FACULTY OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

COURSE CODE : MBE 10203

COURSE : EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY IN TVE
ASSIGNMENT 2 : DAILY LESSON PLAN PORTFOLIO

OBJECTIVES

Students will be able to

(i) prepare a lesson plan for delivering direct instruction according to the given
format
(ii) apply the principles from educational psychology to an authentic teaching
activity, demonstrating the ability by giving psychological justifications for chosen
learning objectives, teaching and learning activities including media and materials

ASSIGNMENT 2: DAILY LESSON PLAN PORTFOLIO

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Each student decides on the context for the lesson, e.g., grade level, subject matter,
learning objective, and characteristics of students to be taught (ethnicity, language background,
etc.). Members of in class groups help each other plan the lessons.

2. The lesson must be original. It may not be a lesson copied entirely from someone or
from resource material, such as a web site. Each student creates learning objectives, designs
learning experiences for students, and gets or makes needed teaching materials. Of course,
when planning the lesson students draw on their past experiences and consult available
resources to locate ideas to include in this original lesson being created. But, because an
objective for this assignment is for you to experience the process of creating a lesson, the
lesson should not be wholly copied.

3. During the semester you will study psychological principles that explain how students
learn and why certain ways of teaching are more effective than others. You will draw from this
body of principles to explain why you planned your lesson as you did. This explanation is called
a psychological rationale and is formed by your responding to the set of questions given below.
4. For this assignment you will submit a portfolio composed of a lesson plan, a
psychological rationale and a log/explanation of the processes and changes you went through
to create this lesson. The log may include suggestions and critiques from classmates that you
considered (or why you did not consider) from classmates, origins of ideas, first drafts or plans,
changes and insights into the process.

1|Page
 FACULTY OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
COURSE CODE : MBE 10203
COURSE : EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY IN TVE
ASSIGNMENT 2 : DAILY LESSON PLAN PORTFOLIO

DOCUMENTATION

Lesson plan
Using the Lesson Plan Format given below, prepare a lesson plan that does not exceed two
pages.

Psychological rationale for the lesson

1. The most important part of your portfolio is a psychological rationale for your lesson. A
rationale is an explanation of the reasons for something, in this case the reasons for what
you do in your lesson. Using a psychological perspective, you give reasons that justify the
steps you take in your lesson. Through your explanation you show that what you do in your
lesson is well thought out, purposeful, logical and intended to have a positive effect on
student learning through the deliberate application of psychological principles.

2. When you come to a decision point while planning your lesson, you will decide to do
something a certain way because it will make the lesson more effective; for example, you
are careful that the examples of the concept you want to teach are already familiar to your
students because you want to avoid confusion that will interfere with their new learning
and slow the pace of your presentation. This kind of psychological reasoning used to make
your lesson more effective is an example of a psychological rationale.

3. The emphasis in your psychological rationale should be on logical reasoning with the word
“because” occurring frequently. A common form of a written entry will be the statement of
an action in the lesson followed by a phrase introduced by the conjunction, “because.”
Examples of reasoning in a psychological rationale are as follows:

“Besides allowing them to manipulate the real geometric figures, a reason why I chose
Task X was because third graders have developed adequate finger dexterity to
construct the geometric figures. I made sure the task was well within the range of
physical abilities of third graders because I wanted to avoid failure and frustration
during the construction of the figures. If the task were beyond the physical abilities of
many of the students, I was concerned their attention would be focused more on
learning how to construct the figures than on their geometric characteristics.”

“I used Exercise X because it elicits prior knowledge about carnivores and herbivores
in mammals that, in turn, becomes a context for the new information in the lesson
about carnivores and herbivores in birds. This is an application of the principle of

2|Page
 FACULTY OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
COURSE CODE : MBE 10203
COURSE : EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY IN TVE
ASSIGNMENT 2 : DAILY LESSON PLAN PORTFOLIO

meaningful learning, which states new information is more likely to be retained if it is

learned in the context of existing knowledge.”

“I decided on procedure X because I thought it would keep students engaged, focusing

their attention on my demonstration. They must pay attention to my demonstration of
how to solve this type of problem if they are going to remember how to solve these
problems when we do problems for the probing phase of the lesson. Attention is
necessary for new information to enter the sensory register, which it must do to be
retained in long-term memory. Also, if students are paying attention to the
demonstration, they will not be distracting other students from also attending to the
demonstration. Thus, the engaging demonstration helps manage their attention.”

