What is Lesson Planning?
- A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it
will be done effectively during the class time. Then, you can design appropriate
learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning.
- Having a carefully constructed lesson plan allows you to enter the classroom with
more confidence and maximizes your chance of having a meaningful learning
experience with your students.
A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates three key components:
Learning Objectives
Learning activities
Assessment to check for student understanding
A lesson plan provides you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives,
and means to accomplish them, and is by no means exhaustive. A productive lesson is not
one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and
instructor learn from each other.
6 steps for preparing your lesson plan before your class.
1. Identify the learning objectives
A learning objective describes what the learner will know or be able to do after the learning
experience rather than what the learner will be exposed to during the instruction or topics.
Characteristics of clear learning objectives
Clearly stated tasks
Important learning goals
Achievable
Demonstrable and measurable
Fair and equitable
Linked to course and program objectives
Plan the specific learning activities
Plan to assess student understanding
2. Plan to sequence the lesson in an engaging and meaningful manner
Learning activities should be directly related to the learning objectives of the course and
provide experiences that will enable students to engage in, practice, and gain feedback on
specific progress towards those objectives.
Interaction with content
Drill and practice
Lecture
Quiz
Student presentation
Interaction with digital content
Game
Simulation
Interaction with others
Debates
Discussion
Feedback
Guest Speaker
Problem solving and Critical thinking
Case Study
Concept Mapping
Real-world projects
Reflection
Reflection journal
3. Plan to assess student understanding
Assessments such as tests, papers, problem sets, performances provide opportunities for
students to demonstrate and practice the knowledge and skills articulated in the learning
objectives, and for instructors to offer targeted feedback that can guide further learning.
Planning for assessment allows you to find out whether your students are learning.
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 grade for the course.
The provision of feedback
4. Plan to sequence the lesson in an engaging and meaningful manner
Robert Gagne proposed a nine-step process called the events of instruction, which is useful
for planning the sequence of your lesson. Using Gagne’s 9 events in conjunction with
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives aids in designing engaging and
meaningful instruction.
1. Gain attention: Obtain students’ attention so that they will watch and listen while the
instructor presents the learning content.
2. Inform learner of objectives: Allow students to organize their thoughts regarding what
they are about to see, hear, and/or do.
3. Stimulate recall of prior knowledge: Help students make sense of new information by
relating it to something they already know or something they have already experienced.
4. Present new content: Utilize a variety of methods including lecture, readings, activities,
projects, multimedia, and others.
5. Provide guidance: Advise students of strategies to aid them in learning content and of
resources available. With learning guidance, the rate of learning increases because
students are less likely to lose time or become frustrated by basing performance on
incorrect facts or poorly understood concepts.
6. Practice: Allow students to apply knowledge and skills learned.
7. Provide feedback: Provide immediate feedback of students’ performance to assess and
facilitate learning.
8. Assess performance: To evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional events, test to see
if the expected learning outcomes have been achieved. Performance should be based on
previously stated objectives.
9. Enhance retention and transfer: Allow students to apply information to personal
contexts. This increases retention by personalizing information.
5. Create a realistic timeline
A list of ten learning objectives is not realistic, so narrow down your list to the two or three
key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn in the lesson. Your list of prioritized
learning objectives will help you make decisions on the spot and adjust your lesson plan as
needed.
6. Plan for a lesson closure
Lesson closure provides an opportunity to solidify student learning. Lesson closure is useful
for both instructors and students.
You can use closure to:
Check for student understanding and inform subsequent instruction
Emphasize key information
Tie up loose ends
Correct students’ misunderstandings
Preview upcoming topics
Your students will find your closure helpful for:
Summarizing, reviewing, and demonstrating their understanding of major points
Consolidating and internalizing key information
Linking lesson ideas to a conceptual framework and/or previously learned knowledge
Transferring ideas to new situations
Ways in which you can put a closure to the lesson:
State the main points yourself (“Today we talked about…”)
Ask a student to help you summarize them
Ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think were the main
points of the lesson
