“If the material is good, you can restyle anything!” said one my instructors in college. Like many teaching artisans in New York City I have often reveled in the joys of reuse or re-purposing materials on the sewing machine in my studio. While I follow or create original patterns like any tailor or seamstress, I think of better ways to structure and reinforce the stitches. A pattern is a lot like lesson objectives in any classroom - you gather your materials and your learning goal is to ultimately put the pieces and concepts together for your learners.

If only gathering the instructional materials and piecing the concepts were that easy! Any teacher knows that planning a lesson or lecture with measurable objectives must be taut like the thread in the sewing machine. If the tension in the bobbin of the sewing machine’s presser foot is not balanced your adjoined materials will be loose and the garment will eventually fall apart.

That said, a teacher needs to be on point by being engaging and make the connections - otherwise the information taught will be lost and the scaffolding of the big ideas will not be reached very much like a sewing machine that is not threaded correctly.

Teaching in my opinion is a lot like art and design. Often, I follow the principles from my art and design education background in my lesson planning. Here is a handful of 5 traits of planning in striving for teacher to student mastery:

• Balance - be certain that you’re in a calm state of mind (or metaphorically your tension levels are balanced) and that you give both respect and rapport to all your students.
• Proportion – be certain the size of your objectives is measurable and reachable within the scale and scope of your learners (a custom fit)
• Rhythm - be sure your pacing is on point and like design fantastic teaching there is movement and repetition
• Emphasis – be sure that your central focus or learning goal is apparent.
• Unity –the relationship between your learning goal and work together to create meaning.

Memorable lessons are when all the pieces all fit together.