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How to Present a Lesson Plan

First days are always exciting, and expectation builds up about the contents of the task ahead, especially if you’re starting a class as a student or professor. This interaction will be significant because it will establish and define the subjects to be covered and the set of expectations flowing from the instructor towards the audience. 

Perhaps you are ready to begin your career as a teacher and need some guidance; otherwise, you are a seasoned instructor searching for a refresher in your program. No matter which of the above you represent, the truth of the matter is that you are probably seeking a better way to introduce the subjects you’ll be teaching to your students. 

What is a lesson plan? 

A lesson plan will be the set of subject matter materials you will be teaching during a specific timeframe. The lesson plan should be an index that students can constantly consult to understand better the parts of the learning journey they will go through during each session. 

Teachers and professors should have a lesson plan template that happens in every session. This is different from a syllabus because, in the latter case, the whole curriculum of the program will be laid out; however, for each lesson, there should be one individual lesson plan example to guide the instructor in the set timeframe. 

When building the materials for the class or lesson’s attention, it’s always essential to share elements like the purpose or rules that guide the learning process . This article will explore the best way to present a lesson plan and drive a learning session successfully from the instructor or professor’s view. 

How to write a lesson plan 

Education nowadays guides different sorts of students and target specific learning needs. Therefore, it’s important and relevant to understand how lesson plans can change and be varied to truly implement the best learning path for your students. Once you have this part figured out, the next step is to understand how you will transmit the information and use a PowerPoint Presentation to simplify creating and presenting a lesson plan to your students. 

Lesson plans will comprise several different sections that will clarify the first questions students can have: How long will the course be? Will it be an online course ? What will be the main objectives? Which subjects will be discussed along with the class? 

1. Introduction 

As the lesson begins, it’s essential to place a brief yet descriptive introduction about what the session will cover. A good practice is to create a catchy title for each lesson to have an overall understanding of the information they will be receiving.

Example: Digital Marketing Basics: Industry background, historical review years 1980-2010. In this session, we will cover the birth of digital marketing, including all the touchpoints that shaped today’s industry. 

2. Audience

If your class is a one-time-only or recurring session, or even a blended learning journey, it’s essential to explain to your students who this class is for; this will allow them to calibrate their expectations about the matter to be taught ahead. 

Example: This lesson is directed to professionals who work in traditional marketing, business owners, or communication specialists seeking to have a profound understanding of how digital marketing came to be. 

3. Lesson Objectives 

This piece is critical because it will allow the students to assess the intention of each lesson. When thinking about the objectives, it’s vital to consider the acquired skills we expect our students to have at the end of the class. Like any other goals in life or business, each one should be actionable and measurable, meaning after each class, students should be able to use what they have learned and put into action the concepts. 

Example : Understand and be able to create a timeline framework of reference to explain the story of the Internet.

4. Materials 

Suppose the lesson requires using any specific materials, physical or not, including any software or hardware necessary. In that case, it´s important to list or include within the lesson plan so students can set clear expectations on what they might require. This is particularly important if the session you will be delivering requires them beforehand to bring anything. 

Example : 

• Computer 
• Scratch paper 

5. Learning Activities 

We´ve covered all the logistics by this point; however, now we need to start sharing the actual activities during the lesson. Ideally, this is a play-by-play of how each activity will guide the lesson towards the already established objectives. To add the list of learning activities that will be helpful for your students, take into account how all of them align with each goal and the requirements students need. 

Make sure that you add variety to the activities that you are proposing, go ahead and research trends of how many other teachers or professors, students will appreciate your search to engage them in learning. 

Also, consider how much time they will take so that you can note it in the next section. 

• Create a timeline on the wall with the most important moments of digital marketing history, including creation of social media, mainstream of email, etc.

Time periods

Pairing each learning activity with a specific timeframe will be useful both for instructors and students. Make sure you calculate a reasonable amount of time for each activity and list it within the lesson plan so everyone can set correct expectations. Assigning time slots for each exercise will also help students and teachers stay on track with the lesson and not waste valuable time invested in learning.

Example : Creation of a timeline – 45 min

How to present a lesson plan 

We have now listed the components of the lesson plan structure, everything looks beautiful in the draft, but now we need to start planning how we will present the program to the students. This part is challenging because you have to choose a template that makes sense for you and will be helpful for your students to understand.

A PowerPoint presentation is a great way to showcase all the contents of the lesson plan, however, the trick is to decide how you want to structure it.

Lesson Plan Design

By this point, you’ve structured a lesson plan template that can go through any test. Nevertheless, creating the materials to accompany it can be a key in the commitment generates between the students and the professor.

Design and Style

Before adding any text to your presentation template , think about the requirements you have: Does the academic institution where you work require the use of logos? Do you have to follow any visual guidelines? This might be important for the cohesiveness of your presentation.

It’s essential to think about how you would like to present the lesson plan. You may want to keep it simple and have a 1 pager and talk through it to understand your students fully, or perhaps you need to create one full presentation where every slide will be a relevant piece of information. Let’s explore this a bit further. 

One Pager Lesson Plan 

If your style is more towards simplicity, this is a great solution: succinct, minimalistic, and straight to the point. You can complete a one-page lesson plan with bullets of the relevant data and send it out to students. A great advantage of this format is that you can either send it as a PDF or even as a single image (JPG or PNG), exporting it directly from PowerPoint. 

One significant advantage is that your students will only have to check for one source by choosing this simple format when revising the lesson during the class or afterward. 

Several pages lesson plan 

Almost like a syllabus, a more extended presentation will include several slides so you can include the information in different formats. 

For example, you can use the first slide to include the lesson title; afterward, a new slide can define the purpose or introduction of the lesson. In the upcoming slides, you can include materials, contents, and even ad charts or similar to explain how grades will be affected by each lesson’s assignments on the upcoming slides. 

Text in the presentation 

It’s always good to follow the reliable practices of presentations and include the necessary information without overwhelming students. Don’t add an excessive amount of text to one slide; actually, make sure that every piece of data is helpful for students to plan their time both during and after class. 

However, if you will be sending out the presentation to your students before reviewing it, consider that they will be using it for their reference to follow through with your lesson. So make sure all the information is easy to read and accessible. 

Additional elements 

Learners of all sorts have become increasingly visual, so don’t be afraid to add infographics, images, photographs, icons or any other elements to make your lesson plan presentation more appealing visually. 

Final Words 

Remember the lesson plan presentation will be the first approach your students will have with the subject matter. Take your time, enjoy the process, and create comprehensive and attractive lesson plan slides that will inspire your students to have thoughtful and deep learning. 

1. 1-Slide Lesson Plan PowerPoint Template

Create a simple and minimalist one-pager lesson plan for your academic uses, course planning, and even as student handouts, with this eye-catching PowerPoint template. 

Use This Template

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How to Create an Effective Lesson Plan Presentation

Regardless of the subject or content you’re teaching, having a lesson plan in place prepares you for class by offering detailed guidelines for the session. The lesson plan doesn’t have to be lengthy or complex—it just needs to include elements about what you’re teaching, the method of presenting this material, and what objective and goals you wish your students to achieve as part of the curriculum.

Why Lesson Plans Are Important

It’s crucial for teachers to prepare their lessons in advance and implement the best teaching approaches. Attending a session without a lesson plan can be counterproductive for both students and teachers. Without the right preparation beforehand, classes can end up being unproductive or confusing.

