In my last blog post I talked about my journey to a mini lesson format. You may be wondering what the point of a mini lesson is.
The mini lesson serves to help you, the teacher, deliver only the content that is most essential to get the student practicing the skill you just taught.
In the traditional format of a lesson plan I used to believe that I could not finish the lesson until I felt like students had mastered it. This is an unrealistic plan as one lesson is not enough for anyone to master anything.
I also bogged my lessons down with filler activities that I thought would be engaging, but ate up some precious time.
When I started using the mini lesson framework I saw that I talked less and filtered any activities through the lens of, is it essential to the learning?
Each component of the mini lesson has a purpose and there is no need to meander around in any one portion of it, because doing so would mean that your students will get lost and not get what they came for, which are tangible skills and strategies that enable them to successfully navigate the content you are teaching.
So to recap the point and purpose of a mini lesson is to help you give students the strategies and skills they need to successfully navigate the content in an intentional and succinct format.
Stay tuned for our next blog post where we will talk about my list of Do’s and Dont’s when it comes to the mini lesson.
