I was reading Ditch the Plan! #30GoalsEdu today and it got me thinking … always a good thing.
If we ditch a plan, are we really planning to begin with?
Finding those teaching moments requires one to reflect-in-action. Instead of ditching a plan before the fact (i.e., class), reflect on those times when you were reflecting in action, and during the class itself, you realized that you must ditch the plan. Reflect on those classes when you deviated from the syllabus in order to take advantage of a teachable moment.
Hunter (1979) claims that teachers make decisions before, during, and after lessons primarily around three distinct categories: content, style of the learner, and the behavior of the teacher.
(Language) Educator Challenge: What decisions have you had to make during a class that deviated from the syllabus? Formulate your answer in terms of forms of evidence: content, style of the learner, and/or your own behavior. Provide a rationale as to why you had to make these decisions.