Below are a few reasons why you should consider lesson planning:

Lesson Planning is Handy for Classroom Management

Developing the lesson plan from the learning objectives provides flexibility in adapting to different teaching methods and classroom management techniques. For instance, hybrid or online classes require a different delivery approach from the traditional classes, which means making modifications to any existing plans. With the right foresight and plan in place, classes can stay on topic and effective. Such circumstances underscore how crucial lesson plans are in ensuring that the class runs smoothly, regardless of the learning environment.  

Lesson Planning Creates Student Success

Various studies have shown that students benefit immensely from and appreciate well-structured lessons. Thus, success is more likely when students engage and show interest in the material being taught. Using a curriculum guide, teachers can develop valuable lesson plans based on specific objectives and goals (what’s intended for students to learn). 

​​Lesson Planning Is Central to Teacher Success

Teachers’ success is, to some extent, pegged on students’ success. Besides that, the documents you develop as part of the lesson planning process are often part of your assessment by school administrators. What’s more, as you advance your teaching career, your lesson plans serve as a repository for your expanding body of knowledge. Thus, the significance of lesson planning cannot be overlooked when it comes to advancing your career as an educator.

Lesson Planning is Vital in Student Assessment

Lastly, lesson plans turn the learning sessions into clear objectives for students and a way to gauge their understanding of the subject matter. One notable benefit of the lesson plan is tailoring the assessment to a particular objective while considering students’ specific needs. You can use common assessment methods such as quizzes, tests, and homework assignments.

How to Write a Lesson Plan

Lesson plans include different sections that clarify questions students might have about the subject on hand. What are the lesson objectives? What subjects will be covered during the session? How long will the course take?

• Introduction – As the lesson commences, it’s good to have a concise yet vivid introduction about what the lesson will cover. The ideal practice is to create a memorable title for every lesson to create a general understanding of the learning material students will be interacting with.
• **Lesson Objectives –**This section is critical as it allows the students to ascertain each lesson. When it comes to objectives, it is crucial to consider the acquired skills you expect the students to gain by the end of the session. Each objective should be measurable and actionable; meaning after every session, students should be able to apply what they’ve learned.
• Learning Activities – This should be a detailed account of how each activity will lead the class to achieve its predetermined goals. To create valuable activities, consider how each learning activity fits each objective, and the requirements students need.
• Practice – Practices are primarily intended to assess students’ comprehension of the material and aid in memorizing what they have learned in class. Therefore, it is crucial to include this in the lesson plan so that assessments can always be done at the appropriate time.

Today, lesson planning has been made less time-consuming and easier, thanks to smart whiteboards for the classroom . A digital whiteboard like the Vibe Board Pro provides unmatched performance that shows you know your craft and are way ahead of the pack.

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How Smart Whiteboards Simplify Lesson Plan Creation and Presentation

Not only does using a smart whiteboard make learning accessible , it’s also a great way of enhancing and enriching your lesson plans with interactive activities for the class. Smart whiteboards function as a touch screen for all; during class sessions, you and your students can use it as a digital whiteboard to create a space where students’ engagement, knowledge, and teamwork are appreciated.

While the smart whiteboard aids in making your lesson more engaging, interactive, and educational, you as the teacher can still customize your teachings to what you want them to be. This helps in foiling any hitches in your lesson presentation and makes switching from one topic to another seamless.

Below are more specific ways how smart whiteboards make your lesson plan presentation better:

Take Advantage of Built-in Templates

Once you invest in a smart whiteboard, make sure to take advantage of the wide variety of built-in lesson planning templates. You can use these templates to improve lesson plans while leveraging the technology associated with smart whiteboards. Even better, these templates can be easily customized for every lesson plan and cover different subject matters, allowing you to create new lesson plans without always starting from scratch quickly. How cool is that?

Organize and Present Lesson Plans Better

Smart whiteboards combine the power of the traditional whiteboard and a TV/projector into one hub, allowing you to write on the board while concurrently projecting it to the classroom. This allows you to conduct lesson plan presentations on a larger scale while also letting students see what’s going on.

For instance, if you’re presenting on an extensive topic involving multiple subtopics, a smart whiteboard will help you walk students through each subtopic with ease. Begin with the presentation divided into primary or main sections, highlight key definitions, and add infographics and videos to ensure that every student understands the tiniest detail.

Additionally, you can get students involved in the lesson plan presentation by asking questions, polling them on key points, or allowing them to follow along on their tablets or laptops.

Record Lesson Plan Presentations

Another benefit of using smart whiteboards in the classroom is that a lesson plan presentation can be recorded and accessed long after the session is over. This allows your students to access the material on their own time.

Final Words: Creating a Lesson Plan Presentation

Lesson plan presentation offers students the first interaction with the material they will learn. Take your time, appreciate the process, and create an attractive and comprehensive lesson plan that will encourage your students to have deep and thoughtful learning experiences. Even better, all of this can be made easier with smart whiteboard technology. Leave the spiral notebooks and sticky notes at home. A smart whiteboard is all you need.

What is the presentation stage in lesson planning?

Presentation is usually the core of the lesson plan. During this stage, theteacher introduces the topic and the key subject matter the students need to master. Presenting with smart whiteboards is exceedingly easy and less time-consuming.

What are the 5 steps in lesson planning?

The five steps are:

• Objective: A learning concept or objective is introduced.
• Warm-up: Revise the previous lesson
• Presentation: Present the material using suitable tools and techniques.
• Practice: Students try to apply what they have learned.
• Assessment: Evaluate whether the objectives were achieved

How does lesson planning help teachers?

Planning lessons in advance allows teachers to arrive at class each day prepared to introduce new concepts and facilitate engaging discussions rather than improvising as they go. In other words, without a lesson plan, teachers may be left scrambling, making students lose interest in the material to be learned.

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Home » Lesson Plans » Five Most Important Parts Of A Lesson Plan

Five Most Important Parts Of A Lesson Plan

How often do you have the feeling that you are entering a classroom without having a clear idea of what you are going to talk about for the entirety of the lesson? Nothing is slower than a classroom clock when you’ve got nothing else to say and the lesson needs to last for 20 more minutes.

In teaching, as in every other profession, preparation is key, and a solid lesson plan is the main tool you need to feel sure you’ll keep your class’ attention throughout the lesson.

The only way to prepare for the class and keep your students engaged and open to learning through the entirety of the lesson is to plan it properly. The question is, what should lesson plans include? We’ll go over every essential part of a lesson plan and show you how to write a lesson plan that will stop you from stressing over your classes.

Five Key Components of a Lesson Plan

Lesson plans are a teacher’s strongest tool and a way of ensuring that their lesson sticks to the intended trajectory—they help you plan exactly what you’re going to talk about, how you’re going to do it, and for how long. 

Thankfully, being a teacher no longer means going into a classroom, regurgitating textbook material you know by heart, and handing out tests every other week. You have much more freedom than that, and you should use it. Learning is important, and the best way to make your students gain new knowledge and implement new skills is to make learning fun .

This, of course, depends on the subject and the grade you’re teaching. Preschool lesson plans will focus on having fun and playing games much more than high school plans .

At the same time, you don’t have as much freedom when planning your math lessons as compared to art lesson plans.

