Session 8. Lesson Adaptations
Mini-Lessons
When teaching a learner driver the skills to, not only pass their driving test but to also go on to enjoy a life time of safe driving, we use the ‘bite sized approach’. This allows both the student driver to better understand what is asked of them, process what they need to do to achieve the desired result and offers regular opportunities for success.
You may have already experienced bite sized learning or ‘mini lessons’ during this syllabus – an obvious example would be the ‘Watching the learner’ practical in car session, which is broken down into small ‘easy’ steps.
It is important to recognise that their learner drivers will learn better when presented with ‘bite size’ learning – one way to do this is to break subjects down into ‘mini-lessons’ each covering a specific part of the subject being learned.
Mini Lesson examples
This brief explanation can form the basis of discussion during the online workshop and in car training sessions.
Every lesson topic includes a group of sub-topics.
For example turning left would include both ‘approaching’ and ‘emerging’. Ideally these would be taught as:
1. Approaching comprising of:
• Intro
• Explanation and/or demonstration
• Goal setting
• Two or three practise turns (more if it is possible to devise an appropriate route without other junctions).
• De-brief – including statement of what happens next (job-share)
This might take around 10/15 minutes
2. Emerging comprising of)
• Intro (carrying on from above)
• Explanation and/or demonstration
• Goal setting
• Two or three practise emerges (route could now include left approaching).
• De-brief – including statement of what happens next (job-share)
Again, this might take around 10/15 minutes.
In a larger lesson context the left turns above could be part of a left turns lesson with the remainder of the time taken up with the drive out at the start, drive back at the end and further 15 practise session, or alternatively, the next mini-lesson might be approaching right. Depending on the area the next mini lesson might be emerging left on a slight uphill slope… So the first rule of mini lessons, teach one aspect of a subject at a time.
Another example for a more advanced learner might be pedestrian crossings. Although related and sharing lots of common factors, each crossing type is a separate subject.
Here the mini lessons might be up to 25 minutes long on each of the following:
• Zebra crossings
• Pelican crossings
• Puffin crossings
• Toucan crossings
• Tiger crossings
• Crossings at traffic lights
Lesson Adaptations
Mini lessons and learning in 'bite sized' chunks is also an integral part or lesson adaptations. Here you may need to recap previously covered subjects to 'fine tune' a specific aspect of driving to achieve a learning goal. Or, use the mini lessons to focus on an area of weakness that you recognise would cause problems during a planned lesson. For example, your student driver may have a tendency to stall under pressure and your lesson plan was to start working on larger, busier roundabouts. The mere thought of working in a more pressurised environment may bring on stalling. This would tell you as the instructor that this is something they should work on first, therefore you would introduce a mini lesson specific to the learner drivers needs and causes of error, therefore enabling and supporting them to reach their goal of successfully navigating busy roundabouts.
Exercise:
Think about a time, preferably unrelated to driving, that you have taught someone something quite complicated at first glance but broke it down into small 'bite sized' chunks of learning to help them achieve the goal of completing the task independently. For example: My son loves omelettes for breakfast and so it became customary for me to feed him omelettes on Sunday mornings for breakfast. Each Sunday we made omelettes together and from breaking the eggs and whisking them over the weeks my son was shown and practiced the next stage. After a few weeks he could make his own omelette. This was when he was 12 years old, at the point of writing this he is now 21. He has mastered making omelettes, what he hasn't quite grasped it tidying up!!!
Lesson Adaptations Workshop TBC
