Elevate Your Teaching: A Guide to Interactive Lesson Planning

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Elevate Your Teaching: A Guide to Interactive Lesson Planning:

Engaging students in the learning process is a key challenge for educators. Traditional lecture-based teaching methods typically fall short in maintaining student interest and fostering deep understanding.

• What is interactive lesson planning: Interactive lesson planning involves creating learning experiences that actively involve students in the learning process.  This approach encourages participation, hands-on-activities, peer group engagement, and real-time feedback, making learning more enjoyable and effective.
• Benefits of interactive lesson planning: 

1. Enhanced engagement: Interactive lessons capture students' attention and keep them involved.
2. Deeper understanding: Active participation helps students grasp complex concepts better.
3. Improved retention: Engaging and discussions aid in long-term memory retention.
4. Development of critical skills: Student develop much needed skills such as collaboration, problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking.

• Key elements of interactive lesson planning: 

1. Learning objectives: Clearly define what students should achieve by the end of the lesson.
2. Active learning activities: Incorporate activities such as group discussions, hands-on experiments, role-playing, interactive simulations, and real-world scenarios.
3. Technology integration: Utilize digital tools and resources such as interactive whiteboards, educational apps, and online collaboration platforms.
4. Assessment and feedback: Implement formative assessments and provide timely feedback to gauge student understanding and progress.

• Steps to create an interactive lesson plan: 

1. Identify learning goals: Start with clear and achievable learning objects.
2. Design engaging activities: Plan activities that align with your learning goals and cater to diverse learning styles.
3. Create real-world scenarios: Studies show when students can relate what they are learning to something they will actually use in life, college, or their career, they become more engaged and develop deeper understanding.
4. Create lab sessions: Labs are not just for science class!  Create writing labs where students can collaborate and practice writing for college or life scenarios, reading workshops where students can collaborate and share about their favorite books, authors, and characters, and math labs where students use hands-on materials to perfect their math skills, such as money, tools of measurement, and building materials.
5. Use engaging technology: There are so many resources now that educators can use to engage students using technology.  Interactive website where students can conduct experiments, play games, participate in discussions, and watch educational videos, are just a few examples.  See our other blog posts regarding our top 10 educational websites, and our top 10 online resources for teaching science.

• Examples of interactive activities: 

1. Thank-pair-share: Students think about a question, discuss it with a partner, and then share it with the group.
2. Jig-saw groups:  Students will study to become an "expert" on a certain topic, then teach their peers about it.
3. Digital storytelling: Students create and share digital stories related to the content.
4. Interactive quizzes: Use tools such as Khoot! or Quizlet.
5. Learning labs: Create learning lab sessions where students focus on topics and conduct experiments or use them in a real-life scenario.  Have students keep a journal about what they are learning and the progress they are making on the topic.\
6. Learning in nature: Find a designated spot on campus where students can learn outside.  This is great for all types of topics and subjects including science, nature, social studies, geography, weather, and more!

Conclusion: Interactive lesson planning is a powerful tool for educators seeking to foster a dynamic and engaging learning environment. By incorporating active learning strategies, technology, and thoughtful assessments, teachers can inspire students to take an active role in their education and develop essential skills for the future.

Comments or questions?  Please comment on this blog post, we would love to hear from you!  Join our email club at curriculumlab365@gmail.com.  For more tips and tricks for your lesson planning see our past blog posts and look out for future posts to assist you on your educator journey.

Need some interactive lesson plans for your classroom, but you aren't sure where to start?  Curriculum Lab365 offers innovative, engaging, and interactive lesson plans for all grade levels and subjects.  Just email your needs and we will customize a plan that works for you and your unique students!  

Another Goodreads Giveaway Win!

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I won another Goodreads Giveaway!  An early release of One Dark Night by Hannah Richell.  

I am very excited about this one!  It is the second Goodreads Giveaway I have won.  Granted I have been entering to win a TON of them, but that is only because I love books oh so much!

One Dark Night by Hannah Richell seems like it is going to be right up my ally.   With a ghost story tied into a murder mystery and then add the setting of a little village in England, and I am hooked.

I received my advance copy of the novel last week in the mail and this time it is a soft cover with a solid cover design.

The synopsis for One Dark Night:  Exerts from the back of the book:

"On Halloween, a group of teenage students meet in the woods near Sally in the Wood, a road seeped in local lore and rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a murdered girl.  By the end of the night one student will be dead.

Rachel, the school guidance counselor, is trying to keep a handle on her increasingly distant teenaged daughter, Ellie, while students and parents panic and mourn.  Her ex-husband and detective Ben, dealing with a personal crisis of his own, has concerns about his daughter's safety as he investigates the death.  Meanwhile, Ellie is keeping secrets from both her parents, including one about where she was that night. 

Told from multiple perspectives and with Hannah Richell's distinct 'atmospheric and ever-twisting prose' (Emylia Hall, author of the Shell House Detective Mysteries) One Dark Night is a white-knuckled and suspenseful thriller about urban legends, privilege, and how the past continues to haunt us." ~From the back of One Dark Night by Hannah Richell.

I can't wait to start reading this English haunt with an investigative twist.  Look out for my review of my second Goodreads Giveaway win. 

To enter set up an account at goodreads.com and start building your bookshelves.  You will find a page dedicated to giveaways you can enter, and you will even receive emails when a book on one of your shelves is up for a giveaway!  You can follow your favorite authors, your friends and family, and even me! 

Please follow our blog, join our email club, and comment your thoughts on our book reviews, writing prompts, and educational content.  We can't wait to hear from you! 

curriculumlab365@gmail.com