“The Effective Lesson”

             Lesson is the one of the part of learning process. All of the aspect of the lesson can affect the learning process. The lesson is where education takes place. Lesson also is the key of study or learning, because without lesson, there’s will be no education. There are so many kind of learning process. Every people or every student has differences in learning a lesson. And the teacher also has so many methods or ways to teach their students. But in the other ways, some students usually didn’t understand about the material that the teacher gives to them, they can’t understand the lessons because there are so many factors that affect to learning the lessons, such as the methods of the teacher is not effective and also the aspect is not support the student to learning a lessons. The example of the aspect that can affect the learning process are like the facilities of the school are limited, no motivation from the students, the environment around the learning is not supported to the student to learn a lessons, such as the temperature in the class or bad weather, etc. that’s can affect to the student to learn a lessons. In this chapter, we will learn about the effective lessons, that we as the teacher in the future must know how to make an effective lessons that can make your student can understand the materials and enjoy with the lessons.

What is Direct Instruction?

            Direct instruction is used to describe lessons that the teacher gives information directly to the student, with structuring class time to reach a clearly defined set of objectives as efficiently as possible. This direct instruction is used to teach some information or skill that must be known by all of the student. Direct instruction also is the approach to learning where the teacher gives the direct information to the student. Lesson oriented objectives and organized by the teacher. There are so many part of direct instruction lesson that we must know. Such as State learning objectives and orient the student to the lessons, review prerequisites, present new material, conduct learning probes, provide independent practice, access performance and provide feedback, and provide distributed practice and review. In that part we as the teacher for the first time we must tell the student what they want to learn and what performance will be expected of them. In this case, we must arouse the spirit of the student to make them feels how interesting, important and relevance the lesson for the student. We also have to give the student about new materials, and ask the student to check their understanding about the lessons. Giving independent practice also good for the student, they can explore their ability to find out the new information by themselves.

How is a Direct Instruction Lesson Taught?

            There are so many ways to give the direct lesson like I said before. It’s depend on you as the teacher, which way you use for your lesson to teach to your student. The important think that we must know that we give the direct instruction lesson to make the student can understand about the materials and they can feel enjoy and comfortable with the lesson. There are some way to direct instruction lesson:

1. State Learning Objectives
   The first step in presenting a lesson is planning it in such a way that the reasons for teaching and learning the lesson are clear. Setting out objectives at the beginning of the lesson is an essentials step in providing a framework into which information, instructional information, and learning activities will fit. The procedure that include stating learning objectives such as what the students should know or be able to do after the lesson.
2. Orient Student to the Lesson
   In the beginning of the lesson, the teacher should build the student positive mental or the student readiness in student to get the lessons. There are so many ways also to build the student mental, for the example you can tell to your student to attend in the class on time. To orient the student to the lesson you can also make some humor to make the student more enjoy and comfortable with the lesson, and this is also can make the student gives their focus to the lesson. The main idea of this way is to make the student mental, so the student ready to study, and the student can understand where the lessons is going.
3. Review Prerequisites
   This ways like the rehearsal that we have learn before in the chapter 6. In this way, before the teacher start the new materials or continue the last lesson, the teacher can use this way to make the student remember about the last lessons that the teacher gave before. So the students can remember the lesson, and they also ready to learn the new materials.
4. Present New Material
   In this way, where the teacher wants to teach new materials to the student, the main think that the teacher should do is to prepare the materials that must be organized. The teacher also give the student explanation and the modeling or example about the lesson. And the teacher also must making the student pay attention to the materials that the teacher gave.
5. Conduct Learning Probes
   Learning probes is the ways that the teacher need to know what is the student response about the lesson. This way can make the student and the teacher give their feedback about the lesson. Discussion session and question session is very important to know about the student response about the lesson.
6. Provide Independent Practice
   This way is the way that the teacher can give to the student to make the student more understand about the lesson their learned, and this way also can improve the student intelligence or their ability to explore the lesson that they have got before. This is like the home work or the exercise that the student must do by themselves. Research shows that independent practice should be given as short assignments with clear instruction and no interruptions, and that is should be given only when students can do the assignment. And the teacher also should monitor work, collect it, and include it in assignments.
7. Assess Performance and Provide Feedback
   Every lesson should include an assessment of student mastery of the lesson objectives. The teacher must know about the student understanding for the materials. The teacher might do this assignment informally by asking the student, might use independent work as an assignment, or might give a separate quiz. However, teacher should assess the effectiveness of the lesson and should give the result of the assessment to students as soon as possible.
8. Provide Distributed Practice and Review
   To provide distributed practice, or homework, and review. Information is retained better when practice is spaced out over a period of time. This way given to the student to make the student always remember about the lesson, and making the student known more about knowledge.

