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Assessing online lesson plans.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

As information technology (IT) increasingly enters into classroom instruction, study of classroom IT becomes imperative. To assess one form of classroom IT, the use of online lesson plans, two focus groups were conducted with public school teachers in the Washington D.C. area. Participants discussed professional difficulties including time constraints and the difficulty in reaching different 'tiers' of classroom learners. Instead of 'step-by-step' lesson plans, participants stated their preferences for discrete online materials to develop their classroom discussions.

Introduction

As the number of schools connected to information technology (IT) resources increases, study of classroom IT is imperative. How teachers use the Internet, what sorts of resources they took for and, perhaps, most important, what barriers prevent them from using certain materials are key foci deserving inquiry. One particular form of classroom IT, the use online lesson plans, will be addressed herein. This research is framed by a need to understand how online lesson plans fit into classroom discussion development and it asks: how do the professional constraints confronting educators affect their use of online lesson plans? As teachers have the ability to access a wealth of information about every possible subject through the Internet, numerous digital educational service providers have started to emerge. This article will assess how a provider of electronic lesson plans in the Washington D.C. area has fared in this emergent service system. To measure the effectiveness of the organization's lesson plan services, two focus groups composed of elementary, middle school and high school teachers from a suburban school system in the Washington, D. C. area were conducted. Group participants in this study discussed the difficulties they experienced in fulfilling their teaching objectives and how the use of online lesson plans did, or did not, fit into their pedagogical routines.

Analysis of the discussions indicated deficiencies in the lesson plans offered by the D.C.-based organization that are generalizeable to other organizations offering similar services and comparable types of lesson plan products. Online lesson plans may range from broad guidelines for teaching particular topics to detailed step-by-step instructions for the educator to follow. The lesson plans offered by the D.C.-based organization can be better characterized as the step-by-step variety. The discussions revealed that little relevant district and state curricula material existed in the lesson plans being considered. The participants also expressed a need for flexible resources to reach the several 'tiers' of learners that the lesson plans did not offer. Though the participants did express positive feelings about specific multimedia elements contained in the lesson plans, there were strong reservations concerning the ability to use these plans 'off-the-shelf' that arises from the time required to adjust the plans to curriculum appropriate forms. The discussions concluded with an emphasis on the desirability of discrete Internet materials such as digital audio files, images or articles. Such materials held promise for the participants as they could...

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