Lesson Plans

Why do you need a lesson plan?

We all know that you can get by without a lesson plan. No question. Once I had finished my teacher training I was so sick of lesson plans I vowed never to use one ever again. For many years I went into classes with nothing planned on paper. I always had a plan in my head and knew what it was that I wanted to achieve, but I rarely bothered to write it down. I coped, but that’s all I did.

What I’ve come to understand and appreciate it is that I was cheating my students and myself. Without a lesson plan there is too much scope for things to be missed. There is too big a risk of lessons ending in some meaningless activity that has little relationship to the skills or knowledge you have been trying to teach. Above all students quickly work out that you’re not prepared. In hindsight I can see now that many of my discipline problems were due to a lack of preparation. In those awkward moments when I was struggling to think of what came next there would invariably be some sort of poor behaviour demonstrated, and this would usually add to my frustration and result in poor decision making on my part.

Since I’ve been taking the time to prepare lesson plans my classes are noticeably better in every aspect.

ü       When I’m focused, my students are carried along with me.

ü       When I’m obviously enthusiastic about the lesson, so are my students.

ü       When they know what we are doing before we start, they are much more likely to achieve the objectives set down for them.

ü       The time slips by much more quickly and productivity is far greater

I achieve all of this because I take two or three minutes to write up a plan.

What needs to go into a lesson plan?

The answer to this depends entirely on you and your subject area. I limit my plans to:

ü       Resources

ü       Introduction

ü       Objectives

ü       Key points

ü       Student activities

ü       Review of learning

You will know how much detail you need to include and this will vary according to how well you know the material and how detailed it needs to be. If there are a number of activities planned you might need more dot points. If it’s a simple lesson involving a lot of chalk and talk on your part you might only need a few reminders for yourself.

Try using the pro forma lesson plan below. It’s divided into two sections so that you know what you are supposed to be doing and what you want the students to be doing. There is no question that your lessons will be easier to manage and that your students will be happier. After all, we get annoyed when students arrive for lessons unprepared. It’s only fair then, that we treat them the way we expect to be treated and pay them the courtesy of doing our job as well as we can. Shortcuts and half measures are an insult to the young people we teach.

LESSON PLAN

Date:____ /____/_____            Period:            ______            Subject: ____________________                   

  Review of Lesson