Reading7-2-2




	ESE502 : The Class : Discipline : Content : Reading7-2-2

Process/Product Lesson Plan

Process education

Process education has been separated into seven building skills for the purposes of this presentation. The most vital process and relationship content areas and skills have been subsumed into manageable and distinct areas of focus. This next representation of building blocks summarizes these seven process and relationship content areas at the four levels of development. The seven categories have been named:

becoming
communications
cooperation
leadership
learning behaviors
social responsibility
self control, respect and esteem

These seven areas have been developed in some detail, and are represented as a series of practices and abilities that are developmental and incremental. The process skills are not taught as a separate set of competencies that take up new curriculum time, but instead are integrated into thematic units that are already being taught or as part of the substance of a lesson in math, English, science, etc.

Steps for Integrating Process

The major changes between current practice and suggested practice would be:

lessons would be planned and executed combining specific content and specific process skills
process would be systematized and taught using goals and objective.
the student learning of the process skills would be tied to appropriate evaluation.
the process portion of the curriculum would be reported to parents and be a requisite portion of the school's scope and sequence.
classroom, group and individualized goals would be used to facilitate the teaching of process proficiencies.

Once process skills are incorporated into a large number of teaching settings it will be possible to assess which developmental progression will be most beneficial and which will work well for classrooms at differing grade levels. It will also become easier to see ways in which teachers have combined skills and concepts most effectively and creatively with specific subject matter. It may also become clear that some of these process skills, such as learning to be a learner, acquiring the skills for decision making, for leadership, for self control, are continuous elements.

We frequently believed that essential learning behaviors and skills were being acquired systematically. Unfortunately much have been left to chance, presented in a cursory fashion, not recognized as valuable by some youngsters. For some students, there are many more missing skills than we expected.

The global overview or perspective of implementing a process / product curriculum that focuses on the teaching and learning relationships has been suggested. It requires the work of the entire learning community if implementation is to be complete and consistent. If, however, a teacher becomes interested in trying the ideas on a smaller more personal scale - implementation in one classroom - there are guides and steps that would allow this to occur. In those schools where this has been effected on a classroom by classroom basis, certain situational arrangements proved to be important.

Those other educators in the school with whom the teacher works need to be aware of the process curriculum.
Parents need to be told, usually by letter, that the students will be involved in a proactive classroom setting and that their child will be expected to take responsibility for learning, and then parents need to be encouraged to participate and stay abreast and involved with progress.
Grading philosophy needs to be altered at least to the extent that the students are involved in monitoring their own progress and the emphasis on mastery of skills and competencies becomes more important than competitive ranking.
Achievement tests can be given and students can be expected to out-perform those of equal ability who are not involved in process education, but there needs to be a clarification that the achievement tests are not giving a valid, reliable or responsive measure of student achievement, teacher expertise or true educational competencies.

Utilizing these steps, the teacher can proceed to initiate classroom implementation.

The following models provide a developmental sequence for the seven areas of process education. These charts have been organized to include a cluster of related skills and concepts. They are also meant to be developmental and "catch" a typical student's quest for initiating and working energetically toward acquisition of the skills as a set of personal abilities at the approximate grade levels listed. The charting is neither inclusive nor exhaustive. Instead, it is a beginning point to spark excitement and generate a more thorough scope and sequence in each set of skills. These can be adapted for each classroom and district setting.

Teaching a Specific Skill

The presentation of this material has been proceeding from the introduction of the overarching or global ideas or constructs involved in process education to provision of a model for the introduction of one specific skill. This next section shows an example of targeting and teaching a single element of the process curriculum as part of one discrete lesson. At present most teachers works out lesson plans to meet objectives that are content based. In implementing the process portion of the curriculum, the teacher establishes specific process objectives in conjunction with specific content. In this way there is a melding of the two areas in a more specified manner.
These are possible examples:

Product Process

Eating a balanced and nutritious meal
Artifacts found in archaeological digs for a certain culture

Behaviors that would make it more pleasant for others to share the meal
Accepted methods used to retrieve artifacts without spoiling future digs

Lesson Plans

The multi-dimensional lesson plan is a natural extension of current lesson planning practices. It has been divided into three different steps to facilitate learning the process / product lessson planning idea. The first section of the plan is called the product portion. It is typical of current teacher planning. It may identify goal goal or objective, materials and procedures. It is shown as the first page.

The second section of the plan is called the process portion. With experience teachers learn to think through the processes necessary to present the product of a lesson. Lessons that don't go well, hit snags, fall flat, frequently are process failures. By integrating process into the natural flow of each subject the teacher gains insights into this crucial form of planning and increases the percentage of effective lessons. The process porttion of the lesson is a natural setting for teaching and enhancing interpersonal relationships, social skills and learning behaviors. The process portion of the plan also addresses objectives and procedures.

