PLUS - PLANNING LESSONS USING SIMULATIONS 

Rebecca Brent, East Carolina University 
Dee Anna Willis, University of Houston

PLUS 2.14 is a tutorial/simulation that aids teacher 
education students in learning how to plan a direct 
instruction model lesson.  It was designed to be used as an 
adjunct to classroom instruction and, because it can be 
packaged on one high density disk, students may be given a 
copy to use at their convenience, either at home or in a lab 
setting.

PLUS was designed following the direct model, derived from 
Hunter, that is used for teacher evaluation in both North 
Carolina and Texas.  The terminology may be different, i.e., 
NC's STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES becomes PURPOSE in Texas, 
but the general outline remains the same.  The steps 
include:  Focus/Review, Statement of Objectives, Teacher 
Input, Guided Practice, Independent Practice, and 
Closure/Summary.  Also, included are sections on evaluation 
and choice of materials.

Students are asked to make decisions related to developing 
a lesson plan for a third grade language arts lesson on 
writing a haiku.  After each decision they are given 
feedback on the viability of their choice.  At stages in the 
process students are given a CLASSROOM MOMENT.  These 
are based on the experiences the authors have had or 
observed in the classroom and provide a "reality check", i.e., 
children responding in an unexpected manner.  Students are 
then asked to make decisions on the best course of action at 
this point.  Again, they are given feedback on the 
appropriateness of their choices.

The authors have used PLUS in several different classes and 
in several different ways.  In every case we have taught a 
lesson on direct instruction before we gave students the 
simulation.  Sometimes we've had students go through PLUS 
during regular class time; sometimes, outside of class 
time; however, in all cases we have included debriefing the 
students after they have been through the simulation.  
Sometimes we've had students go through PLUS in pairs, 
sometimes alone.  The discussion that occurs when working 
in pairs is often beneficial.  

While we have used and, hopefully, improved PLUS a number 
of times, we welcome any suggestions other users might 
have.  Please send e-mail to Dee Anna Willis at:     
dwillis@jetson.uh.edu 

or to Rebecca Brent at: rbrent@nando.net

The file PLUS 2.14 is designed to run on a color Macintosh 
running System 7 or better.  If you see an error message 
saying that there is not enough memory to run the program, 
PLUS should still run.  Just press return to continue.
..
.