3. When I read your rationale I want to be able to see that consideration of psychological
principles was crucial in planning the lesson and that your behavior was based on reason
and intention. I do not want to get the impression the lesson was planned, and then to
complete this assignment, you created a rationale to fit the already planned lesson.
Evidence of Backward Planning should be apparent, that is, that you chose a skill or
standard to teach and then developed appropriate experiences to obtain your stated
objective.

4. Your psychological rationale will consist of answers to the questions and statements listed
below and any additional rationale you wish to provide. I’m sure you will engage in
reasoning beyond that covered by the questions listed below. Feel free to share that
reasoning with me.

5. In writing your responses please be careful to include both a description of the action in the
lesson and the psychological rationale supporting the action. The rationale is the most
important part of your response, but I can not judge the soundness of your reasoning unless
I have a brief description of the action in the lesson you are justifying. But keep your
descriptions of actions brief. Giving only a description of actions in the lesson or
unnecessarily padding your answer with description, leaves it unclear to me that you know
why you are doing what you are doing. Do not unnecessarily pad you answer with
descriptions of what you do in the lesson. The focus should be on your reasoning, not your
descriptions.

Questions to answer:

3|Page
 FACULTY OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
COURSE CODE : MBE 10203
COURSE : EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY IN TVE
ASSIGNMENT 2 : DAILY LESSON PLAN PORTFOLIO

1. What techniques were used to create, maintain, or increase motivation to participate in

the lesson? At a minimum address learning goals, praise, intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, and
difficulty level. For each motivation related technique you describe, explain what student
behavior are you trying to evoke and why the target behavior contributes to the achievement
of the learning objective for the lesson.

2. What are at least three things did or had students do that were intended to establish
and maintain memory?

3. Explain at least three steps you took to keep students engaged during your lesson. Why
were these steps important for your lesson?

4. How did you make learning meaningful? Why did you do this?

5. At what points in the lesson did you plan for practice/rehearsal? Why did you do this?

6. How does your lesson accommodate different way of knowing, e.g., verbal, auditory,
tactile/motor, social, individual?

7. Identify and explain at least five ways you adapted your lesson to fit the psychosocial,
physical, and cognitive development of the students?

8. In your lesson are you teaching any concepts? What are they? What principles of
concept teaching are you applying?

9. In your lesson what steps are you taking to increase the probability of transfer of the
learning?

10. Identify and explain at least three ways you maintained group focus during the lesson?
Why is group focus important for the success of a lesson?

11. Identify at least three transitions in your lesson, including how you transitioned from
probes to independent practice in your lesson. Why is the management of transitions
important for the success of your lesson?

4|Page
 FACULTY OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
COURSE CODE : MBE 10203
COURSE : EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY IN TVE
ASSIGNMENT 2 : DAILY LESSON PLAN PORTFOLIO

ASSESSMENT

A-PRESENTATATION

You will present your lesson plan and your psychological rational. You will also share the
difficulties and challenges you faced in preparing your lesson plan. Time given is 10 minutes.
Presentation will be in week 13 and 14.

B-PORTFOLIO

Although the quality of the plans and presentation of the lesson are important parts of this
assignment and you must show they are well planned, because this is a course in educational
psychology and you are a beginning teacher, the psychological rationale is the most important
part of the portfolio and has the greatest influence in determining the grade.
When assessing the portfolio I will apply the following criteria:
1. The portfolio contains each element: lesson plan, psychological rationale, and
planning log.
2. The lesson plan is understandable, original, professional, identifies the grade level
and subject taught, states the learning objective(s), lists materials used,
accommodates learning differences, and describes the relevant steps used in
delivering direct instruction.
3. Criteria for assessing the psychological rationale are:
 Reasoning is sound and clearly explained
 Shows accurate understanding of principles and terminology
 Thoroughness of response to prompts
 Shows psychological principles were crucial to planning
 Descriptions of actions have accompanying rationale. No padding with
description.
4. The planning log should briefly and clearly document the process of creating the
lesson.

Due Dates
Your portfolio is due at the last class meeting.

5|Page