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What is a lesson Plan?

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 for each 3-hour lesson 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. You may refer to an example of a 3 hour lesson plan here.

Before Class: Steps for preparing a lesson plan

Listed below are 6 steps for preparing your lesson plan before your class.

1. Identify the learning objectives

Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the lesson. 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 (i.e. topics). Typically, it is written in a language that is easily understood by students and clearly related to the program learning outcomes. The table below contains the characteristics of clear learning objectives:

Characteristic

Description

Clearly stated tasks

Free from jargon and complex vocabulary; describe specific and achievable tasks (such as 'describe', 'analyse' or 'evaluate') NOT vague tasks (like 'appreciate', 'understand' or 'explore').

Important learning goals

Describe the essential (rather than trivial) learning in the course which a student must achieve.

Achievable

Can be achieved within the given period and sufficient resources are available.

Demonstrable and measurable

Can be demonstrated in a tangible way; are assessable; achievement and quality of achievement can be observed.

Fair and equitable

All students, including those with disabilities or constraints, have a fair chance of achieving them.

Linked to course and program objectives

Consider the broader goals - i.e. course, program and institutional goals.

The Bloom's Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( link) is a useful resource for crafting learning objectives that are demonstrable and measurable.

2. Plan the specific learning activities

When planning learning activities you should consider the types of activities students will need to engage in, in order to develop the skills and knowledge required to demonstrate effective learning in the course. 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.

As you plan your learning activities, estimate how much time you will spend on each. Build in time for extended explanation or discussion, but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding. Some questions to think about as you design the learning activities you will use are:

What will I do to explain the topic?

What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?

How can I engage students in the topic?

What are some relevant real-life examples, analogies, or situations that can help students understand the topic?

What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?

Many activities can be used to engage learners. The activity types (i.e. what the student is doing) and their examples provided below are by no means an exhaustive list, but will help you in thinking through how best to design and deliver high impact learning experiences for your students in a typical lesson.

Lecture

Convey concepts verbally, often with visual aids (e.g. presentation slides).

Quiz

Exercise to assess the level of student understanding and questions can take many forms, e.g. multiple-choice, short-structured, essay etc.

Student presentation

Oral report where students share their research on a topic and take on a position and/or role.

Simulation

Replica or representation of a real-world phenomenon that enables relationships, contexts, and concepts to be studied.

Discussion

Formal/informal conversation on a given topic/question where the instructor facilitates student sharing of responses to the questions and building upon those responses.

Feedback

Information provided by the instructor and/or peer(s) regarding aspects of one's performance or understanding.

Guest Speaker

Feelings, thoughts, ideas and experiences specific to a given topic are shared by an invited presenter.

Concept Mapping

Graphical representation of related information in which common or shared concepts are linked together.

Real-world projects

Planned set of interrelated tasks to be executed over a fixed period and within certain cost and other limitations, either individually or collaboratively

It is important that 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 where the student is able to take what they have learnt from engaging with the activity and use it in another context, or for another purpose.

3. Plan to assess student understanding

Assessments (e.g., 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. It involves making decisions about:

The number and type of assessment tasks that will best enable students to demonstrate learning objectives for the lesson.

Examples of different assessments

Formative and/or summative

The criteria and standards that will be used to make assessment judgements.

Student roles in the assessment process

Self-assessment

Peer assessment

The weighting of individual assessment tasks and the method by which individual task judgements will be combined into a final grade for the course.
Information about how various tasks are to be weighted and combined into an overall grade must be provided to students.

The provision of feedback
Giving feedback to students on how to improve their learning, as well as giving feedback to instructors how to refine their teaching.

To learn more about designing assessment, click here.

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 ( link) aids in designing engaging and meaningful instruction.

Gange's Nine Events of Instruction by CourseArc is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

1. 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.
To find out more about scaffolding student learning, click here.

2. Practice: Allow students to apply knowledge and skills learned.

Allow students to apply knowledge in group or individual activities.

Ask deep-learning questions, make reference to what students already know or have students collaborate with their peers.

Ask students to recite, revisit, or reiterate information they have learned.

Facilitate student elaborations - ask students to elaborate or explain details and provide more complexity to their responses.

3. 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.
Utilise a variety of assessment methods including exams/quizzes, written assignments, projects, and so on.

4. Enhance retention and transfer: Allow students to apply information to personal contexts. This increases retention by personalising information.

Provide opportunities for students to relate course work to their personal experiences.

Provide additional practice.

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. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:

Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each.

When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take.

Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points.

Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left.

Be flexible - be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students' needs and focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your original plan.

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 (adjust your teaching accordingly)

Emphasise 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 internalising key information

Linking lesson ideas to a conceptual framework and/or previously-learned knowledge

Transferring ideas to new situations

There are several 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

Bibliography

1. Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., Lovett, M., DiPietro, M., & Norman, M. (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

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

3. Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center. Retrieved from http://ideaedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Idea_Paper_42.pdf .

4. Gagne, R. M., Wager, W.W., Golas, K. C. & Keller, J. M (2005). Principles of Instructional Design (5th edition). California: Wadsworth.

5. Gredler, M. E. (2004). Games and simulations and their relationships to learning. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 571-82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

6. Richardson, J.C., & Swan. K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students' perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 7(1), 68-88.

7. Schuell, T.J. (1986). Cognitive conceptions of learning. Review of Educational Research, 56, 411-436.

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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.

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Over 500 Free Lesson Plan Templates | Teacher Planet

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Ready to use lesson plan templates by grade level, subject area, or Common Core. Choose Daily, Weekly, or Monthly templates.

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For creating learning objectives and outcomes that match with standards

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These standards are for South Dakota specifically, but it is easy to find these standards online for every other state.