A Study of Teacher Planning: Description and a Model of Preactive Decision Making. Research Series No. 18.

One elementary teacher's planning decisions were studied during five months of classroom instruction. Both ethnographic anc information-processing approaches were used to describe distinctive features of the teacher's planning "technology" and to develop two models of teacher,planning. The structural model identifies five levels of planning used by this teacher and describes the goals, cues, form, and effectiveness criteria used at each level. The process model represents decision processes ,differing from the goals-alternatives-choice sequence of the linear planning model. Problem finding, problem formulation, and a design process involving cycles of plan elaboration and mental "trying out" are presented as major planning prbcesses.