My Thinking:  Students continue to express a desire to have classes that are grounded in their daily professional practice.  Since we cannot easily meet as a group and discuss how readings will be translated into practice, I have decided to allow students to work on this transfer/generalization/application issue in this written format.  The act of writing a lesson plan will help students think through the important components of of each theory and how it is to be applied.  However, just being presented with a lesson plan does not communicate to me the depth of understanding that a student has of the work.  Therefore, each lesson plan will be accompanied by an explanatory document.  The explanatory paper I view as the most important part of the assignment.  It is in this narrative that students will explain the reasons for creating the lesson in the manner that they did.  It is important here to understand the purpose of the eplanation.  DO NOT use the narrative to explain how or what.  The lesson plan should convey this information.  Rather, the narrative should explain why.  Write the explanation in a manner that I can understand why you have chosen the objectives you have (objectives in a behavioral lesson will be written differently than in a Piagetian lesson), the interventions, and the assessment.  Explain the timing of events (some theories may have an assessment component prior to the learning).  It is through the narrative that you have the opportunity to demonstrate your reasoning.  It is this reasoning that is of greater concern to me than the steps in the lesson.  It may help to 1) use the language of the theory, b)  work to include specific important constructs, and thirdly- use the narrative as a tool to teach me the theory and how it is applied.

The Task: You will write a lesson plan accompanied by a narrative for each of 6 theories we will cover in this course.  You may find that the lesson plan cannot use the same format for each theorist, as the format implies certain underlying principles.  Since these principles are not the same for all theorists, no single format  (that I have found) works for every one.  Howver, every lesson plan will include some listing of objectives, interventions, and assessment.  They may or may not be in this specific order.  Whatever format you choose, I should have enough information to "run" the lesson with the specified population.

    Each lesson plan assignment will also contain a narrative portion.  Each narrative should explain the connection between each component of the lesson plan and the theoretical basis upon which the lesson is developed.  Your ability to demonstrate this connection is the key to receiving a strong grade on these assignments.  If the narrative does not clearly demonstrate your knowledge, then I will be forced to assume that your knowledge base is lacking or otherwise skewed, and the resultant grade will reflect this.

Completion Hint: I want this course to be professionally useful to everyone in it.  Therefore, I encourage students to develop lesson plans that are useful to them professionally.  The type of lesson, population targeted, etc. should have no impact on the grade.  So feel free to focus on whatever you find beneficial.  As appropriate, use these assignments as a vehicle to pursue other interests (e.g. integrated learning approaches, community service learning).  I suspect that if you extend the effort to make this work professionally meaningful, it will not only help you learn more, but will increase your motivation and help prepare you for next year's class!