Lesson Plan

 

A lesson plan is the instructor's road map for what students must learn and how it will be accomplished effectively during class time. Then you can create appropriate learning activities and strategies for obtaining feedback on student learning. Having a carefully planned lesson plan for each 3-hour lesson gives you more confidence in the classroom and increases your chances of having a meaningful learning experience with your students.

A successful lesson plan addresses and incorporates three critical components:

• Learning objectives.
• Learning activities.
• Assessment to check for student understanding.

A lesson plan, while not exhaustive, provides you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and methods for achieving them. A productive lesson is one in which both students and the instructor learn from each other, rather than one in which everything goes exactly as planned.

Before class: Steps for preparing a lesson plan

1. Identify the learning objectives.
   Before you can plan your lesson, you must first identify the lesson's learning objectives. A learning objective describes what the learner will know or be able to do after the learning experience, as opposed to what the learner will be exposed to during instruction (i.e. topics). It is typically written in a language that students can understand and is clearly related to the program learning outcomes.
   
   
2. Plan the specific learning activities.
   When planning learning activities, keep in mind the types of activities that students will need to participate in in order to develop the skills and knowledge needed to demonstrate effective learning in the course. Learning activities should be directly related to the course's learning objectives and provide opportunities for students to engage in, practice, and receive feedback on specific progress toward those objectives.
   
   
   Estimate how much time you will spend on each learning activity as you plan them. Allow time for extended explanation or discussion, but be prepared to move quickly to different applications or problems, as well as to identify strategies for checking for understanding.
    
   Each learning activity in the lesson must be (1) aligned to the lesson's learning objectives, (2) meaningfully engage students in active, constructive, authentic, and collaborative ways, and (3) useful in the sense that the student can apply what they have learned from engaging with the activity in another context or for another purpose.
   
   
3. Plan to assess student understanding.
   Assessments (e.g., tests, papers, problem sets, performances) allow students to demonstrate and practice the knowledge and skills articulated in the learning objectives, while also allowing instructors to provide targeted feedback that can guide further learning.
   
   
   Assessment planning allows you to determine whether or not your students are learning. It entails making decisions about the following: the number and type of assessment tasks that will best enable students to demonstrate learning objectives for the lesson; the criteria and standards that will be used to make assessment judgements; student roles in the assessment process; the weighting of individual assessment tasks and the method by which individual task judgements will be combined into a final course grade; and the provision of feedback.
   
   
4. Plan to sequence the lesson in an engaging and meaningful manner.
   The events of instruction, proposed by Robert Gagne, is a nine-step process that can be used to plan the sequence of your lesson. The use of Gagne's 9 events in conjunction with Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (link) assists in the design of engaging and meaningful instruction.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Create a realistic timeline.
   A list of ten learning objectives is unrealistic, so focus on the two or three key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn in the lesson. Your prioritized list of learning objectives will assist you in making on-the-spot decisions and adjusting your lesson plan as needed.
   
   
6. Plan for a lesson closure.
   Lesson closure is an opportunity to reinforce student learning. Both instructors and students benefit from lesson closure.

During the class: Presenting your lesson plan

Making it clear to your students what they will be learning and doing in class will help them stay engaged and on track. A meaningful organization of class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the reasoning behind the planned learning activities. You can share your lesson plan with students by writing a brief agenda on the whiteboard or explicitly telling them what they will be learning and doing in class.

After the class: Reflecting on your lesson plan

After each class, take a few minutes to reflect on what went well and why, as well as what you could have done differently. Identifying successful and unsuccessful class time and activity organization would make it easier to adjust to classroom contingencies. Revise the lesson plan as needed.

Further reading

EDUCAUSE. (2005). Potential Learning Activities. Retrieved April 7 2017, from EDUCAUSE website: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0547B.pdf.

Attachment(s)

Lesson Plan (Team Project)

Lesson Plan Material (Team Project)