Source: @cafealternativo via Twenty20

Make sure to use an appropriate lesson plan template that will guide you through the planning process and leave enough room for various lesson plan components. Still, regardless of the grade or subject you’re preparing for, every lesson plan should consist of:

• Lesson plan objective
• Assessment methods

Lesson Plan Objective

Think of each of these sections as answers to certain questions. A lesson plan objective should provide an answer to the question, “ What’s the point of this lesson? ”

An objective should be a single sentence that’s clear and concise and offers a specific goal you’re trying to achieve with your lesson. When writing an objective, use the S.M.A.R.T. formula, i.e., try and make your objective:

There’s no point to a lesson if you don’t have a specific goal in mind and you don’t know how to judge whether the goal has been achieved or not. Take a look at the following examples:

Lesson Materials

Lesson materials are a part of a lesson plan that consists of a list of various items that represent an answer to the question, “What will I need to carry out my lesson?”

Think of every single element that you’ll need for your class. There’s no worse feeling than getting a bunch of 1st graders excited about drawing only to figure out you didn’t bring any crayons.

Lesson materials can include:

• Googly eyes
• Letter blocks
• Game pieces
• Board games
• PowerPoint presentations

Learning Activities

Learning activities represent the element of a lesson plan where you answer the question, “ How will students achieve the lesson plan objective? ” You should try to be as creative as your curriculum , standards, and lesson topics allow you to be. Don’t make your lesson into a one-sided lecture—try to be interactive and let students engage with the material you present to them.

Source: @elizabethL via Twenty20

The activities you use will depend on the grade and subject as well, but you should always strive to make your lessons playful. For instance, you can use the following activities:

• Play a crossword puzzle or Scrabble
• Draw your parents
• Build a bridge
• Get two students to play the optimist-pessimist game
• Play the think-pair-share game after reading an excerpt
• Play Bingo with simple math equations on the card
• Assign group projects about U.S. government branches

Assessment Methods

How will you judge whether you have achieved the lesson plan objective or not? By using appropriate assessment methods to gauge your students’ understanding of the lesson. 

You should plan how you’re going to evaluate whether students have gained new knowledge or learned a new skill to a satisfactory level. You can use good, old-fashioned tests, but you should try to diversify your methods and make your lessons less stressful for students.

Aside from a test, assessment methods include:

• Hands-on activities
• Writing assignments
• Group activities
• Individual and group assignments
• Presentations
• Class journal entries

Lesson Timeline

The last component of your lesson plan should provide an answer to the question, “ How are you going to use the allocated time ?”

Source: GIPHY

You should plan your schedule and make sure you leave enough space for every activity and assessment method you’ve listed. While your timeline should be detailed, make sure to leave some leeway as you can never know how much time some students will take to master new material.

One way to organize your lesson is to allocate time to the following sections:

• Get students’ attention
• Share the objective with students
• Recall prior learning
• Present new information
• Offer guidance
• Give feedback
• Assess students’ performance
• Enhance retention (i.e., let students apply the information to personal contexts)

Finding Ready-Made Lesson Plans Online

A lot goes into a lesson plan, and you need to be skillful and experienced in writing a lesson plan to make sure you don’t miss any important detail. Creating a lesson plan from scratch takes time and effort. Why do it by yourself if someone’s already done it for you?

You can find thousands of lesson plans online, both paid and free. The problem is, you can’t know which ones are good until you go through them thoroughly. Free lesson plans are worth as much as you pay for them, while paid lesson plans offer you only a small preview, and you have to pay the full price to download them.

You can end up spending hundreds of dollars on unusable lesson plans that don’t follow your curriculum, have vague objectives, and use repetitive and uninspiring learning activities.

The only way to avoid this is by finding a source of high-quality lesson plans and materials that doesn’t charge you per download.

Source: @annann_9 via Twenty20

Teach Simple—The Best Source for All Your Teaching Needs

Teach Simple is a subscription-based source of top-drawer teaching materials made for teachers by teachers. Every material we publish has been created and tested by teachers that contribute to our database. With Teach Simple, you can rely on resources that have been made by people who know what it’s like to walk into a classroom full of students whose wandering brains need taming.

When you sign up for Teach Simple , you’ll be able to make unlimited downloads of all materials that catch your eye without any additional costs. You can use our marketplace to find lesson plans for 2nd graders , kindergarten , ESL students , and various subject-specific ones like biology , social studies , foreign languages , and geography .

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What is ‘Presentation, Practice, Production’ (PPP)?

And how can i best use it in my classroom.

Presentation, practice, production (PPP) is a lesson structure, a way to order activities in your lessons.

Although quite old and heavily criticised over the years, PPP is probably the most commonly used lesson structure in teaching English to foreign learners today. It’s also still widely taught to new teachers and seen on initial teacher training courses like the CELTA and CertTESOL.

Most course books that you’re likely to use will structure their chapters in ways similar or the same as PPP, meaning that you’ll get a lot of exposure to this method.

As the name suggests, there are three stages to this lesson structure, which we’ll look at now.

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The ‘presentation’ stage

This is where the language is introduced, or ‘presented’ to the learners, usually by introducing a context or situation. For example, you could:

Tell or act out a short story or anecdote ( “I woke up this morning with a nasty cold… AHHH-CHOOO! I went to the doctor and…”)

Play a short audio clip

Show a clip from a movie or TV show.

Show objects you’ve brought in (e.g. newspaper cuttings, plane tickets, hobby materials)

The aim is to ensure students understand the context and get them thinking about it. You could elicit ideas or suggestions from students, get them to talk to each other about what they know or think about the situation, etc. This also helps them start to remember the language and vocabulary they already know about the topic (or ‘activate the schemata’, if you want the fancy term for it).

The ‘practice’ stage

The ‘practice’ stage is when students use the language in a controlled way. This stage is sometimes divided into two — a controlled practice and a freer practice. Again, among many things, you could get students to:

Drill sentences or sounds, chorally or individually.

Substitution drill in pairs

Sentence matching activities

Gap-fill exercises

Pair work asking and answering questions

The aim of this stage is accuracy . Error correction is important in this stage, so monitor the students closely and take time to correct errors immediately. A delayed error correction section after the activity would be useful for target language errors that seem to be common.

The ‘production’ stage

The ‘production’ stage is where the language is used more openly. Things like:

Communication tasks

Collaborative tasks

Discussion activities

The focus of this stage is using the language as fluently and naturally as possible , as students would do outside of the classroom.

Theory behind Presentation, Practice, Production

This is where PPP gets criticised. It started in the 1960s, and language learning theory has developed considerably since then. Academics who study second language acquisition get annoyed at how PPP doesn’t tick any of the boxes for how we’re supposed to learn a language and yet is still so widespread.

Some learning assumptions behind presentation, practice, production are:

Students should be told the grammar rules and then practice them (a deductive approach).

Language learning is a skill like any other and should be practised as such.

There should be a high level of teacher control, slowly handed over to learners as the lesson progresses.

Language is a series of items that can be learned in sequence.

The target language should be practised by removing unnecessary language to help focus.

All of these have been shown that this isn’t how we best learn languages (in fact, the opposite is largely true!).

However, it isn’t all bad. Here’s my opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of PPP:

It’s easy to learn for new teachers.

It’s very flexible.

It’s easy to plan for and has a logical progression.

It works for most types of classes, including larger classes.

Most course books use this or a similar method to structure their lessons and chapters.

Disadvantages

Research shows that it may not be the best way to teach/learn a language.

