Reinvent the Wheel? NO WAY!

I have reveled on the wonders of accessing valuable materials to make the teachers' life easier, more professional and structured. While some teacher prefer to work on creating whole new units, the reality remains that using already made materials, and modifying it as the term goes proves to be an effective and flexible style of planning to cater for all the learners.

By going through a focus set text for each particular Key Learning Area, structure and essential content can be delivered throughout the term. The foundations has been developed by a team of professional educational instructors who have identified appropriate sequences of learning for a particular area.

Things to look out for in selecting a text book to work from include the following:
-Links to Outcomes and Whole school curriculum plans
-Relevance to share with other teachers
-A varied collection of skills, competencies and higher order thinking skills.
-Interesting and engaging themes.
-Quality Lessons and activities.
-Try not to have too many books to refer to.
-Use a book and make yourself familiar with it.
-Design or make effective use of assessment tools within the resource that tie in to report cards.

However, it is most important that the teacher does not rely completely on the text book chosen, but use it as a skeleton and framework to keep record keeping in sync. The added benefit of progressing through developmental sequences of learning makes for a class who are building on prior knowledge and gain a cohesive tie between the terms work.

The teacher is free to modify, change or develop whole new lessons that cater for the needs of the demographics of the learners at any point in the learning journey. If the class is not grasping a concept, then it is valuable to spend more time on base content before following textbooks exactly.

Ultimately, Assessment, management, planning and security in covering essential knowledge is delivered through using a quality and robust textbook.