe that they are able to do the instruction and reach

the goal of the lesson. Sometimes, teachers have to lead the students very slowly or even do the

activity with the students step by step to make sure they will finish it and show them that they are

actually can do it.

The other aspect that helps the learning process going well is the reinforcement. Teachers

always use reinforcement to make sure the students are doing the activity thoroughly. For example,

in the lesson plan above, teachers will give two stickers to the winning group and one sticker the

other groups. And to be able to join the painting race, they have to join the guided play activity

nicely. This is to make sure they are willing to follow each activity and reach the objectives of

what they do. At some point, the students understand this and they are used to participate in the

guided play nicely without being asked, just so they can participating in the main activity.

I personally see the combination of social and the constructive learning in this school is

pretty balance. The school and teachers are able to make the lesson plans run smoothly and

naturally, so the experience for the children are not a pressure for them. Which is a good thing so

they will not think negatively about school or learning.

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References

McLeod, S. A (2019). Constructivism as A Theory For Teaching And Learning. Retrieved from
https://www.simplypsychology.org/constructivism.html

Gates, S. (2018). Benefits of Collaboration. https://www.nea.org/professional-

excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/benefits-
collaboration#:~:text=Collaborative%20learning%20has%20been%20shown,im
proving%20social%20and%20interpersonal%20skills.

Schunk, D. (2012). Learning Theories. An Educational Perspective (Sixth Edition). Pearson

Victoria State Government. (2018). Literacy Teaching Toolkit Reciprocal teaching.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/e
nglish/literacy/readingviewing/Pages/teachingpracguidedrecip.aspx