How Do I Develop and Use Benchmark Lessons? Krajcik

Nothing good will come out of an unprepared lesson. You have to put thought into developing your lesson and ask yourself questions like what am I teaching, or what are the learning and performance outcomes? Learning performances is another word for objectives, but learning performances is specifically what achievements we expect of the students. Objectives are very vague and are just what they students will know at the end of the lesson. There are four different kinds of knowledge factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive. There are six cognitive processes remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.

"Similarly, you shouldn't perform a benchmark lesson without constructing a lesson plan" (Krajcik). Going into a classroom with 20 or more pairs of beating eyes on you, you must be prepared. Having a prepared lesson in lesson plan format with the correct benchmark is not only expected out of teachers but it is necessary. Having a lesson plan allows you to go back and look at things in order to answer what did I want to get out of this lesson?

When I went through school it is sad to say I remembered things for the test and then forgot them. I was using my factual knowledge. This was because my teachers didn't allow me to use all my knowledge domains and cognitive processes. I was given the information and expected to know the facts for the test. I wasn't asked to implement what I knew or connect it with other things we had learned. I want my students to be able to pull together all their knowledge and remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.