Reflection #2: Sequence

        Once you have come to some conclusions about what is important about the material you are teaching, you must come to grips with ideas about when to teach it. (Actually, as time goes by, you will find that both scope [see Reflection I] and sequence [the subject of this set of notes] need to be considered simultaneously.) Nevertheless, until that magic time arrives, sequence is a concept to be considered shortly after determining the "WHAT" to teach.

        If the sequence of ideas is scrambled in your head, it certainly won't be clear to your kids. Simple though it may sound, one of the most basic concepts which will influence the order in which you arrange your material is first things first.  Start with a statement of the learning outcome you desire, asking yourself what you want to see accomplished at the conclusion of the process. Work backwards, asking yourself what must happen to get the student to the point under consideration; then arrange the elements of action sequentially.  

        Closely allied with this aspect of planning sequence is that of taking the students from where they are. Envision pertinent education as being rather like rolling a snowball down a hill.  At first, because the snowball is very small, there is only a little new snow that gathers and sticks, and it is the part that sticks that determines how "educated" one is, not how much snow the ball rolled over. Anyway, to continue the analogy, as time goes by and the snowball rolls, it gets bigger. Amazing!  The bigger the snowball, the more snow that gets packed onto it and the faster it increases its girth! Education is like that.  Facts flung at random do not often stick, nor do they constitute an education.  It is the stuff that sticks that counts.  Therefore, it does no good to strew random facts in the path of those snowballs.  If the snowball isn't already big enough or ready enough, very little will stick.

        Stating this a bit less figuratively, the students must be ready to learn what is there to be learned. If they are not physically or mentally or emotionally ready, it's an exercise of spitting into the wind...you'll just get a very wet face. Therefore, you have to start the students close to where they are able to accept both skills and concepts.  This is the tricky part about teaching...properly "guesstimating" what those kids are ready for.  Not all of them are going to be in the same place, even though the modern classroom tends to put them there. (Wouldn't tutoring one to one be marvelous?)

Conclusion: After you have done what magic hocus-pocus, guessing, and/or following advice you can, arrange the material you teach to follow the two guidelines: first things first and start the students where they are.  Then (back to the big analogy) roll the snowballs over the most snow-filled, wettest territory you can find.