A list of activities does not a lesson plan make

Today was one of those AHA! days for me.  The ideas seemed so obvious, and yet they had not occurred to me before.  There have been so many days over the last four years of teaching Sunday School where I wondered what the kids had learned in the short 55 minutes they spent with me.  I had written a lesson plan, I read all of the material, I tried to provide several opportunities for interaction, allowing the children to share their personal connections to the theme for the day.  And yet, when they left, I felt something had been missing.  What had I wanted them to learn?  And there it is, the answer.  I had not set clear, simple expectations of what I wanted them to learn/experience/discover.  My "lesson plan" was written from my point of view, the teacher.  It was simply a list of all of the activities from my perspective.  I was thorough and listed what I would read, all of the materials needed for the crafts, what songs I would sing, what I needed the volunteers to do to ensure smooth transitions between activities, but there were no clear learning objectives for the children.  AHA!

I did have a moment where I wondered if what we were trying to accomplish meshed with the idea of creating objectives that were less task oriented and more geared toward discovery and exploration.  But, there is no conflict.  It is a matter of simplification, breaking the goals down in to singular expectations. describing how the objectives would be assessed, and how to gather evidence that the objectives have been met.  The idea seems so straightforward, so simple.  The execution, well that remains to be seen.