What Does Research On Direct Instruction Methods Suggest?

            Research on particular direct instruction methods that shows mostly positive but inconsistent effects on student achievement. Most of researches agree that the main elements of these models are essential minimum skills that all teacher should have. So the researches provides that methods is the essentials methods that all of the teachers must have to making an effective lessons.

Talking about the advantages and limitations of direct instruction, it is clear that direct instruction methods can improve the teaching of certain basic skills, but it is equally clear that much is yet to be learned about how and for what purposes they should be used. So it’s depend on you as the teacher, that must give the student the lesson, and make the student pay attention on that and can understand the materials and also enjoy and comfortable for the lesson. There are so many ways to making the effectiveness lessons, like I have explain before.

How Do Students Learn and Transfer Concepts?

            Students learn concepts through observation and definition. Concepts are taught through examples and none examples, and through the rule, example, rule approach, in which teachers first state a definition and then give the examples, and the finally restate the definition. Teacher should compare the examples and none examples. Students transfer their learning to similar situations and must be taught to transfer concepts to different contexts and real life situation. Material memorized by rote is unlikely to transfer. There are 2 concepts that very important to know, the first is about concepts learning and teaching and the second one is teaching for transfer of learning.

In the concepts learning and teaching in generally the student learned in two ways. Usually they learn about something from the school and from their observation or their experience. The teacher can give the students instances and non-instances of a concepts and later ask them to derive or infer a definition. Or the teacher can also give the student about the definition and ask the student to make an identified examples of that definition.

In the teaching for transfer of learning, the most important thing to know about transfer of learning is that it cannot be assumed. Just because a student has mastered skill or concepts in one setting, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the student will be able to apply this skill or concept to a new setting, even if the setting seems to be very similar. And one important thing also principle of transfer is that the ability to apply knowledge in the new environment depends in part on the variety of environment in which we have learned or practiced the information or skill.

How Are Discussions Used In Instruction?

 Teachers use discussion as part of instruction for many reasons, such as:

1. Subjective and Controversial Topics
   This is the reason why we’re need some discussion, because there are so many interesting question that can improve our response in discussion and we can more understand about the lesson.
   
   
2. Difficult and Novel Concepts
   In addition to subjective and controversial subjects, discussion can clarify topics that do contain single right answer but which involve difficult concepts that force student to see something in a different way.
3. Affective Objectives
   The teacher also can use discussion when affective objectives are of particular importance.
4. Whole Class Discussions
   In whole group discussion, the teacher must plays less dominant role than in the common or regular lesson. Students need an adequate knowledge base before beginning a discussion.
5. Small Group Discussions
   These activities can increase student achievement more than traditional lessons if the students are well prepared to work in small group and if the group task is well organized. Some researchers suggest that small group discussion have greater effects on the students are encouraged to engage in controversy rather than to seek a consensus. . In small group discussion, each group should have a leader and a specific focus.

So there are so many ways that we can use or we can making some methods to make an effective lesson for the students. Not just to make the student understand about the materials, but also making the students feel enjoy and comfortable with the lessons and they can use their ability to explore more about the lesson. It’s the goal of the effective lessons.