Medical faculty members' attitude on lesson planning Semnan University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Background: Lesson planning has a distinct role in enhancing education quality, as well as maintaining the friendly and dynamic atmosphere of the academic environment and increasing student's initiatives for achieving better educational attainments. Lesson planning is a process for defining the goals, understanding the needs, and specifying available tools and possible limitations. Lesson planning is a written description of this process, which shows the materials, the route, the time, and the place of instructions, as well as a method for evaluating students. Purpose: to identify the attitudes of Semnan University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) on lesson planning. Methods: Fifty-three faculty members of the SUMS participated in this study. A questionnaire was used, which contained 8 demographic questions, and 24 r questions for identification the faculty members' attitude. Questionnaires were distributed among the faculty members in sealed envelopes, without denoting their names. The questionnaires were gathered after being completed. Results were analyzed by calculating the mean, standard deviation, absolute and relative frequencies, and using chi-square and Fischer exact test at the level of 5%. Results: It was shown that 88% of faculty members favoured lesson planning before the beginning of the semester. But they found lesson planning a difficult task, because of their heavy workload. Of the faculty members, 60.4% organized their teaching classes according to a designed lesson plan, and believed that it did affect the quality of their teaching, but 49.1% disagreed with distributing the designed lesson plan among the students. Discussion: Although professor favoured lesson planning and find it necessary to work according to such to plan workload and lack of knowledge are defined as two main obstacles in doing so. It is believed that by decreasing the professor's workload and provision of lesson planning workshops, these problems could be solved. Professors did not favour informing the students a bout the contents of the lesson plan.. But students' awareness of the lesson plan can improve student's viewpoints on the quality of educations. It can also guide the student's activity, motivates the student's as well as produce a dynamic interaction between instructors and their students to pay particular attention to the lesson plan. Considering all these possible benefits further studies is needed to specify the effect of revealing lesson plan for the student. Professors were interested in participating in workshops help for improving lesson planning skills and modern teaching methods. This shows that the need to learn has been formed in faculty members a need which should be answered by the authorities in universities. Key words: CONCEPTS, PROFESSORS, LESSON PLANNING