assured?

I was caught off guard when we had to design a lesson plan that involved the ASSURE model for a number of reasons. One being I never had prior experience to making a lesson plan and two I had no clue what was this “ASSURE model” supposed to be. I was nervous and curious at the same time. I mean it is inevitable that we will have to make a lesson plan, but I was wondering if I was going to be prepared making one. The concept of making one seems fun but the thought of trying to get your lesson across to the students can be the challenge. I have no experience whatsoever teaching a class but I have observed in many classroom settings both as a student and an outsider. I noticed that being organized is the key to having success in the classroom. So I tried my best to come up with something interesting for the students and something that utilizes their technological skills on the computer.
The most stress that I’ve had to face while creating this lesson plan is how to get the lesson across, instead of some pointless activity that the students will not find any of interest to. How would I get them interested in the weather and the geographical factors that contribute to the climate of a particular area? My knowledge was put to use as I had to pick up some lessons that I had learned recently about the geographical structures that affect one area of the climate. It is pretty tough trying to break it down to a high school level and it might seem like a lot of work to the students, but my intention is to get their juices flowing and likewise to pickup the previous lessons that was learned in their other geography classes.
My whole lesson was based on the suggestions from the professor and the modifying of it was an easy thought, but as one would get deeply and specific into the creation one must think of ways in which the lesson would go smooth. So the break down of the class into groups of 5 according to their region of interest was a start. The whole point of the lesson was not only to examine the amount of rainfall in the topic of interest in South America, but to also understand that contributing factors such as geographical structures and the natural phenomena “El Nino” comes into the picture. At the end of each presentation of each group on their data I would require them to have a discussion. The discussion will supplement their feedback on existing knowledge and understanding on previous topics. I learned that feed back is an important tool a while when I took Educational Psychology class. Basically, feedback directly quoting from my educational psychology book is the “information about existing understanding used to increase future understanding.”(Eggen and Kauchak, 2007) This all helps in the process of learning by having the student relate to their environment to introduce a new one.
Overall this experience of creating a lesson plan will be put to the test once it is set in the classroom. I don not expect perfection when this is tested but I hope to understand the views and reactions of the students and hope to better modifications to this lesson.










Works Cited:
Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (2007) Chapter 7: Cognitive Views of Learning Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall