Planning a lesson is twofold: it must uphold the curriculum objectives while also responding to the needs of the students.

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At times, the curriculum and the students are at tandem. However, it can be quite a challenge to match the two, especially given the spectrum of students and the reality that students (and teachers) have responsibilities and attention on other subjects or matters ... be that scholastic or not. 

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Thus, when planning a class, our mission was to be clear to the students in the expected learning outcomes but also acknowledge that we must be adaptive to the students' needs. Acting as teachers, we knew we had to uphold our responsibility to instruct in a time-effective manner while also being aware that no matter how planned our lessons, their success also depended on our ability to be adapt to the students. Some possible influencers could be: lack of interest or motivation, stress, confusion as to how to arrive at point b from point a, or even misinterpretation. It was not long ago when we found ourselves sitting in high school classrooms, and even now as university students we can empathize with many of the students' distractions. Such distractions, or external influencers, may include: familial concerns, corona-fatigue, extracurriculars, the stress of exam week or roster changes... let alone the plethora of other stressors that come with adolescence. These external factors are not largely in the control of the teacher - but the acknowledgement of their presence and impact can be greatly reassuring to students. As we learned from our academic advisor and client, it is essential that teachers establish an open communication channel with their pupils to ensure their comfort in class and respond appropriately. While an open line of communication and trust between students and teacher is key, the focus of the following section is on how to anticipate and incorporate potential internal influencers (class reactions) on lesson planning and efficacy. 

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The best strategy to incorporating internal influencers into the lesson plan is for teachers to practice active observation and reflection. While it is often easiest to do this after the end of each class, these small mental notes on student behavior happen unconsciously throughout class. Therefore, they may necessitate a response upon occurrence ... leading to what is known as the intervention. To operationalize this process of both lesson planning and lesson adaptation, brings attention to the Action Based Research and Appreciative Inquiry Models, found on Research Framework. The former may be applied to visualize the steps that occur between class objective and post-lesson reflection. The latter helps boil down the process of lesson conceptualization. When used together, with flexibility, they can also be used as reflection tools to better understand the efficacy of certain interventions, reactions and adaptations. For more information on the importance of Reflection in teaching and learning, please head to our tab Reflections.