I have a lot of mixed emotions about the TPA Lesson plan format. For the most part, I feel that it is very beneficial information for prospective teachers to think about. It is vital for us as educators to be aware of the needs of our students and to be able to write lesson plans according to those needs. The TPA lesson plan engages the teacher in a personal narrative with their true teaching values. I like the lesson plan because it forces you to focus each individual lesson on the specific students that you will be teaching it to. It takes an ordinary lesson plan to an extraordinary one by simply being able to ask questions and dive into what the big idea or goal is for the students to learn.
A few segments of the TPA lesson plan that I really enjoy and know that I wouldn’t have engaged in without this format is the section on Academic Language, the rationale and the student voice sections. Many times during my teaching or planning portions I use words that are common to me and completely understandable but I often do not realize that my students will most likely not recognize their use or meaning. I didn’t understand that what I was using was academic language. Once I began working with younger children I became more and more aware of my own language and what words I needed to modify or explain if I was going to use them. This practice has helped me greatly in my teaching. I think the Academic Language portion of the TPA helps me establish what life skill or goal I want my students to understand from the lesson. This is often times the portion where I add in words such as advocate that can help students create positive behavior change as well as learn the content. If I can help students learn attributes, skills, and behaviors that will improve their overall well-being that I can feel satisfied as a teacher.
I also enjoyed asking myself the question, Why? Why are you teaching this lesson? Is it truly important? The rationale portion of this lesson plan format helps me establish what is most important about my lesson plan and what activities should stay or go. It the activity does not help to students meet their end goal or see the Big Idea behind the lesson, and then it is not an important activity to include. This has really helped me shape my lessons to be more united and holistic in an overall perspective.
My only begrudges with the TPA lesson plan is the time that is put into creating it. I enjoy the end result but struggle with the time that is required to complete the task. I often get confused with whether or not I am supposed to answer every question from the segments in the TPA format or do I simply need to summarize the questions in a paragraph form? Will I ever look at this lesson plan again and read through a paragraph to find the important info? I am a very visual person and I like my learning to be hands on. For this purpose I like bolded statements, charts, and graphs that help to organize how the lesson will flow and what important aspects need to be covered. If I am going to put time and energy into my lesson planning then I want to be able to use them again. I have to add in some type of table or timeline in my lesson to make it visually useful to me. So my difficulties with the TPA lesson plan come mostly through not knowing exactly what I need to add into it. There is a lot of information that they want covered and I am more than willing to go through every single question but if it is not required then I struggle with the value of it. Everyone does the TPA format differently even though we are all technically required to do it the same. I think I would just enjoy some reassurance of whether or not how I am doing my lesson in TPA format are accurate for the actual assessment that we will be doing.
A few segments of the TPA lesson plan that I really enjoy and know that I wouldn’t have engaged in without this format is the section on Academic Language, the rationale and the student voice sections. Many times during my teaching or planning portions I use words that are common to me and completely understandable but I often do not realize that my students will most likely not recognize their use or meaning. I didn’t understand that what I was using was academic language. Once I began working with younger children I became more and more aware of my own language and what words I needed to modify or explain if I was going to use them. This practice has helped me greatly in my teaching. I think the Academic Language portion of the TPA helps me establish what life skill or goal I want my students to understand from the lesson. This is often times the portion where I add in words such as advocate that can help students create positive behavior change as well as learn the content. If I can help students learn attributes, skills, and behaviors that will improve their overall well-being that I can feel satisfied as a teacher.
I also enjoyed asking myself the question, Why? Why are you teaching this lesson? Is it truly important? The rationale portion of this lesson plan format helps me establish what is most important about my lesson plan and what activities should stay or go. It the activity does not help to students meet their end goal or see the Big Idea behind the lesson, and then it is not an important activity to include. This has really helped me shape my lessons to be more united and holistic in an overall perspective.
My only begrudges with the TPA lesson plan is the time that is put into creating it. I enjoy the end result but struggle with the time that is required to complete the task. I often get confused with whether or not I am supposed to answer every question from the segments in the TPA format or do I simply need to summarize the questions in a paragraph form? Will I ever look at this lesson plan again and read through a paragraph to find the important info? I am a very visual person and I like my learning to be hands on. For this purpose I like bolded statements, charts, and graphs that help to organize how the lesson will flow and what important aspects need to be covered. If I am going to put time and energy into my lesson planning then I want to be able to use them again. I have to add in some type of table or timeline in my lesson to make it visually useful to me. So my difficulties with the TPA lesson plan come mostly through not knowing exactly what I need to add into it. There is a lot of information that they want covered and I am more than willing to go through every single question but if it is not required then I struggle with the value of it. Everyone does the TPA format differently even though we are all technically required to do it the same. I think I would just enjoy some reassurance of whether or not how I am doing my lesson in TPA format are accurate for the actual assessment that we will be doing.
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