Weaker learners may overuse the target language from the practice session, so it sounds unnatural.

Learners may not know how to use the target language in different contexts.

It can be boring if used repeatedly for higher-level students.

Thoughts on Presentation, Practice, Production

Academics are often far removed from the classroom and the real world, studying the individual phenomenon in isolation.

I’ve often seen a light bulb moment for students whilst teaching PPP (although one could argue that it’s not strict PPP, and it’d be hard to isolate the teaching method from other variables). Teaching over a period of time with this method, you do see students improve. Consider also that it’s not done in isolation — you should be getting your learners to interact in English naturally and read extensively outside of class, for starters.

Presentation, practice, production works. Maybe not as well as something like task-based learning (TBL), but TBL takes longer to plan and implement, which becomes very difficult when your teaching hours are high.

Sure, so it might not be theoretically perfect, but it does work.

How to adapt the PPP method

Also, I believe it has evolved from the ‘traditional’ PPP approach described above. Here are some ways you can adapt the classic PPP structure:

Spend more time in the presentation stage eliciting.

Turn the deductive aspect of explicit grammar instruction into an inductive aspect (so learners have to figure out the patterns themselves).

Add collaborative tasks during the practice stage, which learners must use the target language to complete successfully.

Include meta-learning strategies so students can learn how to learn.

Include more incidental language throughout the class so learners hear language in a more natural context.

Change the final stage into a task, such as you’d find in task-based learning .

These changes turn PPP into something else, a blended approach that addresses many of the criticisms of PPP.

Other structures have sought to improve upon the model of PPP. Variants include ESA (engage, study, activate) and CAP (context, analysis, practice)

However, the simplicity of PPP and its notoriety have kept it the most widely used model. I doubt it’s going away any time soon.

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Last Updated: April 7, 2024 Fact Checked

Sample Lesson Plans

Constructing a lesson plan, adjusting your lesson plans efficiently, presenting the lesson, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by César de León, M.Ed. and by wikiHow staff writer, Eric McClure . César de León is an Educational Leadership Consultant and currently serves as an Assistant Principal for the Austin Independent School District in Austin, TX. César specializes in education program development, curriculum improvement, student mentorship, social justice, equity leadership, and family and community engagement. He is passionate about eradicating inequities in schools for all children, especially those who have been historically underserved and marginalized. César holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education and Biology from Texas State University and a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from The University of Texas at Austin. There are 20 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,840,665 times.

As a teacher, developing a thoughtful lesson plan is an essential part of your job. Not only do your lesson plans lay out everything you’ll do in a given class, but they can be shared with subs to complete your lessons when you’re out sick, and administrators can use them to provide feedback and monitor your classroom. While writing a lesson plan may seem like a daunting task at first, take it from a former teacher that they’ll soon become second nature. In this article, we’ll walk you through what you need to include in each lesson plan, show you how to use your lesson plan to make you a better teacher, and walk you through what a class might look like based on your plans.

Things You Should Know

• A lesson plan outlines what you’ll teach in a given lesson and provides justification for why you’re teaching it.
• Every lesson plan needs an objective, relevant standards, a timeline of activities, an overview of the class, assessments, and required instructional materials.
• Overplan in case your lesson ends early and tailor your plans to suit the needs of your students.

• An example of a good objective might be, "Students will be able to analyze nonfiction texts by performing a close reading on a historical document."
• Most teachers will use Bloom’s taxonomy when choosing their objective verb.
• Teachers often abbreviate “Students will be able to” with “SWBAT” on their lesson plans.
• Many teachers start with the objective then work their way out from there, choosing class activities last. This is called “backmapping” and it’s the most widely accepted lesson organization style around today. [2] X Research source

• Our previous objective aligns nicely with the CCSS R.L.8.2, which reads “Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text…”
• A handful of states, including Florida, Virginia, and Texas, refuse to adopt common core. They have their own state standards.
• If you’re still in school to become a teacher, you may not have specific standards you need to cover just yet.
• Many schools will allow teachers to cover the objectives in whatever order they’d like so far as they cover all of them. Some schools will map out the standards to cover in their curriculum, though.

• For example, if your class is about Shakespeare's Hamlet , your overview might be “Introduction to Hamlet . Historical context, biographical info, and preliminary information. We’ll cover the folio, character list, and assign reading roles. Start Act 1 if time allows.”
• A single overview may get you through multiple classes, so you may find yourself copy and pasting the same overview into multiple plans. That’s totally okay!

• 1:00-1:10: Warm up . Bring class into focus and recap yesterday's discussion on great tragedies; relate it to Hamlet .
• 1:10-1:25: Present information. Discuss Shakespearean history briefly, focusing on his creative period 2 years before and after Hamlet.
• 1:25-1:40: Guided practice . Class discussion regarding major themes in the play.
• 1:40-1:55: Freer practice. Class writes single paragraph describing current event in Shakespearean terms. Individually encourage bright students to write 2 paragraphs, and coach slower students.
• 1:55-2:00: Conclusion. Collect papers, assign homework, dismiss class.

• Formative assessments are instructional tools. They’re anything you use to check if students are learning so you can adjust your lessons. Examples include: class discussions, teacher questions, pop quizzes, group work, surveys, and self-reflections.
• Summative assessments are how you prove a student learned something. They occur at the end of lesson arcs, units, or sections. Examples include: tests, quizzes, essays, presentations, and final projects.
• All summative assessments (outside of tests and quizzes) have rubrics, which are the set of standards you’re judging students on. You do not need to include your rubrics in the lesson plan, but you should be making rubrics.

• You might list textbooks, worksheets, novels, calculators, or whiteboards. If you need to borrow a TV or need a link to a specific YouTube video, include that, too.
• Skip the basic school supplies every student needs. You don’t need to mention pens, pencils, etc.
• Need a worksheet or special materials for a class but don’t want to spend super long making them from scratch? Check out Teachers Pay Teachers . Seasoned educators sell their instructional material to other teachers for cheap!

• Over time, you’ll need to do this less and less. Eventually, you'll be able to go in with practically nothing at all!

• If you find yourself constantly running over your schedule, know what you can and cannot scratch. What must you cover in order for the children to learn most? What is just fluff and time killers?

• Odds are you'll be working with a pile of extroverts and introverts. Some students will benefit more from working alone while others will thrive in pair work or in groups. Knowing this will help you format activities to different interaction preferences. [11] X Research source
• You'll also wind up having a few students that know just about as much as you do on the topic and some that, while smart, look at you like you're from another planet. If you know who these kids are, you can plan accordingly.

Joseph Meyer

Effective teaching strategies consider a student's individual strengths. Tailoring instruction to a student's existing skills and encouraging collaborative activities can improve a student's outcome. Recognizing diverse learning styles allows for a stronger approach, fostering potential in all learners.

• Really, any activity can be manipulated to be done separately, in pairs, or in groups. If you have ideas already mapped out, see if you can revamp them at all to mix it up.

• Every student learns differently. Some need to see the info, some need to hear it, and others need to literally get their hands on it. If you've spent a great while talking, stop and let them talk about it.
• You will likely have some students with IEPs, or Instructional Educational Plans. These are legal documents for students with special needs that require specific instructional adjustments.

• The easiest thing to do is to come up with a quick concluding game or discussion. Throw the students together and have them discuss their opinions or ask questions.

• Avoid using shorthand or acronyms that only you’ll be able to understand.

