Scaffolding effective learning design with pre-service teachers

The Teacher Education Program at Macquarie University is trialling the use of Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) software as a scaffold for lesson design with pre-service teachers. Throughout the process of authoring a sequence, these students are required to think about all aspects of their lessons in detail and the software enables them to experience the lesson themselves via a Preview mode before using it in the classroom. The graphic interface also allows students and their tutors to visualise lessons providing an instant “picture” of the lesson and its content with a clarity not available in traditional written lesson plans. In addition, LAMS creates lessons that are not simply “documentation” but fully operational lessons in a standardised template of activities that can easily be modified for future re-use.