HOW TO DEVELOP STRATEGIES FOR APPROPRIATE LESSON PLAN? LEARN GUIDELINES STEP BY STEP!

ABSTRACT:

Lesson plans are used by teachers to have an organized outlines of coursework for their students. These detailed plans are divided into multiple learning activities, which save a lot of time and also make a quality and thorough reference for when it's to be presented in class.

Keywords:

Lesson Plan, Quality, Effective, Components, Steps

Contents:

In this article, you’ll learn how to write a good lesson plan and organize your teaching sessions better.

So let's explore .. Get Set Go...

1. WHAT IS A LESSON PLAN? 

An appropriate lesson plan demonstrates how a teacher creates objectives for his or her students and measures how those objectives are fulfilled. Creating a lesson plan begins with aligning state standards to your curriculum and then narrowing down the focus to determine which objectives you want your students to meet within a particular unit of study.

Strong lesson plans are the foundation of an efficient classroom environment for both the teacher and the students. Lesson plans contain several components that can fit into one of three categories: +What am I teaching?

+How am I going to teach it? +How will I assess what the students have learned?

2. WHY IS LESSON PLANNING SO IMPORTANT?

Lesson planning is very important. A well-designed lesson plan helps everyone understand the goals of a particular lesson. Lesson plans allow teachers to take the curriculum and turn it into engaging and meaningful activities for students. It also outlines the materials needed and what special considerations need to be taken into consideration such as the individual learning requirements of the students.

3. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF LESSON PLANNING?

There are many benefits to lesson planning and many schools require teachers to create and submit lesson plans for their classes.

Always remain Organized: 

Lesson planning allows teachers to keep their classes organized and on track with their teaching goals and objectives.

Measure Performance:

Lesson plans help teachers assess how students grasped concepts and learned the curriculum. Teachers can make adjustments or change activities based on how students responded and how they performed on assessments.

Easy for Alternate Teaching Staff: 

Well-organized lesson plans can help students stay on track even when the teacher is absent. Substitute teachers can follow the instructions of the lesson plan and carry out the activities in the event the full-time teacher is out of the classroom.

Supporting Teachers became More purposeful: 

Lesson plans allow teachers to integrate new ideas, technology, and resources into their classes with ease. Teachers can update their learning activities or swap out old texts with new videos to help students grasp the lesson.

4. WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF A LESSON PLAN?

While there’s no single way to create a lesson plan, there are some important components that go into building each one.

Every lesson that you build is an entire segment that you create to teach your students something new. As you build a lesson it’s important to keep all your students in mind and ask the following essential questions before you begin:

Who are your students?

This may seem silly — of course, you know who your students are … right? Before you can write an effective lesson plan, you need to really know your students. This includes information such as their interests, ability levels, whether they work better independently or in groups, any special needs that may require lesson tweaks, and their backgrounds. Knowing their learning preferences can also be helpful — some students learn better with visual aids, while others do better as auditory learners. You can incorporate videos to appeal to both kinds of learners!

What do your students already know?

Knowing your students’ prior knowledge of a subject can help you plan lessons. If you’ve been building lesson plans all along to follow a curriculum, you’ll already know what you’ve previously presented to your students; this allows you to continue with the flow.

What’s the best way to get them to learn?

Determine the best ways to get your students to learn. Younger students may do well with a lot of interactive teaching, while an older class may do better with a lecture and slideshow. After the first few classes, you’ll have a better idea of how to keep your students engaged.

You can break down the teaching techniques that you can use in your lesson plan into:

+The types of students you have in your class; including auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners.

+The type of learning and goals you’re aiming for. As an exercise, fill in this blank: “By the end of today’s class, I’m hoping my students will have learned or be able to ___.”

+The resources, materials, and teaching environment that are available to you, such as a classroom, a field trip, or selected readings in a study hall.

5. WHAT ARE THE STEPS TO BUILD A LESSON PLAN?

Once you’ve identified the components that need to go into teaching your class, you’re ready to use these eight steps to build your lesson plan:

1. Identify and Define the objectives

To build a lesson, you first need to identify the objectives of each class. What do you hope to accomplish by the end of the period? Are there specific things that your students should know or be able to do? If you’re teaching younger students, a lesson objective may be that they’re able to identify animals that live in the rainforest after reading a chapter about animals in Brazil. For older students, this goal may involve having learned how to solve algebraic equations.

2. Determine the exact needs of your students

With this particular lesson, are you introducing new material or reviewing what you’ve already taught in a previous class? At the start of the class, be sure to let students know what to expect so they can stay focused on meeting your objectives. When reviewing material, some of your students may need more encouragement than others. Identifying these needs in your lesson plan will help you prepare.

3. Plan your resources and materials carefully 

Make a list of the resources and materials you’ll need to teach this lesson, such as paper, pens, and rulers. Don’t forget to include technology resources in your plan when appropriate — laptops, and gamified learning tools, like apps or educational websites.