Eric McClure

"It helps if your backup lesson plans are very easy to find and clearly labeled as substitute plans. If there are any handouts, print those out ahead of time as well. This is the kind of thing that’s easy to overlook early in the year, but trust me—you’ll need a day off at some point and when you do, you won’t want to come in just to drop off lesson plans."

• The warm up can be a simple game (possibly about vocab on the topic to see where their current knowledge lies (or what they remember from last week!). Or, it can be questions, a mingle, or pictures used to start a conversation. Whatever it is, get them talking and thinking about the topic.

• Go over the objective at the beginning of class! Always let your students know why they’re doing what they’re doing.

• This is often explained by teachers as “I do, we do, you do.” In other words, you show them how to do it. Then, the whole class does it together. Finally, the students do it on their own.
• If you have time for two activities, all the better. It's a good idea to test their knowledge on two different levels -- for example, writing and speaking (two very different skills). Try to incorporate different activities for students that have different aptitudes.

• If you've been teaching the same group for a while, odds are you know the students who might struggle with certain concepts. If that's the case, pair them with stronger students to keep the class going.
• You don't want certain students left behind, but you also don't want the class held up, waiting for everyone to get on the same level.

• It all depends on the subject at hand and the skills you want to use. It can be anything from a 20-minute puppet making project to a two-week long dalliance with the oversoul in a heated debate on transcendentalism.

• If you have a group full of kids that can't be paid to raise their hands, turn them amongst themselves. Give them an aspect of the topic to discuss and 5 minutes to converse about it. Then bring the focus to the front of the class and lead a group discussion. Interesting points are bound to pop up!

• Assign and hand out any homework at the end of the class.

• Don’t worry if lesson planning feels really unfulfilling and pointless to you. A lot of new teachers think they feel like busy work at first—especially when classes don’t go as planned. Luckily, once you finish one year of teaching, you’ll have a full year’s worth of lessons to use! [24] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Lesson plans typically cover a single class period, although a more complex lesson may require 2-3 days to get through. A single lesson plan may also bleed over into multiple classes if there’s a fire alarm, some behavioral issue that requires attention, or you have to modify your schedule due to a school-wide event. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/5-tips-improve-your-lesson-plan
• ↑ https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/why-the-csu-matters/graduation-initiative-2025/co-requisite-mathematics-summit/Handouts/Backmapping_example_and_template.pdf
• ↑ https://drexel.edu/soe/resources/student-teaching/advice/how-to-write-a-lesson-plan/
• ↑ https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/cnm/cresource/q4/p16/
• ↑ https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Formative-Summative-Assessments
• ↑ https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~slm/AdjCI/Lessonplan/Elements.html
• ↑ https://awildsurmise.medium.com/improving-teaching-scripting-5950e1d15f54
• ↑ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/511257/Eliminating-unnecessary-workload-around-planning-and-teaching-resources.pdf
• ↑ César de León, M.Ed.. Educational Leadership Consultant. Expert Interview. 11 November 2020.
• ↑ https://onlineprograms.ollusa.edu/ma-in-counseling/resources/learning-styles-of-introverts-and-extroverts
• ↑ http://www.auburn.edu/~nunnath/engl6240/seating.html
• ↑ https://teach.com/what/teachers-know/learning-styles/
• ↑ https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/pacing-lessons-for-optimal-learning
• ↑ https://www.chalk.com/introduction-to-lesson-planning/why-lesson-plan/
• ↑ https://www.edutopia.org/blog/having-an-off-day-josh-stock
• ↑ https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/teaching/teaching-how/chapter-2-teaching-successful-section/running-class
• ↑ https://readingrecovery.clemson.edu/home-2/reading-comprehension/lesson-structure/guided-practice/
• ↑ https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/d-h/free-practice
• ↑ https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/engaging-students/using-effective-questions
• ↑ https://www.tefl.net/elt/ideas/younglearners/finishing-preschool-english-lessons/

About This Article

If you need to make a lesson plan, start by creating a timeline based on the length of the class or the school day. As you get to know your class throughout the year, try to tailor your lesson plan to their strengths. For instance, some groups might learn better by taking notes during a lecture, while others might benefit more from group discussions or worksheets. Try to include several different activities during each class period so the kids don’t get bored, and also to appeal to the different learning styles in the classroom. Read on for sample lesson plans and more tips on how to budget your time! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to build a lesson plan (+ templates), share this article.

So you’ve got a great course topic , you’ve built a course outline to help you deliver, and now you’re all set to start your first lesson plan.

When it comes to building an online course that delivers, you need to be strategic about your lessons. Each lesson plan is a building block that ladders up to your overarching course goals.

Let’s talk about how to build a lesson plan that hits home.

Or grab them here for google docs or word!  

Skip ahead:

What does a good lesson plan look like? 

5 steps for building a lesson plan from scratch .

A well-designed lesson plan has seven key elements: 

Class objectives 

Objectives, at a basic level, are what the lesson sets out to achieve — think of them as your North Star. Objectives communicate three key things:

• Why students need the lesson
• What they’ll be able to do at the end of the lesson
• How they’ll demonstrate knowledge. 

Say one of the lessons in your social media course is “choosing the right channels.” In that case, your objective could be: At the end of this lesson, students will be able to compare different social media channels and choose the one that best aligns with their content goals. 

Teaching and learning are more effective when all the stakeholders understand the purpose of the lesson. When anyone veers off the track, they can easily realign themselves with the North Star.

Hook is what grabs the attention of your students. It is usually a statement surfacing the problem they are having — which is why they signed up for your course in the first place. This is your chance to prove that you understand their problem and can solve it. 

Back to our previous example, the hook could be a story about a creator who switched channels and finally got traction on social media after trying for many years. Or you could share data around how social channels affect how much money creators make.  

Learning activities 

Here, you spell out everything the lesson entails — from class activities and instruction time to independent work time and even assessments. Everyone involved needs to know what the lesson covers so they can prepare ahead of time. 

Again, referring to our earlier example, the learning activities might look like this: 

• Worksheets 
• Instructor-led sessions
• One Q and A session at the end of the class 
• Independent work time (which doubles as assessment) 
• Class discussions 

Learn more: Blended learning and scheduled class activities  

Timeline shows the duration of each activity in the lesson. More than showing how long the class will take, assign time limits to the different sessions within each lesson, including assessment, main instruction, breaks, and student participation. 

Build in a buffer between each session to take care of any unforeseen issues. Say you want to spend 15 minutes on a class presentation; assign 20 minutes to it instead. 

Having a realistic lesson timeline helps you stay on track, making sure you have enough time to cover all the key areas of your lesson. 

This is where you highlight what students need to make the most of your class — to set them up for success. The last thing you need is for your course to lose credibility because a particular student wasn’t sufficiently equipped for it. 

Maybe they need to complete a foundational course first to bring them up to the level of knowledge required for the lesson. Or they need access to certain tools and equipment. Tell them all about it here. 

For a social media class, for instance, students must have active accounts and maybe a certain number of followers. 

Closure is how you wrap up the class. It typically involves a recap of the key points covered in the lesson and a quick review of the class objectives. 

The instructor might ask reflective questions such as “What was the most challenging part of the lesson for you?” or “What would you like to learn more about in this topic?” Or ask students to create a mind map of the key points covered in the lesson.

At this point, students and instructors can reflect on the lesson activities at the end to see if they met their goals. Students can also ask last-minute questions before the final assessment. 

