Abstract
Lesson planning is both an important and demanding task—especially as part of teacher training. This paper presents the requirements for a lesson planning system and evaluates existing systems regarding these requirements. One major drawback of existing software tools is that most are limited to a text- or form-based representation of the lesson designs. In this article, a new approach with a graphical, time-based representation with (automatic) analyses methods is proposed and the system architecture and domain model are described in detail. The approach is implemented in an interactive, web-based prototype called PLATON, which additionally supports the management of lessons in units as well as the modelling of teacher and student-generated resources. The prototype was evaluated in a study with 61 prospective teachers (bachelor’s and master’s preservice teachers as well as teacher trainees in post-university teacher training) in Berlin, Germany, with a focus on usability. The results show that this approach proofed usable for lesson planning and offers positive effects for the perception of time and self-reflection.
Highlights
Teaching is a complex and cognitively demanding process [1,2]
The approach presented in this paper addresses the research gap of missing computer-aided graphical, time-based planning based on a timeline metaphor, specification of extensible structures, explicit modeling of anticipated solutions and expectations on materials created by students, connecting individual lessons of a unit, especially by explicitly modeling of transitions between two lessons, and provision of different views as well as support functions to reflect on the planning
It is noteworthy that PLATON was seen by prospective teachers in the post-university training as suitable for learning lesson planning at a university, but by master’s students as suitable for the post-university training
Summary
Teaching is a complex and cognitively demanding process [1,2]. At the same time, it is a very creative task [3,4]. A lesson needs to be carefully prepared in order to achieve an effective, targeted instruction [5,6,7]. This is the case for prospective teachers [4,8]. Many aspects such as methods, subject content, standards, and the characteristics of the learner group have to be taken into account and reasonably compiled—often at the same time. Developing lesson plans is presumably the prevalent form of lesson preparation and is often required in teacher education programs [4,8]. The planning process should help with reflecting the design, weighting options and establishing self-confidence for the actual implementation of the lesson [8]
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