4. Engage your students and ensure attentiveness 

What’s the point of a lesson if your students aren’t engaged? You want them to be interested in what you’re teaching. Thus, to prepare, you need to get them interested in what this lesson is all about. Give them an outline of what you’re going to be presenting. Then, introduce the subject more informally. For example, if you’re teaching students a formula, try deriving it from scratch to build their intuition for where it comes from. Or, if you’re discussing certain historical events, try to draw parallels between those and any current events so students can relate to the material.

5. Instruct and present information in sequences 

Once you’ve set the stage for what you’ll be teaching, it’s time to present the information to your students. This is the time to instruct and use whatever resources you’ve included in your lesson plan. Involve your students in the process whenever possible so they’re engaged. For example, you could ask students to come to the board and solve certain problems or answer questions.

Whether it’s reading from a book, using props such as blocks for younger students, or displaying graphics on the screen for older students, it’s all about presenting information and concepts in a meaningful way. Don’t forget to account for the different learning styles of your students so you can use teaching methods that work for everyone.

6. Allow appropriate time for student practices

After teaching new material, leave time for students to practice. There are three practice methods that, when worked in order, are a good way to reinforce what you’ve just taught:

Guided practice — With a guided practice you’re taking students back through what they’ve just learned, letting them add their own input as they gain confidence with the new information.

Collaborative process — With partners or in a group, the collaborative process is all about students talking with their peers as they explore these new concepts. Circulate among your class and offer additional instruction or help when needed to clarify points.

Independent practice — After the collaborative practice, it’s time for students to practice what they’ve learned on their own. Adapt independent practice according to the material you’ve just presented, such as using worksheets or having students write a short essay.

7. Finalization of the lesson 

Finish the lesson with a quick wrap-up. Do a brief overview of the lesson, including the main concepts the class learned. Ask students to identify the key ideas as a refresher, and leave them with a preview of the next lesson so they know what to expect.

8. Evaluate the lesson at appropriate point 

Did you achieve your learning objectives? Provide students with the opportunity to show they know the material by using a short quiz or test. Depending on the results, your next lesson plan may include a review of information before moving on to new material

6. HOW TO WRITE A LESSON PLAN: THE FORMAT?

Most lesson plans follow a universal structure for teachers to implement essential learning across curriculum and grade-levels:

Set achievable goals

Must Create an overview

Action to Manage timelines

Read your student's interest 

Take Execution appropriately 

Assess student progress

Set Achievable Goals

Teachers must first determine which state standards will be addressed within a specific unit. By using state and Common Core standards, teachers can then create objectives for each individual lesson based on their unique curriculum and knowledge of their students’ capabilities. Objectives should use action verbs appropriate for the students’ cognitive levels.

Must Create an Overview

Having an overarching idea of what you want to teach in a unit plan allows teachers to determine what essential questions will be addressed, which resources will be used throughout the unit, and which vocabulary words or skills need to be front-loaded prior to beginning individual lesson plans within the unit.

Action to Manage Timelines

Duration is a key feature of lesson planning. Since no two classrooms are identical in terms of how students learn and retain information, it is crucial for a teacher to get to know their students in order to create appropriate timelines. Formative and summative assessments can be implemented to allow a teacher to determine if a lesson objective needs to be retaught or revisited within a unit.

Read Your Student's Interest 

The way you structure each lesson relates to how well you know your students and what type of learners they are. Are there students with Individualized Education Plans or 504 Plans who require modifications to the curriculum or extended time? Are there gifted students in the class? Are there students who seem to grasp learning objectives during classroom checks for understanding, but fail their assessments?

How to Execute a Well-Developed Lesson Plan

Once your goals are set, it’s time to address how you will teach your students and assess their levels of mastery. Students can be audio learners, visual learners, kinesthetic learners, or a combination of all three. With this in mind, it’s important to differentiate instruction in a lesson through activities that engage learners and pique their interests.

In addition to summative assessments, teachers should implement formative assessments throughout each lesson to determine students’ levels of proficiency towards reaching the objective.

Timely Assess Student Progress

Teachers evaluate the success of their lesson plans through student assessments. Summative and formative evaluations may give the teacher an indication if the activity and materials were effective in helping their students learn. Assessing student progress can help teachers understand if they should keep lesson plan, update, or remove it from the curriculum.

7. ÇONCLUSIONS

Before teaching, deliberate lesson planning will ensure teaching and learning in the classroom is focused towards the achievement of long to medium term learning goals.

Without a plan, instruction can become a random assortment of activities with little rhyme or reason. Designing an effective lesson involves making decisions about:

what the students will learn

how you will know that the learning has taken place

how you intend students to learn it.

In summary, lesson planning is hard but it like everything in life, if you practice and self-reflect on how your lessons work, you will get better.