Assessment 

This is the parameter for measuring how well a student understands what they’ve learned in a particular lesson. It helps the course instructor assess students fairly. 

The assessment can take several forms. One might administer a summative test — like an end-of-class quiz. Or conduct a survey with open-ended questions at intervals to gauge students’ knowledge. 

Whichever method you choose, make sure you inform students ahead of time so they prepare adequately for it. 

Before you begin

Before you dive into lesson planning, start with a few key questions to determine the goal of your lesson. As the topic expert, the breadth of this course content is clear in your head, but your students are still figuring it out as they go along. 

Keep a narrow focus for each lesson while keeping the bigger picture in mind – this will help your students build knowledge in context so they can use it independently and remember it forever!

• What do your students already know? This is back to what you’ve covered in previous lessons or what foundational knowledge you expect students to have. Do they have all the definitions they need to understand today’s topic? Are there any gaps you need to close before you dive in? That will be your starting point for this lesson.
• What do they need to learn today? Eyes on the prize here – keep your goal clear, or you’ll get lost along the way! Set yourself a single goal for this lesson: should students understand the formula for a unique value proposition, or should they be able to write a great cover letter? What single concept or skill do you want this lesson to impart to your students? Remember to keep it simple; if it’s too complex, you might want to consider splitting it into smaller lessons to avoid confusing your students with information overload.
• What’s the best way to lock it into place? Now that you’ve locked down the goal for today’s lesson, you can decide on the best way to deliver the information. Is this something best delivered through video, or is it better explained with text and diagrams? Could you represent this as an infographic? What practice activities would help your students lock in their newly acquired skills?

Related: How to do a training needs assessment

It’s not always about downloading your brain onto the page. You need to consider how you explain things so your students fully understand not only the new facts, but the context surrounding them – that’s the key to them being able to apply these new skills independently when the course is over. 

With the Thinkific course builder, you have so many teaching tools and resources at your disposal – use them in harmony with one another to give your students a dynamic learning experience .

Now that you’ve got those three guiding principles in mind, let’s put them to work in your lesson plan.

Set the stage

Begin each new lesson by setting the stage for your students. You can do this in three key steps:

• Take a brief moment to look back at what you covered in the last lesson,
• Give a high-level overview of what today’s lesson will entail, and
• Tell students the key skills or takeaways they will have conquered by the end of the lesson.

In particular, consider if any content from previous lessons is applicable to the new lesson. Never miss an opportunity to name-drop or draw examples from old content while introducing new material! It’s a great opportunity to help your students build context between what might feel like a confusing array of new facts. When you build bridges between old and new knowledge, it creates that lightbulb moment for students to see how all the pieces fit together.

This is more than just summarizing or expectation-setting – it’s a strategic educational principle. By reminding students of previous lessons, you help them draw connections between old and new content so they can understand how everything fits together. 

When you share the key touchpoints for today’s lesson, you set up a framework for them to contextualize everything that follows. If they know what the final goal is, they will naturally be more attuned to anything you say about those skills from that point onwards. This brief process at the beginning of each lesson provides anchors for students to shape their understanding throughout the rest of the lesson.

Explain new information

This is the main component of any lesson plan. When it’s time to introduce new content, make sure to do so clearly and simply. Explain new concepts in the most straightforward way possible. Consider your weakest student, and explain things with them in mind – even your strongest students will still benefit from that simplicity!

Be sure to use lots of examples to help students develop context with new information. One tip here is to use a mix of examples that draw from general knowledge and subject-specific knowledge. For example, you can and should give concrete examples grounded in the course subject matter; for more abstract concepts, however, it can be helpful to explain things using everyday examples that everyone can relate to. 

Related: The Ultimate List of Free Online Course Lesson Plan Templates

Consider using apples and oranges to explain abstract economic concepts, or using nursery rhymes to explain music theory. This doesn’t mean you have to come up with mysterious hypothetical examples like the ones you might have found on a high school math quiz – just look for everyday situations you can use to explain more difficult concepts, so your students can ground their new understanding in something familiar.

Students learn in a myriad of different ways – some through text, others through video, and still others through graphic design or activities like writing by hand. While explaining things clearly in a well-produced video or article is always a great place to start, consider using a variety of methods to make your lesson plan stick.

• Create an infographic to illustrate key points from the lesson
• Provide fill-in-the-blank notes so students can follow along with you and pay attention for key information queues
• Link key words and concepts to external articles or videos to provide students with additional learning resources
• Create a slide deck of key points that students can use as a review tool
• The sky’s the limit – if you can think of an alternative way to present your information, your students will benefit! The Thinkific course builder has a number of different content types to suit your needs, wherever the inspiration leads you.

Learn more about different learning styles and how to teach to them . 

Practice makes perfect

After introducing new material to students, it’s vital to give them an opportunity to put their new skills into practice . This is what helps them lock new information into their brains and build contextual links with other skills. It’s also an important tool to help students master the content from this lesson before they move on to the next – as they work through practice activities and find themselves stuck on particular concepts or tasks, it will become clear which aspects of the material they didn’t quite understand. That gives students a targeted opportunity to ask good questions or go back through the course material until they master that skill.

Even in an online course , there are a number of practice activities you can prompt students to use:

• Ask students to define key concepts and use them in a paragraph, so they have an opportunity to put things into their own words
• Suggest students rephrase concepts by converting your notes into questions, like those they might expect to see on a quiz
• If you have a community or online group, ask students to share their summaries or reflections with each other in a dedicated lesson thread

Related: 8 ways to make online classes more interactive  

Assessments

Sometimes, you also need to assess student knowledge. While you won’t do this for each and every lesson, it’s a helpful tool to check student understanding at important course milestones.

Thinkific’s course platform makes it easy to deliver student assessments with quizzes, exams, and assignments to put your students to the test, but you should keep future assessments in mind while you plan lessons. As you build a series of lessons, keep these questions in mind for future assessments:

• What facts and skills from this lesson are necessary for a student to succeed in this course?
• Are there any facts in this lesson that students need to be reminded of to make sure they stick?

Keep a running list of these answers as you build your lessons. By the time you reach a course milestone and you’re ready to build an assessment, you’ll already have a list of key questions to use in your quiz or assignment. By drawing questions from across a series of lessons, you help students build contextual links between different batches of information and end up with a more cohesive learning experience.

Get ahead with our free lesson plan template

Building a lesson plan from scratch is challenging and quickly gets complicated if it’s your first time. To help you, we’ve created a customizable template you can tweak to suit your needs fast. 

You’re well on your way to building a great course , with solid principles that help you deliver dynamic lessons to your students!

Put your learning into action with Thinkific:

This blog was originally created in August 2020, it has since been updated in August 2023 to become even more useful!

Jenny is a Content Marketer at Thinkific. A lifelong learner, she loves writing about anything from Byron to blockchain. Formerly from Cape Town, she now spends her spare time wandering Vancouver in search of the perfect coffee.

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Lesson Planning

You are here, what is a lesson plan.

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. Having a carefully constructed lesson plan for each 3-hour lesson allows you to enter the classroom with more confidence and maximizes your chance of having a meaningful learning experience with your students.

A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates three key components:

• Learning Objectives
• Learning activities
• Assessment to check for student understanding

A lesson plan provides you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them, and is by no means exhaustive. A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and instructor learn from each other. You may refer to an example of a 3 hour lesson plan here .

