LEARNING UNIT 4

Putting it all together: Designing your own

instructional event, and reflecting on your design

4.1 INTRODUCTION
In this unit, you will use appropriate design steps to design your own instructional event
or lesson. You will integrate some of the concepts we have talked about so far, and include
your own creative ideas. Remember that your goal is for your learners to be successful in
your classroom through active learning. You will also be asked to reflect on your design
and to improve or change it where needed.

Wiggins and McTighe (2005:13) hold the view that teachers are designers. An important
part of what you do as a teacher involves creating learning experiences that fulfil a specific
purpose. However, as is the case with all design professions, there are constraints. Time,
resources and the specified curriculum are among the constraints that will affect your
choices in terms of learning design. Teacher knowledge is an important resource for
learning design. How much you know of both the content and how to teach it effectively
will affect your instruction design. One of the most important activities you will engage
in as a teacher is lesson planning. The more detailed the design of your lesson, the more
control you will have over it. A clearly written out lesson plan guides your decisions
through the lesson and will assist you in reaching your instructional goals.

The content for this learning unit includes:

• Using appropriate design steps to design instruction
• Reflecting on design to improve it

4.2 DESIGNING A LEARNING EVENT

The following chapter from your textbook provides you with a guide to planning lessons,
which will assist you with this section.

Textbook chapter 2

Activity 4.1

Design your own lesson planning guide that you believe teachers should fill in as a les-
son planning template. Include lesson planning elements that you feel to be important.

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 Which elements from the units you have already studied will you include, and why? You
will be submitting this lesson plan design as an assignment (see Tutorial Letter 101).

An important part of your decision-making relates to how much detail is necessary in

lesson planning. Does it depend on the level of experience of the teacher, or should all
teachers plan equally thoroughly?

Activity 4.2

You are going to design a learning event (e.g. lesson, tutor class) by considering Table
4.1. Select a subject and grade for this lesson design. You will be submitting this learn-
ing event as an assignment (see Tutorial Letter 101).

Table 4.1 Designing a lesson or learning event

LESSON OR LEARNING EVENT

Subject:
Topic:
Grade level:
Duration:

Analysis of learning needs: (who are your learners, what are their learning needs,
what is required by the curriculum?)

Learning objectives (your goals for the lesson)

What is the content/skill that must be taught? Refer to your topic and expand.

What teaching materials (resources – LTSM) will you choose or design (worksheets,
texts etc.)? Will you integrate technology into this lesson? If so, how?

Macro level:
What teaching methods will you use? For what parts of the lesson will you use
them? How will you try to include some of the constructivist, learner-centred meth-
ods discussed in this module? How can you accommodate different learning styles?

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 Micro-level:
What specific activities will you be involved in during the lesson? Write them down
in order (introduction, lesson development, conclusion).
What specific activities will the learners be involved in during the lesson? Write
them down in order (introduction, lesson development, conclusion). What are you
wanting learners to learn from each activity?

Teacher Learners

What formative assessment will you include? (Questions you will ask, small tasks
during the lesson, etc.)

What summative assessment will this learning event lead up to? When will this take
place?

4.3 REFLECTING ON AND IMPROVING YOUR DESIGN

You cannot grow and improve as a teacher (even with many years of experience) if you do
not reflect on your lessons. Reflection means looking back at your lesson from different
perspectives. Some reflection takes place while you are teaching (reflection-in-action),
and you can also reflect after the teaching event (reflection-on-action). If you have written
down your lesson design according to the format in 4.2, then you will be able to look back
and identify where your lesson was very successful or where it may have been lacking.
You will need to look at each aspect and consider its strength or weakness. Also, consider
the lesson from the learners’ perspective. If you were a learner in the class, how would
you have enjoyed the lesson, and what and how much would you have learnt? Also, ask
yourself what you could do to improve the lesson if you were to teach it again.

Activity 4.3

Write a set of questions you would suggest teachers ask themselves as a way to reflect
on their lesson design:
(a) after they have prepared the lesson (before they teach it)
(b) while they are teaching the lesson
(c) after they have taught the lesson

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Now that you have taught the lesson, I would like you to reflect on the success of your
lesson plan.

Answer the following questions:

1. What were the strengths of this lesson? Consider this question from your perspective
and from the perspective of the learners.
2. What contributed to the success of the lesson?
3. What were the weaknesses of this lesson? Consider this question from your perspective
and from the perspective of the learners.
4. What contributed to the weaknesses of the lesson?
5. What changes will you put into place before designing the next lesson? Look back
at your written design.
6. Is your design clear enough to allow someone else to teach the same lesson from it?

Reflection also means looking at your entire practice as a teacher. This is very important
if you are to develop holistically.

4.4 CONCLUSION
In this unit, you drew all the elements of this module together into a lesson design. There
are many models of instructional design, and we have looked at just some of these.
As technology changes what we do and how we do it, newer approaches and models
will come to the fore, and so, as a teacher, you will need to keep up to date with these
approaches, models and theories. In the 1980s, there were over 40 instructional design
models – nowadays there are many, many more.

It is vital that you understand instructional design as one of your responsibilities as a

teacher. It is not the only thing you as a teacher will do, but it is one of the most important.
It is also very important for your own growth as a teacher that you engage with both the
needs of the curriculum and the needs of your learners to design learning events that
are meaningful and successful.

It is very important that, as a teacher, you not only keep abreast of the new ideas in
teaching and instruction, but also consider ideas emanating from societies that have
been neglected. The voices of these societies need to be heard and considered if we are
to teach meaningfully and successfully.

The various instruction models and theories should provide you with an opportunity
to reflect and to consider your role more critically and carefully. As you gain practice in
writing out instructional design plans (lesson plans), you will become more confident. Your
effectiveness as a teacher will rely on your ability to plan and prepare instructional events.

I have enjoyed presenting this module to you. I hope that you have enjoyed studying it,
and that you have learnt to think critically about your role in instructional design.

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