Clark Deveza

Dr. Jefrey Spanogle

Instructional Alignment 1

February-March, 2017

Psychology of Making Lesson Plans

Lesson plans are there to guide teachers in the things they teach in their classroom. In

making lesson plans, considerations have to be made. First, teachers must realize that students

have different kinds of intelligences. There are people who are mathematically smart. These

types of students can just ace their math grades without giving so much effort. Some students, on

the other hand, are fluent in speaking and learning multiple languages. This is called linguistic

intelligence. Some students are naturally gifted with athletic ability these people usually make it

through varsity basketball try outs. In the classroom, teachers may have noticed students who

seems to be friends with everyone. These type students are gifted with social intelligence.

Though there are many types of intelligences, these are a few that I emphasized. In knowing this

fact, teachers must consider this factor when they make lesson plans. A lesson plan must be

developed that would suit these varying student intelligences. The goal is to ensure the learning

of the students and not just make a lesson plan for the sake of it. Secondly, a lesson plan must be

assessive. Basic examples are fill in the blanks, matching type or definition, and group

discussions. Assessment is a way of gauging a student's, learning where he is good at or where

he needs to improve. Through assessment, teachers will be able to help their students better.

I realized that making lesson plans is not a walk in the park with a lot of considerations to

be made. In the future, I will be given the opportunity to teach students who are wired

differently. My obligation is to make sure they learn well in my class. I can accomplish

that through making a versatile lesson plan for them. I plan to make this king of lesson plan

which could be used to address almost all kinds of student intelligences. The advantage of this

king of lesson plan is that I could use it in a long term basis. Another thing I reflected upon is a

versatile lesson plan will train students to work with each other as a team, helping anyone who is

in need. Assessive material is another feature that I would like to add in my lesson plan. I want

to make sure my students will be able to pass my midterms and final exams. A good way to

prepare them for these exams is through giving them group quizzes that would consists of 30%

of their grades. I want to teach my students the importance of working together as a community

and build friendships. Group work helps students to engage the lesson with each other. Finally,

my midterms and final exams will have content that consists of questions that are outside the

box.

Students Perceptions of Teaching Quality, Methods of Assessment, and

Satisfaction (Article 2)

Smimou and Dahls article tackles the idea of students being satisfied with the quality of learning

they receive at school or in the university. North American universities use many ways of

pedagogy so that they could satisfy and produce excellent competent graduates in various

vocations. Another thing these universities considered is the fact that they mandated all their

new and seasoned educators to update or find new material. Secondly, they must find fresh

strategies for teaching to be used in activities especially in the classroom. (Smimou and Dahl

p.22). Universities in Canada and America want their students to be satisfied with their
education. This is the main reason why they are constantly improving their approaches to

teaching.

The only way that a teacher can satisfy his or her students is through

assessment. In the educational aspect, it is evaluating a students knowledge and competency.

There are three ways to assess students. The instructor, student-peer, and self- assessments.

( Smimou and Dahl p. 22). First, the instructor makes the evaluation by grading or assessing the

work done by his or her students. Secondly, the student-peer evaluation. Student-peer evaluation

benefits students to give feedback to each other for them to obtain improvement. The third way

of assessing students is through the method of self-evaluation, a method of evaluating ones self.

Now this article focuses on students academic satisfaction through these

three ways of assessment. Smimou and Dahl did surveys at universities in east and

west of Canada. They found interesting and surprising results of how students define

academic satisfaction through the 3 ways of assessment stated earlier. Smimou and Dahl

presents a graph of what kind of assessment completely satisfies students. The first kind of

assessment that least gave satisfaction to students was self-evaluation. Most students did not

find this kind of evaluation useful or necessary. The second not so preferred kind of evaluation

by students is through the student-peer evaluation conducted by students together. Some

students from the East disapprove of this. The last one that gave great academic satisfaction to

students was the instructor assessment. Students find more confidence when professors grade

and give them feedback for their work. It gives them confidence in the areas where they need to

improve. (Smimou and Dahl p.27).

Student satisfaction is one factor that makes them successful in there

future vocations. I agree with the viewpoint of the authors in this article that quality in teaching,
method, and assessment must satisfy students academically. The best way to accomplish that is

through assessment. I am in agreement with the claim of instructors making the best

satisfactory learning through their honest feedbacks. An instructor or a professors assessment

does improve and make better students.

In conclusion, I see a very good connection with myself and this article.

When my professor told us to evaluate each other, my classmates, regarding our articles. I gave

my classmates fine or good grades depending on the person I assessed and they all gave me an A

surprisingly. It was a different story though when Dr. Spanogle laid his hands on my article. I

thought I would get the same feedback from him like my peers but instead, I only got a not so

good grade from him. He commented in the evaluation that I should make connections in my

conclusion. Through his feedback, I am now confident of what I should do in order to improve in

his next assignments.

Reference:
 Smimou, K., & Dahl, D. W. (2012). On the Relationship Between
Students Perceptions of Teaching Quality, Methods of Assessment, and
Satisfaction. Journal of Education for Business, 87(1), 22-35.