The life of a teacher in an educational career is full of wonders. The time comes when you have to teach a course to your students that you are not aware of or have less experience with. You can come across a method that is outside of your formal training, a topic outside your knowledge, or content that is different from what you are usually used to teaching. You must plan a course.
Knowing how to design a course will give support, but you need more preparation to deal with an unexpected situation. There can be several reasons you need to plan a course you are unprepared to teach. Here are a few methods to make that mission possible!
11 tips to plan a course you are unprepared to teach
Gather more input about the course
Classroom teaching is always fun but full of responsibility for a teacher. When you are on the verge of teaching an unknown lesson, it is natural that you will feel nervous. Inquiry-based learning is always the first step to follow for an unknown subject. Check out the institutional catalog to learn more about the course through the course description and objectives. Also, find out if there is any pre-requisite for the course listed in the catalog.
Create course goal
When a teacher is teaching his subject, it is pretty easy to take classes. But when an unexpected course comes on the way, proper syllabus knowledge is essential. So follow the syllabus and how it was structured, assignments, exam papers, and course pacing. You can also review the textbooks, research papers, or websites to know how to build a course curriculum.
Once you know the syllabus, share your course objective and plan with your efficient and experienced colleagues. They will surely appreciate your collegiality and offer more information regarding the subject.
Prepare more than one topic before starting the class.
Meaningful class preparation is adequate whether you know the subject or it is unknown to you. When you get a grip on the subject, prepare more than one topic for a few classes and make each topic short but impressive. It would benefit if you also thought about what the students will gain from you regarding the subject after each class.
Give a mini-lecture
Give a small lecture about the context if any student cannot understand. If a student genuinely does not understand the subject of your teaching style, it is your responsibility to make it easy and understandable.
Also, consider using class presentations by the students, which will be meaningful for you to get a more enhanced view of the unknown subject. It will also be easy for the students to understand the topic’s core.
Niche your topic
While making a course, it is a common mistake for the teachers if the subject is unknown to prepare more information than needed. Over-preparation will force one to take more time, lecture too much, rush the course, and teach many things in a single class. Therefore, it is essential to niche your subject and make different content for each class to avoid such situations.
Start with the daily course schedule.
After selecting a single niche, it becomes easy to plan the daily course. Keeping each topic short and straightforward will attract more students, and they will listen more carefully to the teacher. In addition, due to the daily course planning schedule, there will be time to ask questions and provide feedback.
Think and draft assignments
Just like making a schedule or daily planner, you can also make a word document of the list of topics and assignments related to it. Count the semester breaks and complete several projects according to that. Get the concept course planning in teaching according to the syllabus and brief your idea, or take a look at the old assignments available regarding the unknown subject.
Be flexible and responsive.
If your students give a glazed look or nobody has any questions while you teach the unprepared subject, then you will need your plan B. These are the indicators that you cannot pull out the lesson according to your schedule. You can adjust the situation by popping up some quiz questions or giving a practical example of the subject you are teaching related to the student’s current interest. If you maintain subtle flexibility in the classroom, you can understand the needs of the classroom, maintain control and take the lead.
Inform students before making any changes
When you know the students and their needs, you can plan your unprepared lessons more efficiently. At the same time, you can change the course schedule and help yourself become more accustomed to the course plan example, the new subject, and lead the students to reach their goal of learning the subject matter properly.
Find where to go for help if needed.
There are many examples of teaching around you, so you will need to know one or two proficient people in the new subject. Teaching and learning are co-related, and teachers are not exceptional. You should share if anyone is there to talk over the things that are not going well in the classroom about the new or unprepared subject. Talking about teaching can lead to new ways and positive ideas.
To Sum Up
Online or coaching classes always have much more difficulty expressing themselves than offline classrooms. But you can trust a platform like Classplus, which allows exploring your teaching skills and conceptual learning activities and sharing your problems to get resolved in no time. Get your own personalized app with Classplus and start your journey.
