Plan Like a Pro!? 4 Questions to Ask Yourself When Lesson Planning

“A good plan is like a road map. It shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.”

― Donald Judd

So far, I've been sharing specific teaching ideas and suggestions for student-centred learning strategies.

These tips are like carpentry materials: bits of wood, strips of metal and fabric,?that teachers still need to put together to form a coherent lesson. Depending on whether you're aiming to build a chair or a chest of drawers, you will require different materials.?

Simply taking an idea and shoe-horning it into your lesson without proper consideration will make it stick out like a sore thumb, resulting in a disjointed, shaky lesson liable to falling apart.?

As in carpentry, teachers need a lesson plan, a blueprint, to help guide their students to the intended learning outcomes.

Want to create a great lesson plan, and consequently a great lesson? Here are four things to ask yourself:

#1 What are the learning outcomes?

Begin with the end in mind: what do you want students to learn by the end of the lesson?

Refer constantly back to these during the course of your planning.

#2 What learning activities will help achieve these outcomes?

Consider the specific activities that can be employed, depending on the nature of the topic to be learned:?

• Is there any prior knowledge that needs reviewing? If so, consider how you would review them, e.g.?a digital quiz game, word cloud activity, or Taboo/Pictionary.
• Is there any frontloading of information required? Some tricky concepts, especially those with a syllabus-specific level and terminology, may require explicit teaching.
• Conversely, save?some teaching time by assigning simple outcomes (e.g. "state," "identify") as flipped learning.
• A modelling or role-play activity could help students better visualise a complex process
• A practical demonstration can provide students with hands-on and experiential learning
• If there are distinct categories within a topic (e.g. forms of government, types of rock), you could consider a jigsaw or research activity, or the inductive learning method.
• Topics with social implications?are great avenues to incorporate discussion activities such as debates,?case studies, and Socratic seminars.

#3 How do I put these activities together?

Once you have your activities in mind, you now need to structure them into a smooth flowing lesson.?

Here are some items to note:

• Decide on the duration of each activity.?
• Consider?sequence: which activity needs to happen first for students to gain the knowledge required to tackle the next activity?
• Scaffold activities: arrange activities in increasing order of challenge.
• Work out transitions: how do you move seamlessly from one activity to the next? You would need to consider the logistics of managing the distribution and collection of any resources, tools, or manipulatives used.?
• Rehearse your instructions to students: how would you chunk directions such that students know what they need to do?
• How could you build in differentiation? e.g. levelled worksheets, deliberate grouping/pairing?of students, choice of?learning activity, different variations of the same activity, extension work for fast finishers

#4 How do I check if students achieve the learning outcomes?

All good lessons should conclude with?an?Assessment for Learning (AfL) activity to determine just how well students have achieved the learning outcomes, and inform teachers on any muddy areas they may need to revisit.

Apart from the usual worksheets, you could also use quiz games, reflection activities (e.g. one-minute summary, traffic lighting, temperature checks), or students could demonstrate their understanding creatively?(e.g. as a graphic organiser / comic strip / skit).

These four questions will act as the nails and glue to cement your learning activities together to form a solid, expertly crafted lesson plan.

Need help?

Beginner teachers may find crafting a lesson from scratch daunting.

In this case, it is useful to refer to pre-made lesson plans, either by senior colleagues, online, e.g. on TeachersPayTeachers and TES, or syllabus-specific schemes of work from the exam boards, e.g. on the Cambridge School Support Hub.?

What else do YOU consider when lesson planning?