Reflection #4: Introduction

        Every training institution has its own favorite lesson form, catch phrases, and buzz words.  Nevertheless, no matter what the form of the plan, one must deal with the same basic elements.  Therefore,  use the model with which you have been dealing in your methods classes. If you are not committed to one particular template for a lesson plan at this point, what follows will present a fairly straightforward, generic lesson plan form. Although it is devoid of the buzz words so frequently found in “educationese” documents, you will find that all of the points considered in good lesson plans are present. Once you have done all of the necessary pre-planning and answering all of those pre-planning questions, you will be ready to put your lesson in order, and this, like many other social processes, starts with an introduction.

        Regardless of difference in details, all good lesson plans require some way of bringing the students from their own disparate worlds into the academic world of the lesson you are about to present. The primary goal of your introduction ought to be to get your students into your world with you.  Some of your students may have come from already horrendous experiences this day.  Others may have spent time being reinforced in their belief that nothing is as important as their whim of the moment.  Others may be pondering some problem which seems to them (and sometimes is) far weightier than anything you care to do in your classroom.  Obviously, before you can really serve the students your intellectual piece de resistance, you have to get them to accept the invitation to the banquet...and that is precisely what you are about when you plan your introduction.

        The introduction should properly do several things:   

·       It should pique the students’ interest, giving them some reason to accept your invitation to learn.

·       It should supply either explicitly or implicitly some motivation to the students.

·       It really ought to make perfectly clear to the students the place you want the students to arrive by the end of the lesson.

                                   At the risk of being accused of scrambling metaphor, consider for moment that that you are taking a trip on a cross-country bus.  As a passenger, you have a right to know where the bus is going. If Cincinnati is the destination, you ought to know that. In the same way, students in your class should know the expected outcome of the class.) Therefore, you need to tell them in your introduction. This concept is rather risky to the teacher who likes to "wing it."  It just won't do to announce Cincinnati as the destination and then to wind up in Walla Walla, Washington.  Do that often, and students might begin to grumble. You owe it to your students to tell them where they are heading.  They might even enjoy the trip and help you navigate.

Conclusion: Well, that's quite a load to heap on any modest introduction.  Succinctly put, it must capture the students' interest; it must provide a way into the lesson for the day; it must motivate the students to want to learn, and finally, it must let the students know where the lesson is headed.