Teaching-methods-and-lesson-planning

UCE Birmingham Faculty of Health

Dip HE Rehabilitation Work (Visual impairment)

Teaching methods and lesson planning

By Patrick Haywood

IntroductionAs rehabilitation workers, we often need to impart skills and knowledge to blind and partially sighted people in order for them to regain the ability to perform everyday tasks. This material is therefore designed to develop your understanding and use of specific teaching techniques and to enable you to plan and evaluate your teaching.

Learning outcomesBy the end of this material, you should be able to:

Describe a range of teaching methods and approaches to teaching

Analyse the application of techniques in teaching rehabilitation skills

Formulate learning objectives and lesson plans

Demonstrate the application of Task Analysis

Using this material in contextThis material integrates with the Learning Theories materials, which should be studied first.

ContentsAdults as Learners

Learning outcomes

Teaching methods

Managing the learning process by planning

Lesson planning

Task analysis

Legislating for success

Back chaining

Essential study materials

Copyright © UCE Birmingham

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Assessed workThere is no formal assessment of activities undertaken in this material. However, the content and activities will form the basis of your preparation for teach-backs in mobility and ADL

Adults as Learners

Formative Activity - Adults as LearnersLearning as an adult can be a very challenging process. Reflect on your own experience of participating in this course:

How did you feel about returning to a learning situation?

What factors tend to motivate you to learn?

What might de-motivate you?

List factors that contribute to a good learning environment?

List factors that contribute to a poor learning environment?

How might some of the themes you have discussed above relate to the experience of a blind or partially sighted person who needs to learn new ways of doing everyday tasks?


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Before concentrating on how we can structure and plan our teaching take a few minutes and try to suggest ten ways to make your teaching fun for you and your learner.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Learning OutcomesWhen attempting to impart skills and knowledge to others one needs to formulate clear plans for intervention. A key aspect of this process is to decide the desired learning outcomes, sometimes called setting objectives. These objectives need to reflect desired learning outcomes rather than simply stating what is to be taught. What then is the difference between simply stating what is to be taught and specifying a desired


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learning outcome? To answer this let us first consider a theoretical perspective

Benjamin Bloom and his associates organised their taxonomy (or classification) of cognitive factors under six major headings. The six are arranged hierarchically to demonstrate that levels of knowledge are cumulative, so that higher classes are built on the skills involved in lower classes. The classes are:

Knowledge

Comprehension

Application

Analysis

Synthesis

Evaluation

The knowledge level consists mainly of acquiring facts; comprehension then involves a deeper understanding of this factual knowledge. Application is concerned with how the knowledge is used in specific situations. Analysis involves making lateral connections with other areas of learning. Synthesis allows thinking that is more abstract; it involves the formulation of cognitive constructs, which enable the projection of learning into new areas. Evaluation involves reflection on the whole process.

Bloom used this same hierarchy to construct a Taxonomy of Instructional Objectives with lists of words for each level of the hierarchy. These words can be used in the formulation of learning objectives for a particular level and so help to ensure that an appropriate level of learning is taking place.

Additional Study MaterialsBloom, Benjamin S., et al (1980). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman Publishing.

Also see Articles and additional study materials provided with this Unit

Formative ActivityNow try to write some learning outcomes which would provide a framework for teaching some simple skills to a person with a visual impairment. Choose an activity such as making a hot drink or simple meal.

By the end of the teaching session my learner would be able to:

A.


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B.

C.

D.

Remember these should be learning outcomes, not statements of what you are going to teach.

Formative ActivityMany of the objectives we set when teaching rehabilitation skills are necessarily in the lower order areas of knowledge, comprehension and application. However, if you consider the higher order levels of learning, what benefits could our learner derive if we encourage them to achieve these higher levels of learning? For example, how could the simple skills involved in making a hot drink be used as a basis for further and deeper learning?

Teaching MethodsHaving established the principle of setting learning outcomes we need to consider a range of specific teaching methods that can be used and their application in the context of teaching rehabilitation skills. We must also be aware that when teaching, the actual methods one employs can have a significant effect on the outcome of the lesson. The methods used need to be appropriate to the skills or knowledge area being taught and to the needs of the learner. For example, attempting to teach a blind or partially sighted person to use a complex piece of electrical equipment by simply describing it verbally is perhaps likely to lead to an unsatisfactory outcome for both teacher and learner.

Some specific teaching methods are:

Questioning

Verbal Description or explanation

Verbal Prompting

Modelling (hand on hand)

Demonstration


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Questioning is vital in any teaching situation, it allows the teacher to elicit information from the learner. For example, ascertaining the current level of knowledge about a task or checking what has been learned.

Verbal description is particularly important in the context of teaching people with a vision impairment, as items or tasks may have to be described if vision is not available to observe a demonstration.

Verbal prompting can be used to coax or reassure the learner when they have forgotten some of their learning or lack confidence.

The modelling techniques can be very helpful to people with a vision impairment as it allows more direct contact with the task or skill to be learned.

Demonstration is a good technique as it allows movements to be followed directly. It can be used when teaching people with a vision impairment but relies on the learner having sufficient sight to follow what is being taught.

Formative ActivityTry some micro teaching exercises employing some of the specific teaching methods listed above. The subject of your micro-teaching should be some task with which you are familiar and which could be taught to someone else in no more than ten minutes. Work with a partner, friend or another group member and attempt to teach them the chosen task. Use one of the specific teaching methods discussed above as your actual means of teaching. Repeat the micro teaching employing a different teaching method. Record your results below.


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Learning Diary(Copy this format for each micro teaching exercise).