Before Class: Steps for preparing a lesson plan

Listed below are 6 steps for preparing your lesson plan before your class.

1. Identify the learning objectives

Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the lesson. A learning objective describes what the learner will know or be able to do after the learning experience rather than what the learner will be exposed to during the instruction (i.e. topics). Typically, it is written in a language that is easily understood by students and clearly related to the program learning outcomes. The table below contains the characteristics of clear learning objectives:

The Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( link ) is a useful resource for crafting learning objectives that are demonstrable and measurable.

2. Plan the specific learning activities

When planning learning activities you should consider the types of activities students will need to engage in, in order to develop the skills and knowledge required to demonstrate effective learning in the course. Learning activities should be directly related to the learning objectives of the course, and provide experiences that will enable students to engage in, practice, and gain feedback on specific progress towards those objectives.

As you plan your learning activities, estimate how much time you will spend on each. Build in time for extended explanation or discussion, but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding. Some questions to think about as you design the learning activities you will use are:

• What will I do to explain the topic?
• What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?
• How can I engage students in the topic?
• What are some relevant real-life examples, analogies, or situations that can help students understand the topic?
• What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?

Many activities can be used to engage learners. The activity types (i.e. what the student is doing) and their examples provided below are by no means an exhaustive list, but will help you in thinking through how best to design and deliver high impact learning experiences for your students in a typical lesson.

It is important that each learning activity in the lesson must be (1) aligned to the lesson’s learning objectives, (2) meaningfully engage students in active, constructive, authentic, and collaborative ways, and (3) useful where the student is able to take what they have learnt from engaging with the activity and use it in another context, or for another purpose.

3. Plan to assess student understanding

Assessments (e.g., tests, papers, problem sets, performances) provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and practice the knowledge and skills articulated in the learning objectives, and for instructors to offer targeted feedback that can guide further learning.

Planning for assessment allows you to find out whether your students are learning. It involves making decisions about:

• Examples of different assessments
• Formative and/or summative
• Self-assessment
• Peer assessment
• Information about how various tasks are to be weighted and combined into an overall grade must be provided to students.
• Giving feedback to students on how to improve their learning, as well as giving feedback to instructors how to refine their teaching.

To learn more about designing assessment, click here .

4. Plan to sequence the lesson in an engaging and meaningful manner

Robert Gagne proposed a nine-step process called the events of instruction, which is useful for planning the sequence of your lesson. Using Gagne’s 9 events in conjunction with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( link ) aids in designing engaging and meaningful instruction.

Gange's Nine Events of Instruction by CourseArc is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

• Present a story or a problem to be solved.
• Utilize ice breaker activities, current news and events, case studies, YouTube videos, and so on. The objective is to quickly grab student attention and interest in the topic.
• Utilize technologies such as clickers, and surveys to ask leading questions prior to lecture, survey opinion, or gain a response to a controversial question.
• Include learning objectives in lecture slides, the syllabus, and in instructions for activities, projects and papers.
• Describe required performance.
• Describe criteria for standard performance.
• Help students make sense of new information by relating it to something they already know or something they have already experienced.
• Recall events from previous lecture, integrate results of activities into the current topic, and/or relate previous information to the current topic.
• Ask students about their understanding of previous concepts.
• Sequence and chunk the information to avoid cognitive overload.
• Blend the information to aid in information recall.
• Bloom's Revised Taxonomy can be used to help sequence the lesson by helping you chunk them into levels of difficulty.
• Provide instructional support as needed – as scaffolds (cues, hints, prompts) which can be removed after the student learns the task or content.
• Model varied learning strategies – mnemonics, concept mapping, role playing, visualizing.
• Use examples and non-examples.

To find out more about scaffolding student learning, click here.

• Allow students to apply knowledge in group or individual activities.
• Ask deep-learning questions, make reference to what students already know or have students collaborate with their peers.
• Ask students to recite, revisit, or reiterate information they have learned.
• Facilitate student elaborations – ask students to elaborate or explain details and provide more complexity to their responses.
• Consider using group / class level feedback (highlighting common errors, give examples or models of target performance, show students what you do not want).
• Consider implementing peer feedback.
• Require students to specify how they used feedback in subsequent works.
• Utilise a variety of assessment methods including exams/quizzes, written assignments, projects, and so on.
• Provide opportunities for students to relate course work to their personal experiences.
• Provide additional practice.

5. Create a realistic timeline

A list of ten learning objectives is not realistic, so narrow down your list to the two or three key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn in the lesson. Your list of prioritized learning objectives will help you make decisions on the spot and adjust your lesson plan as needed. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:

• Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each.
• When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take.
• Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points.
• Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left.
• Be flexible – be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students’ needs and focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your original plan.

6. Plan for a lesson closure

Lesson closure provides an opportunity to solidify student learning. Lesson closure is useful for both instructors and students.

You can use closure to:

• Check for student understanding and inform subsequent instruction (adjust your teaching accordingly)
• Emphasise key information
• Tie up loose ends
• Correct students’ misunderstandings
• Preview upcoming topics

Your students will find your closure helpful for:

• Summarizing, reviewing, and demonstrating their understanding of major points
• Consolidating and internalising key information
• Linking lesson ideas to a conceptual framework and/or previously-learned knowledge
• Transferring ideas to new situations

There are several ways in which you can put a closure to the lesson:

• State the main points yourself (“Today we talked about…”)
• Ask a student to help you summarize them
• Ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think were the main points of the lesson

During the class: Presenting your lesson plan

Letting your students know what they will be learning and doing in class will help keep them more engaged and on track. Providing a meaningful organisation of the class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the rationale behind the planned learning activities. You can share your lesson plan by writing a brief agenda on the whiteboard or telling students explicitly what they will be learning and doing in class. Click on link here for tips and techniques to facilitate an interactive lesson.

After the class: Reflecting on your lesson plan

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. If needed, revise the lesson plan.

Bibliography

• Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., Lovett, M., DiPietro, M., & Norman, M. (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
• EDUCAUSE (2005). Potential Learning Activities. Retrieved April 7 2017, from EDUCAUSE website: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0547B.pdf .
• Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center. Retrieved from http://ideaedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Idea_Paper_42.pdf .
• Gagne, R. M., Wager, W.W., Golas, K. C. & Keller, J. M (2005). Principles of Instructional Design (5th edition). California: Wadsworth.
• Gredler, M. E. (2004). Games and simulations and their relationships to learning. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 571-82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Richardson, J.C., & Swan. K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students' perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 7(1), 68-88.
• Schuell, T.J. (1986). Cognitive conceptions of learning. Review of Educational Research, 56, 411-436.

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General Teaching Methods

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Presentation

A presentation delivers content through oral, audio and visual channels allowing teacher-learner interaction and making the learning process more attractive. Through presentations, teachers can clearly introduce difficult concepts by illustrating the key principles and by engaging the audience in active discussions. When presentations are designed by learners, their knowledge sharing competences, their communication skills and their confidence are developed.

