Letting your students know what they will be learning and doing in class will help keep them more engaged and on track. You can share your lesson plan by writing a brief agenda on the board or telling students explicitly what they will be learning and doing in class.17 You can outline on the board or on a handout the learning objectives for the class. Providing a meaningful organization of the class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the rationale behind in-class activities. Having a clearly visible agenda (e.g., on the board) will also help you and students stay on track.
Reflecting on Your Lesson Plan: A lesson plan may not work as well as you had expected due to a number of extraneous circumstances. You should not get discouraged – it happens to even the most experienced teachers! Take a few minutes after each class to reflect on what worked well and why, and what you could have done differently. Identifying successful and less successful organization of class time and activities would make it easier to adjust to the contingencies of the classroom.18To be effective, the lesson plan does not have to be an exhaustive document that describes each and every possible classroom scenario. Nor does it have to anticipate each and every student’s response or question. Instead, it should provide you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them. It is a reminder of what you want to do and how you want to do it. A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and instructors learn from each other.19 1. Provide a space for reflection in your science lesson plan20 Whilst a lesson plan is a place to schedule your activities, it can also be a great document to refer back to when planning future sessions. Adding a space for reflection in your science lesson plan can be a great way to add notes about what worked and what didn’t within your lesson, for future reference.
2. Break projects down into sections of deliverables
If you’re conducting a difficult lesson, such as hands on science project, it can be handy to help yourself and your students by outlining expectations. A checklist can be a great way to make your science lesson plan as effective as possible. In this lesson plan example, the deliverables have been broken into easy-to-follow checklists.
3. Use illustrations to bring your lesson plan templates to life. Your lesson plans should inspire you, not bore you! Using illustrations is a great way to bring your lesson plans to life. In this lesson plan example, the teacher has used colorful and playful illustrations to reflect the content of the lessons.
English Lesson Plans.
Imagination, drama, romance and tragedy. English lessons have it all. But they can also be complicated to teach, with many moving parts to any one lesson. Creating an English lesson plan is the best way to keep track of all of the learning strands and activities that are needed for learning success. Like you’ll see in the English lesson plan examples below, creating engaging activities to a strict time schedule is perfectly possible with enough planning.
Use your lesson plan to schedule each activity by the minute
Any teacher will know the feeling of reaching the end of your material with 10 minutes left in the lesson. Avoid running short (or running over!) in your lessons by planning down to the minute. The English lesson plan example below measures out timings for each activity so you finish perfectly on time. You can use a timer on your interactive whiteboard, or get students to time themselves. Scheduling is a great skill to incorporate into any lesson plan.
Think outside the box when lesson planning.
When lesson planning the world, or at least the internet, is your Oyster. Instead of just teaching vocabulary use scavenger hunts, word searches, or story activities. Try picking a new activity and building your lesson around that. In the lesson activity example below, Merriam-Webster have a dictionary scavenger hunt that will keep students engaged and entertained throughout your English lesson.
Highlight your lesson objectives at the top of your lesson plan
Your learning objectives should guide your lesson planning, not the other way around. Especially in subjects like English focusing on your objectives first can make sure your students are learning effectively.
English lesson plan examples:
