Field Experience Connection:  Before I started my field experience this quarter, I would have said that planning is the most important part of good teaching and learning.  While I still think that teachers should ideally have lesson plans that have been thoroughly thought out with every aspect considered, such as learning styles and other ways to differentiate, I realize that even the best of plans do not always play out as intended.  It seems that flexibility in planning is what really makes teaching and learning happen in a real classroom.

For example, my cooperating teacher runs into issues with students not doing homework or having conflicts with each other during class.  At times, certain things need to be addressed and take precedence over what had originally been planned.  On Friday, my cooperating teacher had built in a test-taking strategy mini-lesson to prepare the students for the upcoming Ohio Achievement Test.  The lesson was to be based on a homework assignment from the previous night.  Students were to create multiple choice questions using their vocabulary words.  Only seven of twenty students completed the homework assignment, so if my teacher had continued her lessons as planned then it would have been pointless.

Instead, my teacher decided to modify her original lesson plans in order to adapt to the situation.  This shows how flexibility comes into play during planning.  This could also be called reflection in action.  My teacher decided to split up the seven students into two teams.  One team would be the quality work checkers while the other team would write an example of their best multiple choice question on the whiteboard.  While one team was writing their question on the board, the quality work checkers would help their peers who had not completed their homework finish the assignment and ensuring it was completed as "quality work."  This plan seemed to work out better than the original plan.  The students who had finished the assignment for homework the night before were able to "teach" the other students how to write quality multiple choice questions.  The students were engaging each other and prompting each other to think critically.  I overheard one little boy tell another student, "Now, I'm going to show you what it's suppose to look like.  Look here (presenting his homework paper).  And, you better not copy one of mine."  Students who would have typically not ever completed the missing homework were still learning even if the assignment was not completed on time.  The students who had completed the assignment on time had the opportunity to refine their skills by serving as quality work checkers for their peers.

Research/Text Connection:  The opening quote in Powell's Introduction to Middle School (2005, p. 269) essentially sums up my thoughts about good planning:
        Although planning is a critical skill for a teacher, a well developed plan will not guarantee the success of a lesson or 
        unit or even the overall effectiveness of a course.  But lack of a well-developed plan will almost certainly result in poor 
        teaching.  Like a good map, a good plan helps you reach your destination with more confidence and with fewer wrong 
        turns (Callahan, Clark, and Kellough, 2002, p. 61).

I agree that planning is a critical skill for teaching.  Effective teachers should continue to plan lessons and cohesive units as a framework for what might happen in the classroom.  However, real teachers know that it is important to modify the lesson plan as needed throughout the class period or throughout the week in order to create a learning environment that will best suit the needs of the students.  Lesson plans do help teachers have "a feeling of confidence and security" because planning allows the teacher to "organize, sequence, and increase familiarity with course content" before presenting it to the students (Powell, 2005, p. 271).  Planning also prepares teachers to "interact with students during instruction" by preparing a list of possible questions to ask the students, knowing when to pause and discuss during the lesson, and having modifications ready to accommodate individual differences (p. 271).  Without proper planning, I feel like a teacher would enter the classroom with a "deer in the headlights" effect.  Students will be able to pick up on how unprepared the teacher was for class, feel like the activities he/she comes up with are pointless, and the teacher will have many students who fail to participate fully.

Personal Connection:  As an event planner in my life prior to becoming a middle school teacher, I realize that most people will think that I find planning extremely beneficial.  And, I do value planning based on the opening quote mentioned above in the Research section.  I think that planning makes for better teaching and learning even if things aren't followed exactly as what was originally planned.  I think it's important to write things out and visualize how one would like for the lesson to happen. 

For example, I had the opportunity to teach a lesson this week in my sixth grade language arts classroom.  My cooperating teacher had been teaching during the first block and asked us at the bell if we had wanted to pick up and teach the second block.  Of course, I wanted to try to hone my teaching skills.  However, I had been working on another task for the teacher during the first block when she had been teaching the lesson she wanted me to teach to the second block.  The content was unfamiliar for me and in a format where the students could shout out any number of possibilities.  I knew the basics of how to conduct this activity, but was very nervous about all the possible words the students could add to the root word tree.  Would I know the meaning of each prefix and suffix?  I didn't want to look incompetent in front of the students.  I conducted the lesson the best I could, but there were a few words in which the prefix or suffix wasn't listed on the Common Prefixes and Suffixes chart.  So, I had to tell the students that we would have to look that up and then asked if anyone knew the meaning of the entire word. 

I doubt if any students thought that I was stupid or incompetent.  However, I felt very flustered and unconfident during the entire lesson.  If I had a chance to "plan" the lesson prior to teaching or just a few moments to review the content, I think I would have been more confident.  This is the benefit of planning.  I would have been confident in myself to lead the class in whichever way they took us based upon their shouts of words using the given root word.  Without having this opportunity to plan, I was nervous and insecure about which word I would have to try to figure out along with the class.  I feel that good planning allows me to be more flexible in the classroom because I am prepared and confident rather than the misconception that a person who values good planning would want everything to go exactly as planned.

Future Teaching & Learning Connection: There are two things that I definitely want to implement in my language arts classroom that are currently missing: learning targets and closure.  Students need to know the reason why the teacher is having them do the activities they are doing.  I feel that there is a disconnect with the students, and they are often asking: "What's the point?"  It is not that the teacher is doing pointless activities.  My cooperating teacher is wonderful and has lots of great ideas.  It's just that sometimes the introduction of a learning target might be what connects the dots for these students.

Closure would also be another way to help connect the dots for students.  On most days, the students work up until the bell, hurriedly grab their things, and move on to the next class.  Students are not reviewing what they learned, connecting it to what they had already learned, or seeing how they might connect what they learned to something else the next day.  I think if the teacher would consciously try to get the attention of the class approximately five minutes before the bell rings, then the students would have the opportunity to synthesize the material and relate it to the bigger picture.

References.

Powell, S.D. (2005). Introduction to middle school. New Jersey: Pearson Educational, Inc.