Ms.T's Special Education Challenge

Ms. T has a challenge with creative lesson planning. Much like a writing assignment, classroom planning consists of a preceding and subsequent stage that directly affects the overall process. The organization of the lesson plan can affect the quality of the lesson, and will give the teacher more measurable feedback with regards to what is being absorbed by students.

Ms. T can start by researching and implementing background material into the lesson. Although it is normally used to supplement the material after it has been given, a multimedia assignment like television can efficiently reinforce the lesson.

Since the interactive stage involves adjustments of instruction, each lesson, creative or otherwise, is susceptible to some degree of spontaneity, which often includes a reiteration, or re-teaching, of certain portions of the lesson. This is especially true in special education classrooms, where most learning disabilities are remedied through repetition of material exposure. Although it is usually the last few minutes of class and the early part of the next day’s class, post planning is a reflection on the taught lesson and has measurable feedback from students, the most common and immediate of which is verbal discussion and, of course, non-verbal communication between teachers and students. Since students are usually concerned with how they will be assessed on what they learned, a creative post planning stage might throw them off guard, and may not yield the most accurate results.

Running the gauntlet of steps in the planning process, both before and after the lesson implementation, will make creative plans more efficient for Ms. T’s class.