Lesson planning

Definition

• A writing noting the method of delivery, and the specific goals and time-lines associated to the delivery of lesson content. []

• It helps the teacher to know what to do in a class (prepared by themselves) with quite specific activities. EFL Teachers Jargon

See also the instructional design article that addresses very similar issue from a more "industrial" point of view, e.g. consider models like Gagne's nine events of instruction. If you are interested by more sophisticated models browse through the large list of instructional design models.

Lesson planning guide example

We provide a short summary of El-Tigi's Write a Lesson Plan Guide with some modifications.

While planning a lesson, a teacher should think about each of the following categories:

1. Goals: Think about (1) broad objectives of the course, (2) goals of the particular lesson, (3) what students should be able to achieve after the lesson.
2. Objectives within the lesson: Define what your students will do to acquire further knowledge and skills and how they will be able to demonstrate that they have learned.
3. Prerequisites
4. Materials: What will be needed, e.g. what is available (make a list/bibliography) and what will have to be prepared.
5. Lesson Description: Describe the general focus of the lesson and include thoughts to share with other teachers. May include learning level.
6. Lesson Procedure
   1. Introduction: Describe how you introduce ideas and objectives, get student's attention and motivation, etc.
   2. Main activity: Define the sequence of activities, in particular pedagogic methods like presentation, demonstration, explanation, discussion.
   3. Closure/conclusion: Describe how you plan to draw ideas together and to provide feedback to students.
   4. Follow up Lessons / Activities:
7. Assessment / Evaluation: Define how you will assess student's learning. Also evaluate if students engaged in suggested practice.

Lesson planning tools

• Frequently these tools are also called curriculum unit planners (we use these as synonyms).
• See also tools like Learning Activity Management System (LAMS), MOTD, etc. that also can be used as lesson planning tools
• Finally, we refer to curriculum planners (or curricula planners to describe instruments that either describe course contenents and objectives at a very high level or that allow students to select courses. But these distinctions are not always obvious it seems....

Lesson planning guides

(see the references below)

Lesson planners

Draft

Lesson planners also called lesson planning software help teachers to plan lessons. Sometimes, they also can be considered a policy tool, i.e. some tools specifically try to insure that teachers follow official guidelines.

Here are a few examples (not tested by the authors of this entry):

• Lesson Planning Tool assists elementary school teachers in making lesson plans that fulfill the Texas Education Agency (TEA) guidelines.

• PLANright

• Lesson Plan Maker

• NCRTEC Lesson Planner

• DiscoverySchool Lesson Planner

• CyberCampus ObjectivesBuilder (On-line tool, Flash based).

• Ontario Curriculum Unit Planner and Planificateur d'unités d'apprentissage

Links

Lesson Planning

• Lesson planning, A teaching/learning module for teachers from the TILE support tool from the Kite project.

Lesson Plans

On the Internet one can find thousands of good lesson plans. Often through specialized portals some of which are sponsored by official school systems. The few links below are not at all complete and we absolutely don't vouch for any of them (no time for reviewing) ! We may at some point identify the ones that are particularly interesting with regards of technology integration.

• http://www.lessonplan101.com A lesson plan wiki - Share Your Lessons.
• http://memory.loc.gov/learn/ (Library of Congress).
• http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/
• http://www.readwritethink.org/index.asp
• http://www.kidzonline.org/LessonPlans/
• http://www.lessonplanspage.com/
• http://www.lessonplansearch.com/
• http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/
• http://teachers.net/lessons/
• http://www.lessonplanz.com/
• http://www.lamap.fr/

References

Introductions for teachers

• Fink, Dee, Planning your Course: A Decision guide, Instructional Development Program, University of Oklahoma, Word Document. Quote: “Whenever teachers plan or design their courses, they are in essence making a series of decisions aimed at creating a "design," which in this case consists of a plan of activities for what the teacher and students will do in a course. This guide identifies the several decisions involved in designing a course, places these decisions in an appropriate sequence, and suggests ways to make good decisions.”. This guide also includes worksheets.

• El-Tigi, Manal (1999). Write a Lesson Plan Guide, The Educator's Reference Desk, HTML retrieved 18:53, 27 June 2006 (MEST). This short guide also includes a library of examples and further pointers.

• Kizlik, Sandra, Lesson Plans The Easy Way, AdPrima, HTML