Effective lesson planning

• Good learning and good learning objectives

• Adaptive teaching
• Success criteria
• Questions and summaries

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 Good learning and good learning
objectives

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 Putting learning at the centre

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Understanding the loop

Lesson
plan

Feedback The lesson

Learning

Output Assessment

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Key ideas

◉ Focus on the learning (not the doing)

◉ Aim for all students to learn, not just most of them.
Obtain a high success rate.
◉ Identify, teach and display the key vocabulary.
◉ Think about success criteria. Use models.
◉ Don’t forget the importance of a plenary.

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If the learning is not clear …

⮚ the focus becomes the activity

⮚ you can then only assess that the doing is done

⮚ you cannot clearly assess the quality of the learning

⮚ the risk then is that the teaching centres on how to complete

the task and not on the learning that lies behind it

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You cannot teach understanding

⮚ You can teach knowledge

⮚ You can teach skills

⮚ Understanding happens when the pupil demonstrates learned

skills or applied knowledge through the task

⮚ That is why the learning and not the task must be at the
heart of the lesson….

⮚ …and why new material should be presented in small steps

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A clear, specific learning objective, rooted in the
learning

⮚ Focus on the learning and not the activity

⮚ Strip back the activity until we get to the learning

⮚ If we are clear about the learning, then we are clear about

the assessment

⮚ If we focused on the activity, then all we can check is that the

activity took place.

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Review these two objectives:

To write notes about the character We are learning to understand the

of Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet key features of a play script

⮚ Is this a learning objective or a ‘doing objective’?

⮚ What is the focus of the lesson?

⮚ What is the learning that will take place in the lesson?

⮚ What is the expected outcome and how will it be measured?

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 This is a lesson about playscripts. We will be asking this
question: How can actors remember all their words?

⮚ How do we know this is about learning?

⮚ Would the pupils know what they will be learning?

⮚ What is the learning that will take place in the lesson?

⮚ How has the focus shifted?

As soon as the learning objective includes the words how or why, it is likely
to have a learning focus

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Is it important to share the learning objective?

⮚ When do you share the learning? Always? Sometimes? Never?

⮚ Do all pupils have to write it down? Why?

⮚ How do you refer to it?

⮚ How do you engage the pupils?

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Key vocabulary – teach it and display it

⮚ Every lesson has its discrete vocabulary

⮚ Identify the key vocabulary that pupils will need, 3-5 words

⮚ The best examples are conceptual

⮚ Keep them on display – it helps the spelling and the memory

⮚ Use them in the summary

⮚ Key vocabulary helps us to ask questions and check for

understanding.

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Activity: getting to the learning

Write a learning objective (centred on the learning, not

the activity) for your own subject.

Incorporate the Bloom’s Taxonomy into your objectives.

Can you think of any key vocabulary for this lesson?

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 Adaptive teaching

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Matching the work to the needs of the pupils

◉ One size does not fit all

◉ Doing more or less of the same is not proper differentiation

Question: So what do you do to adapt your teaching to meet

the needs of all your pupils?

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 Bloom’s Taxonomy can be a great help with differentiation.

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Including all learners

Teachers should set high expectations for every pupil. They should:
◉ plan stretching work for pupils whose attainment is significantly
above the expected standard.
◉ plan lessons for pupils who have low levels of prior attainment or
come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
◉ use appropriate assessment to set targets which are deliberately
ambitious.
DfE National Curriculum in England

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Summary

◉ Be ambitious for your pupils and students

◉ Present new material in small steps, check learning at every stage
◉ Use models and guide practice
◉ Scaffold the difficult tasks
◉ Thinking promotes cognitive development so provide opportunities for
pupils to think
◉ Learning for all means what it says
◉ It’s the activity that needs to be adapted to the needs of the pupils, not
the core learning

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 Success criteria

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A success criteria is a list of features that a teacher wants the

children to include in their work during the course of a lesson. 

Unhelpful success criteria

LO: How can I use partitioning to multiply two-digit numbers?

SC: I will be able to use partitioning to multiply two-digit numbers.

LO: How can I make a bowl out of papier maché?

SC: I will have made a bowl out of papier maché.

LO: What is the difference between notes and sentences?

SC: I will know the difference between notes and sentences.

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Helpful success criteria

LO: How can I use partitioning to multiply two-digit numbers?

SC:
 Split the tens and units
 Multiply the units by 2
 Multiply the tens by 2
 Add up the two answers

LO: How can I make a bowl out of papier maché?

SC:

 Tear up the paper

 Mix it with the paste
 Blow up the balloon
 Smooth it evenly round the balloon…
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LO: How can I use partitioning to multiply two-digit numbers?
SC: I will be able to use partitioning to multiply two-digit numbers.

 Split the tens and units

 Multiply the units by 2
 Multiply the tens by 2
 Add up the two answers

LO: How can I make a bowl out of papier maché?

SC: I will have made a bowl out of papier maché.

 Tear up the paper

 Mix it with the paste
 Blow up the balloon
 Smooth it evenly round the balloon…
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Graduated success criteria can help to differentiate the activity

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Differentiating the success criteria

◉ Name the people ◉ List the

in the play characters in the
◉ Show their play
conversation in ◉ From their words,
speech bubbles say something
◉ In two or three about each
words say character’s mood ◉ Name the
something about ◉ Write a short characters
the ‘tone’ of their paragraph that ◉ What does each
conversation explains how the want?
◉ Write two or layout of the ◉ Turn the extract
three sentences script helps you to into a story
explaining how understand this rather than a
you know this play script

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DEVELOPING EXCELLENCE TOGETHER
 Come up with and note down success criteria for the learning
objectives that you had created previously in the training.

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 Questions & summaries

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Discussion

◉ What is the purpose of questioning in a lesson?

◉ What does effective questioning look like?

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Asking questions

initiation

Teacher Response Pupil

Evaluation

Pose
Pause Pupil Pupil
Pupil
Pounce
Teacher
Pupil
Bounce
Pupil
Pupil

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Improving your questioning

At all ages, a combination of lower-order questions (remembering)

and higher-order (thinking) seems to be most effective.

The percentage of higher-order questions should increase with age

with 50% plus above the age of ten. (the Bloom’s Taxonomy!)

Gordon Stobart (2014) The Expert Learner

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 The importance of the lesson summary

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The lesson summary…

◉ Engages the pupils with what they have learned

◉ Informs the teacher who learned what
◉ Drives home the key learning points – the bottom line
◉ Opens the door to the next lesson

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DEVELOPING EXCELLENCE TOGETHER
Note down two most important ideas that you are leaving today’s
session with. Share with your partner.

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