The task I chose to teach was:

I attempted to use as my principal teaching method.

The strengths of this approach were:

The weaknesses of this approach were:


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Formative ActivityHaving completed the previous activity. Consider how the specific teaching methods could be used with a learner who has a vision impairment. What would be the strengths and weaknesses in this particular context?

Managing the Learning Process by PlanningAfter setting the learning objectives and having some idea of the teaching methods we might employ, we need to organise the actual structure of our lesson. Unless the content of our lesson is very simple, we will probably need to break the teaching into portions that are more manageable. This is often referred to as chunking and is an effective way of managing the learners’ experience based on sound learning theory. Think back to Gagné’s comments in unit 4 about a knowledge hierarchy.

Lesson PlanningThere are a number of ways in which a lesson plan can be written. One can write a series of statements, which describe the stages of the process. These can also include an indication of the teaching methods to be used. Alternatively a set of cue cards can be used. Again, these can serve to order the sequence of teaching and indicate teaching methods. A third method is to use a tabular format to lay out a written plan. This approach is quite efficient as it allows easy reference to the plan whilst teaching is underway and presents all of the important information. See example.

Formative ActivityUsing the lesson plan sheet as a guide, try to complete the lesson stages for teaching someone to make a cup of tea.


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Lesson Plan

Task Teaching Method/s Safety/Notes

Fill teapot with correct amount of cold water.

Transfer cold water to kettle.

Describe methods:

Counting

Weight

Use of finger.

Allow learner to experiment.

Question to gain feed-back.

Prompt as needed.

Ensure learner can distinguish hot and cold taps.

Assemble all necessary equipment.


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Task Teaching Method/s Safety/Notes

Refining the Structure of our LessonThe plan you have just devised should present a sequence of tasks or areas to be taught, together with an indication of the teaching methods to be used. This forms a good basic plan but by itself does not constitute a fully rounded lesson. We need therefore to incorporate some additional elements to round out the total plan.

Introduction to the lesson – describing what is to be done in the lesson helps to clarify our objectives and to engage the learner with the task.


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Recap of previous learning – this stage may not be needed in every case but is useful when something is being taught over a series of lessons.

Practise time - following the teaching input the learner usually needs time to actually attempt the new skill. At this stage the teacher can use prompts and other input to facilitate learning. It is easy to overlook this aspect in planning the lesson.

Recap of new learning – in this phase, the teacher can use a variety of techniques to facilitate retention of knowledge and skills. The recap phase can also facilitate transfer of knowledge.

This sequence can be used more than once in one lesson particularly if the tasks or areas to be taught are more complex. Remember that this structure is intended as a framework and is not a definitive model to be applied in every case.

Formative ActivityNow try to refine your lesson plan ensuring that you have incorporated the above elements.

In addition to deciding what teaching methods to employ and ensuring we allow time for practise, recap etc we may also need to give more detailed consideration to the actual structuring of what we teach. In rehabilitation work a significant proportion of the teaching we do is related to the development of motor skills, coupled to cognitive learning. This means that our learners may need to string together a series of specific skills and engage in problem solving in order to accomplish an overall task.

Task AnalysisIn order to ascertain the component parts of a task we need to employ the process of task analysis. If we look carefully even apparently simple everyday tasks can actually be broken down into many sub tasks. Gagné describes this sort of process in relation to defining pre-requisite knowledge. If you are unsure about this look back to Unit 4.

Formative ActivityTake a simple task that you perform every day. Try to think of all the stages that are involved and the individual pieces of knowledge that you need and the individual actions you perform in order to accomplish the task. List them, or, if you prefer draw a mind map. Think back to Gagné’s concept of prerequisites discussed in unit 4.


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In practice the learner will dictate the degree of deconstruction of a task into sub tasks. For example, when teaching someone who is a competent cook to adapt their approach following the onset of a visual impairment, it is probably safe to assume that they will know some of the subordinate stages involved in a particular cooking task. However, for someone who is inexperienced in catering for themselves and has also become visually impaired, detailed task analysis may be required.

Legislating for SuccessAnother important aspect of teaching is the need to provide rewards and a sense of achievement for the learner. Carefully selecting the content and delivery of a lesson can facilitate this experience. For example, it is more likely that someone will succeed in learning long cane skills in a controlled and safe environment. Placing the person straight onto a busy street and expecting them to cope with learning the complex moves involved in using the cane is a recipe for failure.

In addition to the process of setting our lesson to maximise the chances of success for the learner it is also important to reinforce a sense of achievement by the appropriate use of praise. Praising a learner can be equivalent to giving a reward and so can fulfil some of the basic aspects of learning as postulated by Pavlov and Skinner. See unit X. When dealing with adult learners we do however need to be aware that over-use of praise can be seen as condescending and false.

Back ChainingIn some learning situations achieving success even when the task is broken down into manageable chunks can be difficult because the separate parts of the whole do not of themselves lead to a meaningful goal. For example, if teaching a route where the destination is a shop. If we use the conventional forward chaining approach then the learner does not have the reward of reaching their goal. However, if we gradually work back in stages from the shop then we can end each lesson with the goal having been reached.

Essential Study MaterialsThese two books show examples of applying teaching theory and techniques to specific rehabilitation skills.

Jackobson W H (1993) The Art and Science of Teaching Orientation and Mobility to Persons with Visual Impairments AFB New York


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Ponchillia, P. & Ponchillia, S. (1996) Foundations of Rehabilitation Teaching with Persons who are blind or visually impaired AFB Press ISBN 0-89128-939-9

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