Effective Lesson Plan

If you're a relatively new teacher or someone who is thinking about becoming one, you've
probably heard the term and you may even have a vague idea of what it is, however you
may also have misconceptions as well.

A lesson plan is:

-A well thought out document. It takes time to write a good lesson plan and any teacher
who tries to throw something together a few minutes before class is just asking for
trouble.

-A guide, but only a guide. A good lesson plan gives you rough outlines of how a lesson in
your classroom should go. It suggests ways of approaching the problem of teaching
students about a particular subject and allows for enough flexibility to give the teacher
the chance to make up her own mind about what to use and not to use.

-A fairly detailed document. A good lesson plan will also include a lot of details,
including information on possible problems and possible solutions that may come up
during the course of a lesson. It also has step by step instructions to show what to teach
and when.

Someone out there is probably saying to themselves right now, okay, so I get the basics of
what a lesson plan is and isn't, but could you show me the details? Absolutely! In short, a
lesson plan consists of five main parts. These will be explained in more detail in future
articles, but in short they are: "

Aim: The title of your lesson plan, usually in the form of a question, such as "What was
the war of 1812?"

Motivation: Something to get the students excited. It could be a question, for example,
"How would you feel if someone invaded the country and burned down the White House?"

Plan: Step by step instructions to introduce the subject.

Homework or Independent Work: This one is pretty self-explanatory.

Follow up: What will you do in a future lesson to re-enforce the lesson?

1
How Do You Write a Lesson Plan? Writing a lesson plan is both complicated
and easy. It's complicated because there is no one perfect way to write a lesson plan, but
it's also easy because you know yourself and what works for you in a classroom. As we
said in a previous article, a lesson plan has five major points (there are others, as you will
see in a future article, however these are basic core that any lesson plan must have).
Let's look at each one and explain the why and the how of writing them.

Aim: This is usually in the form of a question and is often written as a question. Some
teachers take this to the extreme and write everything in the form of a question. For
example, some teachers will write a lesson plan where they review material for the test
and write as the aim, "How can we achieve high test scores?" While this may be in keeping
with the technical rules of a lesson plan, this is one of those times when a teacher must
be flexible and simply offer a more coherent title. There is nothing wrong with a non-
question title, such as "Test review." One teacher I know likes to write the aim for his
tests as "high test scores. "That said, an aim should ideally be a question. The reason is
curiosity. Seeing a question makes us want to answer it. That's why television shows and
books are so successful. They work by making you ask questions - who killed the maid?
(answer: the butler did it!). Children in a classroom are no different. They need to have a
question to answer in order to get themselves interested. However, that's only the
beginning.

Motivation: This is one the trickiest things for teachers to come up with. You want
something that will grab kids’ attention and get them to think. The motivation could be
anything. It could be a leading question which shows why they should care about the
question in your aim, it could be a demonstration (for example, a science teacher might
show her students what happens when you combine Mentos with Diet Cokey or a math
teacher might show off a cool math trick). This is very much up to you. Find what works
for you and writing your lesson plan will be easy.

Plan: Of all the parts of the lesson plan, this is by far the easiest for teachers to do since
this is exactly what you signed on for - to instruct. Here, you lay out step by step exactly
what you will talk about in your lesson plan. The science teacher might discuss what her
students are actually eating when they chew on a Menots candy and what they're drinking
when they have a can of Diet Coke. The math teacher might show exactly how that cool
math trick is done and why it's got applications for other math problems he wants to
show.

Independent Practice: Independent practice is a tricky part of writing a lesson plan and
one we'll revisit throughout this series. It shouldn't just be a rehash of what the kids
learned in school that day. Instead, it should ideally be something to help them
remember the material and expand on it.

Follow up: This part of the lesson plan is usually fairly short. Basically, it's what you plan
to do next. The science teacher might build on the Diet Coke and Mentos for example and
show what happens to a rusty nail in Coke, asking the students why that is. A math
teacher might show how the previous lesson can be built on to do even more complex
math equation

2
Common Mistakes When Making Lesson Plans
Every new teacher will be faced with the prospect of preparing lesson plans for his or her
classroom. Because of this, there are bound to be things you'll do wrong when writing a
lesson plan. Fear not however. It's easy to spot the mistakes early on and correct them.
Here's are some common mistakes when making lesson plans:

Planning too much. Don't squeeze an entire semesters' worth of work into a single lesson.
Realize that there is a limit to how much you can teach in the 45 minutes you have
available and be prepared to split lessons into several parts if there isn't going to be
enough time to cover it all.

Being too rigid: This section could just as easily be titled, expect the unexpected. In
essence, when you write a lesson plan, you need to leave yourself enough flexibility so
that your students will be able to ask questions as needed and understand things in their
own way. Don't insist that you must follow an exact structure if things don't go that way.
Build flexibility into your lesson plans so that you can deal with the issues that may arise.

Planning too little: Sometimes, you plan a lesson, you go through the whole lesson, look
at your watch and realize you've got an extra 15 minutes left until class is over. Whatever
you do, do not simply announce that this is free time because the lesson is over and the
kids can do what they want. First, your kids will perceive you as unprofessional if you
can't properly plan a lesson and it will make it harder for you to teach a lesson next time.
Second, the next teacher to come into that room will hate you for getting the kids riled
up with so much free time. Instead, plan some extra material you can teach or have the
kids do when the lesson ends. If you don't use it, no problem - it can be incorporated into
a future lesson. However, if you do find you need it, you'll be thanking your lucky stars
that you've got it ready. You might want to check out our "Title: Only 5 Minutes Left
Lessons" for help in these situations.

