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Why three mini-lessons?
Why three mini-lessons?
I designed Aurora Innovators’ four-day hybrid Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) for people who teach adults. Each participant teaches three ten-minute lessons to a small group of colleagues. When someone else teaches, the rest of the group takes part as learners.
I reserve live time for teaching, observation and feedback. Between the four half-days, instructors revisit their notes, revise a lesson plan and decide what they want peers to watch for. By the third lesson, they can compare what learners did before and after a change.
The four-day workshop
The four-day workshop
Day 1 · Plan one outcome. The group agrees on how to give feedback and keep one another’s reflections confidential. Each instructor chooses a topic from their own discipline and narrows it to something learners can practise and demonstrate in ten minutes.
Day 2 · Teach the first mini-lesson. The instructor names one thing they want peers to observe. After teaching, they reflect first. Peers describe what helped them learn, and the facilitator helps the instructor choose one change to try.
Day 3 · Test a change. In the second mini-lesson, instructors try a different question, activity or way of inviting participation. They ask peers what difference that choice made to their experience as learners.
Day 4 · Decide what to carry forward. Instructors teach their third mini-lesson, look across all three rounds of feedback and identify a change they will try in one of their own courses.
A ten-minute BOPPPS lesson
A ten-minute BOPPPS lesson
Here is one way I would use the BOPPPS planner in a workplace communications class. The goal is to help a colleague revise a sentence of feedback so its recipient knows what to do next.
Bridge-in and objective. I open with the comment “Be clearer.” What could the writer actually revise? By the end of the lesson, each learner will be able to name a specific passage and explain where the meaning became unclear.
Pre-assessment and participatory learning. Learners first mark the point where they lose the thread in a short paragraph. In pairs, they compare what they marked and draft a comment. One possible response is “In sentence two, I couldn’t tell whether ‘they’ meant the students or the instructors.”
Post-assessment and summary. Each learner writes feedback on a fresh passage independently. I check whether the comment identifies the passage and describes the difficulty. To close, learners name one change they will make the next time they review someone’s writing.
From peer feedback to a teaching decision
From peer feedback to a teaching decision
After a mini-lesson, I ask the presenter to speak first. Peers then describe what they did as learners, and the facilitator helps the presenter compare those observations with the intended outcome. The presenter chooses what to keep and what to change.
In the writing example, a peer might say, “We drafted a clear comment together, but I didn’t get to try one on my own.” That gives the instructor a practical revision for the next round. They can shorten the paired discussion and protect the last minute for an individual response. The responses show whether each learner can use the skill.
What participants take back to class
What participants take back to class
Participants leave with three BOPPPS plans, peer observation notes, their own reflections and a professional learning plan. Completion is assessed on a complete/incomplete basis and includes participation in all four sessions, the three teaching rounds, feedback, required reflections and the workshop evaluation.
The question I want each instructor to carry back to class is “What will my students do that will help me tell whether this change worked?” Their answer gives them something to look for in the next lesson they teach.
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