Lesson plan

A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed description of the course of instruction for one class. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class instruction. Details will vary depending on the preference of the teacher, subject being covered, and the need and/or curiosity of children. There may be requirements mandated by the school system regarding the plan.

Developing a lesson plan

While there are many formats for a lesson plan, most lesson plans contain some or all of these elements, typically in this order:

• Title of the lesson
• Time required to complete the lesson
• List of required materials
• List of objectives, which may be behavioral objectives (what the student can do at lesson completion) or knowledge objectives (what the student knows at lesson completion)
• The set (or lead-in, or bridge-in) that focuses students on the lesson's skills or concepts—these include showing pictures or models, asking leading questions, or reviewing previous lessons
• An instructional component that describes the sequence of events that make up the lesson, including the teacher's instructional input and guided practice the students use to try new skills or work with new ideas
• Independent practice that allows students to extend skills or knowledge on their own
• A summary, where the teacher wraps up the discussion and answers questions
• An evaluation component, a test for mastery of the instructed skills or concepts—such as a set of questions to answer or a set of instructions to follow
• Analysis component the teacher uses to reflect on the lesson itself —such as what worked, what needs improving
• A continuity component reviews and reflects on content from the previous lesson

A well-developed lesson plan

A well-developed lesson plan reflects interests and needs of students. It incorporates best practices for the educational field. The lesson plan correlates with the teacher's philosophy of education, which is what the teacher feels is the purpose of educating the students.

Secondary English program lesson plans, for example, usually center around four topics. They are literary theme, elements of language and composition, literary history, and literary genre. A broad, thematic lesson plan is preferable, because it allows a teacher to create various research, writing, speaking, and reading assignments. It helps an instructor teach different literature genres and incorporate videotapes, films, and television programs. Also, it facilitates teaching literature and English together. Similarly, history lesson plans focus on content (historical accuracy and background information), analytic thinking, scaffolding, and the practicality of lesson structure and meeting of educational goals. School requirements and a teacher's personal tastes, in that order, determine the exact requirements for a lesson plan.

Unit plans follow much the same format as a lesson plan, but cover an entire unit of work, which may span several days or weeks. Modern constructivist teaching styles may not require individual lesson plans. The unit plan may include specific objectives and timelines, but lesson plans can be more fluid as they adapt to student needs and learning styles.

Setting an objective

The first thing a teacher does is create an objective, a statement of purpose for the whole lesson. An objective statement itself should answer what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson. Harry Wong states that, “Each [objective] must begin with a verb that states the action to be taken to show accomplishment. The most important word to use in an assignment is a verb, because verbs state how to demonstrate if accomplishment has take place or not.” The objective drives the whole lesson, it is the reason the lesson exists. Care is taken when creating the objective for each day’s lesson, as it will determine the activities the students engage in. The teacher also ensures that lesson plan goals are compatible with the developmental level of the students. The teacher ensures as well that their student achievement expectations are reasonable.

Selecting lesson plan material

A lesson plan must correlate with the text book the class uses. The school usually selects the text books or provides teachers with a limited text book choice for a particular unit. The teacher must take great care and select the most appropriate book for the students.

Types of Assignments

The instructor must decide whether class assignments are whole-class, small groups, workshops, independent work, peer learning, or contractual:

• Whole-class—the teacher lectures to the class as a whole and has the class collectively participate in classroom discussions.
• Small groups—students work on assignments in groups of three or four.
• Workshops—students perform various tasks simultaneously. Workshop activities must be tailored to the lesson plan.
• Independent work—students complete assignments individually.
• Peer learning—students work together, face to face, so they can learn from one another.
• Contractual work—teacher and student establish an agreement that the student must perform a certain amount of work by a deadline.

These assignment categories (e.g. peer learning, independent, small groups) can also be used to guide the instructor’s choice of assessment measures that can provide information about student and class comprehension of the material. As discussed by Biggs (1999), there are additional questions an instructor can consider when choosing which type of assignment would provide the most benefit to students. These include:

• What level of learning do the students need to attain before choosing assignments with varying difficulty levels?
• What is the amount of time the instructor wants the students to use to complete the assignment?
• How much time and effort does the instructor have to provide student grading and feedback?
• What is the purpose of the assignment? (e.g. to track student learning; to provide students with time to practice concepts; to practice incidental skills such as group process or independent research)
• How does the assignment fit with the rest of the lesson plan? Does the assignment test content knowledge or does it require application in a new context?

Further reading

• Ahrenfelt, Johannes, and Neal Watkin. 100 Ideas for Essential Teaching Skills (Continuum One Hundred). New York: Continuum, 2006.
• Carey, Lou; Dick, Walter (1978), The Systematic Design of Instruction. (1 ed.), Glenview: Scott, Foresman, ISBN 9780673151223
• Gagne, Robert; Briggs, Leslie (1974), Principles of instructional design (1 ed.), New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, ISBN 9780030081712
• Ryan, Mark, and Peter Serdyukov. Writing Effective Lesson Plans: The 5-Star Approach. Boston: Allyn &Amp; Bacon, 2007.
• Salsbury, Denise E., and Melinda Schoenfeldt. Lesson Planning: A Research-Based Model for K-12 Classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2008.
• Skowron, Janice. Powerful Lesson Planning: Every Teachers Guide to Effective Instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2006.
• Thompson, Julia G. First Year Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-To-Use Strategies, Tools & Activities For Meeting The Challenges Of Each School Day (J-B Ed:Survival Guides). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007.
• Tileston, Donna E. Walker. What Every Teacher Should Know About Instructional Planning Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2003.
• Wolfe, Shoshana. Your Best Year Yet! A Guide to Purposeful Planning and Effective Classroom Organization (Teaching Strategies). New York: Teaching Strategies, 2006.

See also

• Bloom's Taxonomy
• Feminist literary criticism
• Lesson
• NCLB
• HotChalk