Essential Techniques for Developing Effective Course Materials

Essential Techniques for Developing Effective Course MaterialsFrom DMP Organic Chemistry all the way to Standardized Teaching Assessment, many students find their education suffers as a result of the behavior of teachers and other students. In order to make sure that students know the contents of the text and understand the concepts of the course, it is crucial to provide effective teaching methods and lesson planning. This article describes a few key techniques that can help you plan your next course.Students often think that teachers 'copy' from chemistry texts and that they are not responsible for their own learning. However, this could not be further from the truth. It is important to give students plenty of opportunities to gain experience in reading and comprehending written materials, but there are also some instances when you will want to give them opportunities to demonstrate their understanding through writing.One thing you can do to provide students with opportunities to p ractice their writing skills is to use lesson plans. What does a lesson plan involve? Basically, it involves a schedule of related reading, periodic quizzes, group activities, and an assignment or two. The group activity may include anything from filling out a form on a workbook to writing a research paper.Not every student is a good teacher. If you want to increase your teacher-student ratio, then a lesson plan is an excellent way to do so. Just remember to structure your lessons around several key principles:My own experience in a high school's classroom environment has taught me that it is easier to interact with one another than it is to interact with a large number of different students. The more students you have to interact with, the more difficult it is to keep your interaction fresh and lively. With a good lesson plan, however, you can keep the interaction fresh and lively with lots of small group activities.Teachers, and students, often find themselves dissatisfied with th e amount of time allotted for each lesson. A lesson plan, however, is a flexible template for teachers to use in their lessons. One example of this would be to make it a weekly practice test.I've seen plenty of different approaches to writing lesson plans that include placement of links to the most interesting material in your course content. You might link to sample exams that occur in the course and make sure that students can see what questions are asked on the exam before taking it. A good example of this is through a review quiz. Most students will find a test easier to prepare for if they have a good idea of what's going to be on the test.Of course, one way to increase the rate at which students will know and understand a particular topic is to introduce multiple sources of information structures in a day. Take the two units you have selected for the day and arrange them into a logical sequence. As a result, students will be able to work through the lesson on their own without you having to take the time to prepare an entire lesson.