Evaluation and assessment in lesson planning is recommended and taught in effective teacher programs. It is frequently omitted in practice. It can be a natural extension of the first two steps in the plan (process and product learning). It also provides focus for the teacher and students.

The evalutaion portion of the lesson plan is presented as the third page. Note that both product and process are evaluated. By evaluating the affective portion of the lesson we afford it value. By quantifying and measuring process skills we give the student a clear message of the importance of life skills and learning processess. If a student self monitoring procedure is also included as part of student responsibility that message becomes even more definite.

The last portion of the lessson planning is an exciting yet simple concept, the Student Monitoring Sheet. Asking students to become actively involved in monitoring concepts and skills motivates students to practice and solidify learning. It gives students a sense of ownership. It provides a natural review of materials. It also establishes documentation of the affective portion of teaching and learning.

This is just a brief example of one format for a student monitoring sheet. Students enjoy self monitoring and can keep these records in a sheet. Students enjoy self monitoring sheet to fit the weekly curriculum or their own personalized course of study. Another way of facilitating self monitoring is to have students or an aide record them on a computer spread sheet. The oppourtunity for computer assisted record keeping and data collection increases the potential for individualization and self monitoring.

The process-product lessson plan format facilitates provision of process education with very little change in the cirriculum. It naturally involves the student as self-responsible partner in the educational areana. The monitoring segment of the lesson plan provides reporting of student progress, hard copy documentation which becomes available immediately, allows process to be included as part of the reporting system to students and parents and naturally involves students in taking personal responsiblity for learning and evaluating personal progress.

Figure: Teaching relationship skills may provide students with new perspectives and better options

Engage!

If blending process and product is such a good idea, why didn't we do it before? This is an exciting part of the concept. We have been doing it, and in some cases we have been doing it very well. We have not been getting credit for teaching process and have not given students, past or present, name recognition of its presence or an understanding of its vital place in their lives. In fact many times students have seen it as a "by the way" outcome and not given education full credit for the impact it has had in their lives.

In addition, we have not been actively providing training or guidance in areas of process or relationship to educators. We have not been testing for its presence in the curriculum, so we have not been accurately reporting gains. Since it was not tested, many educators discounted or failed to recognize the inherent value. Nevertheless, relationship and process education have existed to some extent in every classroom.

Where we begin

We begin by recognizing and naming the existence and importance of process and relationship in education and in so doing, take ownership for what we have been doing and achieving in the past. Next we tackle the definition of what process and relationship can mean in education and how and when we will be teaching the concepts. It is crucial to establish methods for recognizing, defining, measuring and reporting process in education so others can value it as well. As we place emphasis on process and relationship it will be important to look for ways to refine the concept more fully for ourselves, to see the process as a process, a flux rather than an outcome, a way of becoming rather than a final destination. A set of beginning definitions of process education might be:

The something inside that happens so that 2 + 2 = 4 is more than a rote statement
A pyramid of skills, procedures, drills that "ferments", then bubbles up as ideas, insights, connections, thinking
Structured situations that free themselves, because of the electricity of thinking and take on the "Gestalt" sense of being more than the sum of the parts or participants
A door that somehow opens so that education goes from being a teacher directed, teacher instigated set of exercises to a head-long rush into taking responsibility for thinking, for knowing, for questioning and questing
Perhaps it is the calling, naming and knowing of personal ownership for education

A starting place for defining relationship might be:

Building an ability to see, pay attention to, and become personally involved in the perspectives of others
Learning the skills to work in concert with others to accomplish a goal
Becoming fully human by melding personal strengths and mission with an optimal group outcome
Shifting in and out of personal need to develop outcomes that elevate all participants
Acquiring and utilizing skills for social interaction that add a positive dimension to any cooperative situation

References      Brown, D.S. (1988).Twelve middle-school teachers' planning. Elementary School Journal, 89, 69-88.
     Bruner, J. (1962). The process of education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
     Flanders, N. (1970). Analyzing teacher behavior. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
     Galloway, C. (1970). Teaching as communicating: Nonverbal language in the classroom. Washington, D.C. National Education Bulletin No. 29.
     Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
     Guilford, J.P. (1988). Some changes in the Structure of Intellect model. Educational and Psychological Measurements, 48, 1-4.
     Johnson, D.W. & Johnson, R. T. (1987). Learning together and alone (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
     Maslow, H. (1971). The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Viking Press.
     Rich, D. (1988). Megaskills. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
     Slavin, R.E. (1991). Synthesis of research on cooperative learning. Educational Leadership, 48(5), 71-82.

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E-mail J'Anne Ellsworth at Janne.Ellsworth@nau.edu