Reflection 1: What is a Lesson Plan

This summer we drove across the country to Pennsylvania with stops in Georgia, Washington D.C, North Carolina, and Tallahassee. Everything was mapped out with instructions, directions, mileage, how much time each leg of the trip would take and how much money we budgeted to spend. Everything was printed out ahead of time thanks to map quest. For the classroom teacher this would be the equivalent of a Lesson Plan, a necessary guide for the instructor in that it tells what to do, in what order to do it, and what procedure to use in teaching the material of a lesson, as per definition.
A well developed lesson plan is much like our family vacation plan. It was painstakingly developed reflecting the interests and needs of the affected group (our family/students), along with our personal philosophy of making learning come to life.
Reading the wealth of information provided through this class, it was interesting to see how all this fit in with my personal philosophy. Apparently, the last education courses that I took at MDCC thirty years ago had a lasting effect on me. I have been raising children for twenty five years now. I just did what came naturally. It was just what I did for my kids. Everyone told me I should be a teacher. Now, I see how all my strategies are written in the pages I have been reading. I had put things into practice and had forgotten where they had come from. I had been influenced by Piaget, Skinner, Maria Montessori and many others.
Reading about the Constructivist Lesson Plan seemed to fit right in with my idea of the brain being a parallel processor and learning engaging the person as a whole. I envision the brain with sensors reaching out and spreading ever wider constantly making new connections that facilitate grasping new concepts and calling on the old to solve new problems. I loved the idea of connecting isolated ideas and information with global concepts and themes. I am always leading my children to call on previous learnings to solve new.
Personally, I had never used a lesson plan and thought of it as rather tedious. After my experience this summer with my road trip, I have been transformed. I see the value to a well thought out Lesson Plan, be it Behavioral, Constructivist or Transpersonal. The ultimate goal of a lesson plan is to reach the students.
I see that I have used methods from across the board. I look forward to the transformations. As with our summer trip, one would be lost without a plan.