Planning too far in advance: Some teachers love to plan their entire year and know that
on February 7 they'll be teaching this lesson and on March 16, that lesson will be taught.
While you may have broad strokes planned, understand that each class will progress
individually and in some cases, you may need to go slower or faster to accommodate their
needs. You should also look through the lesson you wrote months ago and make sure it
covers things that came up in class in the last couple of days.

Not planning in advance: There are some teachers who wander into a classroom five
minutes before a lesson and start writing out what they want to talk about while the kids
are getting seated. This is just as bad an idea as planning too far in advance. You need to
walk into a classroom prepared to talk about your lesson, knowing well in advance what
you will cover. Think of yourself like a doctor. If you walked into a doctor's office
expecting him to be prepared to examine you, how would you feel if he first calls his
nurse to ask her to bring him a stethoscope and tongue depressors. "Oh, and by the way
nurse, I need some lollypops for my patient while I get ready." Your students would
expect nothing less from you than you expect from your doctor. Give it to them.

3
What to Consider When Writing a Lesson Plan
What's All the Hype?

Even though there are so many lesson plan resources on the net, we believe that there
can be no substitute for a lesson plan that is created by you, the teacher, that is tailored
to the specific student populations you are serving. This tutorial is meant to assist you in
developing a plan that is designed to meet the needs of your students and that is framed
according to what is considered to be best practices in teaching and learning. It is also
our belief that the infusion of technology in teaching is a necessary element to meeting
the needs of today's 21st Century digital learner.

First Steps

The following should be considered for lesson planning:

1) Know who your students are. Know ability levels; backgrounds; interest levels;
attention spans; ability to work together in groups; prior knowledge and learning
experiences; special needs or accommodations; and learning preferences. This may not
happen as quickly as you would like, but it is important for designing instruction that will
meet the needs of your students. That's key in successful teaching and learning!

2) Know your content. It is important for you to research the subject matter that you will
be teaching. You should also utilize curriculum guides published by the state in which you
teach and the local school district that employs you. It is also a good idea to know the
national standards and state standards that drive curriculum in each subject area that
you are responsible for.

3) Know the materials that are available to help you teach for success. Take and keep an
inventory of the materials and resources that are available to you as a teacher. For
example: technology, software, audio/visuals, teacher mentors, community resources,
equipment, manipulatives, library resources, local guest speakers, volunteers, or any
materials that can assist you in teaching.

Planning for Instruction

1) Content- List the important facts, key concepts, skills, or key vocabulary terms that
you intend to cover. You can also prepare an outline with key learning outcomes.
Remember to refer to your curriculum guides. State and national standards can be found
at: https://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/standards/

2) Goals- Identify the aims or outcomes that you want your students to achieve as a result
of the lesson you plan to teach. Goals are end products and are sometimes broad in
nature. Goals relate directly to the knowledge and skills you identify in part one:
content.

4
3) Objectives- Identify the objectives that you hope your students will achieve in the
tasks that will engage them in the learning process. Objectives are behavioral in nature
and are specific to performance. Objectives tell what you will be observing in student
performance and describe criteria by which you can measure performance against. In
many ways, objectives represent indicators of performance that tell you, the teacher, to
what extent a student is progressing in any given task. Instructional objectives can start
with a "given" that describes a condition that enables your students to perform any given
task. A "given" could be an activity, a specific set of directions, materials needed to
perform a task, an assignment, or anything that sets up a condition for students to engage
in the task being observed and measured for performance. The heart of the objective is
the task that the student is expected to perform. It is probably one of the most important
parts of the lesson plan because it is student centered and outcomes based. Objectives
can range from easy to hard tasks depending on student abilities.

3a) Materials- List the materials and resources that will be needed for the lesson to be
successful. In this case, you should also list technology resources needed to achieve
objectives.

4) Introduction- Describe or list a focusing event or attention grabber that will motivate
your students to want to pay attention and learn about what you plan to teach. This will
depend on the ages and stages and of your students and will rely on students' interests
and backgrounds. Remember, getting your students to attend and respond to your
introduction will set the stage for the rest of the lesson.

5) Development- Describe how you plan to model or explain what you want your students
to do. Modeling the learning behaviors, you expect of your students is a powerful
development tool and provides demonstration that students can then imitate or practice
on their own. During development, models of teaching are used to facilitate student
learning. Models can include direct instruction, inquiry, information processing strategies,
or cooperative learning strategies. More information on models of teaching can be found
on the following link: https://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/methods/models/

6) Practice- List or describe ways in which you will provide opportunities for your
students to practice what you want them to learn. The more opportunities you provide;
the better chance they have to master the expected outcomes. These opportunities are
in-classroom assignments or tasks that give you, the teacher, the chance to guide and
monitor progress. There are tons of activities that you can download from the net;
TeAch-nology.com provides a comprehensive source of links to activities for all subject
areas. Go to the Teacher Resources section of the site and click on lesson plans, quick
activities, etc.https://www.teach-nology.com/teachers/

7) Independent Practice- List or describe ways to provide opportunities for your students
to complete assignments to measure progress against the goal of instruction. These
assignments are meant to give teachers the chance to determine whether students have
truly mastered the expected outcomes. Remember to only plan for tasks that you believe
students can accomplish without your guidance.

5
9) Checking For Understanding- - List or describe ways that you will check for
understanding. Assessment and ongoing feedback are necessary for monitoring progress.
This can include questioning, conferencing, or journal writing/reflection writing. TeAch-
nology.com has a rubric generator that can help develop a checklist for assessing ongoing
student progress. Go to: https://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/

10) Closure- List or describe ways that you can wrap up a lesson. This can include telling
students the most important concepts that were covered in the lesson, asking them what
they thought were the key concepts (or what they learned), or preparing them for the
next lesson building upon what was presented. The key is to leave your students with an
imprint of what you hoped to achieve in any given lesson.