I really enjoyed the book's thorough respect for lesson planning and preparation. This process was referred to "like a rudder on a ship" or the guiding process that seems small but can have major effects if tended to correctly (241). Obviously, preparing and planning ahead is extremely vital for the success of the students in the classroom. In that regard, I thought the inclusion and emphasis on thematic units was quite appropriate, as they are typically long-term plans with much thought, effort, and coordination behind them. Without that effort, they can be unfinished or mediocre, which only wastes the time of both students and teachers.
Another positive aspect of lesson planning that the book pointed out well was the greater possibility of including a greater variety of different learning modalities and styles, in addition to intelligence types. The more these aspects of student learning are thought about, the more diverse of a lesson plan will be written, and the better the students will learn the curriculum. Obviously, educators need to understand these concepts in order to fully minister to these specific needs and to understand how to most effectively plan for them.
A third idea that impressed me was the student involvement in the culmination activity. It only makes sense that in order to become interested and invested in an activity, that the students would have some sort of involvement in its decision. They often have some of the best ideas for accurate assessment and provide an interesting new prospective on what would help them learn the most. Also, the use of meaningful culmination activities is very intelligent, because it is much more motivating and rewarding for students to help write and publish a book than to simply write an informative report.
I also was impressed by how Kellough stressed the need for students to be involved in the actual planning of the lessons. This goes to show the trend that is rapidly developing in education: students taking responsibility for their own learning and classrooms becoming much more student-centered. It is obvious that the teacher cannot take all the ideas that the students share and place them into the lesson. I'm sure many students would love to cut out tests entirely or cut out an important topics that are vital to their educations because of lack of interest. With that said, I am glad that this is the direction education is going. I know that as a student myself, I wish my teachers would ask me how I would best like to learn.
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