• Define the objectives of the presentation in accordance to the lesson plan (lesson planning)
• Prepare the structure of the presentation, including text, illustrations and other content (lesson planning)
• Set up and test the presentation equipment and provide a conducive seating arrangement and environment for the audience (lesson planning)
• Invite the audience to reflect on the presentation and give feedback (lesson delivery)
• After the presentation, propose activities or tasks to check the learners’ understanding
• Use Mentimeter for interactive presentations and to get instant feedback from your audience (consult this written tutorial on how to use Mentimeter).
• An infographic; graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge, is an innovative way to present. Use the digital tool Canva to create your own infographics (consult this  written tutorial  on how to use Canva).
• Use Google Slides or the Microsoft software PowerPoint , to easily create digital presentations.
• The purpose of a presentation is to visually reinforce what you are saying. Therefore the text should contain few words and concise ideas organised in bullet-point.
• Support your text using images .
• Provide time for reflection and interaction between the presenter and the audience, for example by using  Mentimeter .

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Lesson Plan Procedures: A Guide for Teachers

Lesson Plan Procedures

In this article, we will explain how to properly perform a lesson plan in school by diving deeper into lesson plan procedures. We will discuss the three major steps involved in lesson plan procedures and share how teachers can self-evaluate their lesson plan success.

What is a Lesson Plan Procedure?

Lesson plan procedures are the sequence or step-by-step guidelines detailing how a teacher plans to deliver a lesson to students. This includes the activities, methods, materials, and timing necessary to effectively facilitate learning.

Typically, there are three stages of a lesson plan that make up the lesson plan procedure. These stages are the motivational opening, the development of the lesson, and the closing of the lesson. However, there may also be some form of formal or informal periodic assessment. Periodic assessment throughout a lesson will alert you to any misconceptions or misunderstandings students may have long before they conclude the lesson.

Let’s take a closer look at the three major stages of effective lesson planning.

The Three Stages of Lesson Plan Procedures

Step 1: the motivational opening.

The first stage of a lesson plan is critical! It’s how you’ll stimulate students’ interest in the topic.

Start by asking students a thought-provoking question, such as, “How would you like to sleep for four months every year?” or “Did you know we can measure any tree on the playground without climbing it?”Other attention-grabbing openers can include the use of models, maps, apparatus, or a demonstration.

When starting a lesson, don’t make the mistake of assuming what students know. For example, just because students studied  American history  in elementary school, had a basic  history  course in middle school, and are now in your high school history class, don't assume they know all there is to know about American history. Take the time to find out. Bottom line: Always know what your students know!

Step 2: The Development of the Lesson

The development of a lesson plan is the heart of any lesson. It’s the portion where you teach and students learn.

This vital stage is when students will obtain valuable information, manipulate data, and engage in active discovery through total involvement. Include some of the following elements in this stage:

• Lesson methodologies.  Not only is it important to give some thought as to what you're going to teach, it is equally significant that you consider the methods of presentation as well. I'm sure you've been in a class where the only method of instruction was dry, stale lectures. You undoubtedly found the class boring and wearying. The same fate awaits your students if you provide them with an overabundance of one type of teaching methodology to the exclusion of others. (These are addressed in  Lesson Methodologies )
• Problem-solving.  As I discuss in  another article , problem-solving is an inherent part of any lesson. Providing students with the opportunities to solve their own problems in their own way is a valuable motivational technique.
• Creative thinking.  Learning is much more than the memorization of facts. Any lesson must allow students opportunities to manipulate data in new and unusual ways.
• Hands-on activities.  It's critical that students have sufficient opportunities to create products based on what they learn. These might include but are not limited to posters, dioramas,  charts, graphs , mobiles, notebooks,  portfolios , and models.
• Students critique the directions or set up for a presentation or demonstration.
• Students verbalize the steps they're taking during the completion of an activity.
• Students manipulate objects or devices and verbalize their feelings about their actions.
• Students work in small groups to share information learned and how it relates to prior knowledge.
• Students graph or illustrate significant points on the chalkboard for class critique.

Teaching Tip! When creating lesson plans, consider both short-term and long-term projects for students. This will keep the learning experience interesting as you switch up styles.

Step 3: The Closing of the Lesson

The closing of the lesson is a vital stage where you recap key points and help students consolidate their learning. It’s an opportunity to review the lesson's objectives and assess whether they have been met. This can be done through summary discussions, quizzes, or reflective activities.

It's also important to provide an outlook for the next lesson, thus creating a seamless transition and maintaining students' interest.

Teaching Tip! To keep your students engaged, try ending the lesson on a cliffhanger. This can be by proposing a question or telling them an enticing bit of information (e.g.“, Tomorrow I'll bring in a creature with eight eyes. You won't want to miss it!”).

Lastly, it’s good practice to end the lesson on a positive note to boost students' confidence and encourage them to look forward to the next session.

Self-Evaluation in Creating Lesson Plan Procedures

As you write lessons, include a brief section at the end that allows you to self-evaluate. This will be important when and if you decide to teach the lesson again. It will also provide you with some important insights relative to your perceived level of success.

You might consider some of these self-evaluative questions:

• “How was my pacing?”
• “Did students understand the content?”
• “Did students understand the important concepts?”
• “Did I use my time appropriately?”
• “What changes should I make the next time I teach this lesson?”
• “Were students engaged and involved?”
• “What new activities or procedures could I include?”
• “Did I present the lesson well?”

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Lesson Plan: Presentation

Oral communication is a highly valuable skill that is becoming lost in a world of emails, texts, and tweets. There is a new generation of youngsters and young adults for whom speaking-discussion, or a group presentation is frightening. If it is true that “practice makes perfect,” then it is no wonder that students may find themselves dreading speaking in a formal setting, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to practice. Effective presentation skills foster student learning by establishing clear communication and helping students to engage in the learning process. While it might begin for a presentation, practicing public speaking will carry over to important life experiences and help students build self-confidence, poise, and learn to communicate effectively in a variety of settings.

The student will be able to select a topic, create a presentation that will provide information on that topic, and deliver the presentation to others in an interesting, informative and engaging way.

Objectives:

Academic Content:

(This will be provided in the curriculum of the section that you are teaching.)

• Select an appropriate topic.
• Narrow the topic so that it can be comfortably delivered in the allotted time.
• Create an outline of the important points to be covered.
• Create visual aids, when appropriate, to enhance the understanding of the topic.
• Present the information clearly.
• Check for understanding.

Presentation Skills:

• Identify the elements that will be used to deliver the information including, demonstration, visual aids, technology, etc.
• Identify a plan for connecting with the audience including the use of questions, anecdotes, humor, etc.
• Practice speaking clearly and loudly enough to be heard by everyone.
• Engage the audience with opportunities to interact and provide feedback.
• Consider a variety of elements of delivery including, making eye contact, speaking with enthusiasm and relating subject matter to life experiences.

Lesson Sequence:

A successful presentation begins with identifying an appropriate topic and carefully planning the content and delivery of the presentation.

• Select a topic. While it is possible to assign topics, students will be more engaged and enthusiastic about the presentation when they have had an opportunity to identify the topic they would like to present.
• Narrow the topic. Select the information that will be presented in order to effectively communicate the essential information in the time frame provided.
• Identify what listeners will learn from the content of this presentation.
• Create an outline for presenting the information. The outline should have enough detail that the ideas are clear but should consists of words and phrases that cannot be used as a script, but rather guide the explanation.
• Select and design appropriate supporting materials that most effectively enhance the topic.
• Practice the delivery of the presentation until a comfort level is established and delivery is smooth and relaxed.
• Build in opportunities to interact with the audience including time for comments, questions and feedback.
• Create a feedback form for the audience that will provide them with an opportunity to explain what they learned from the presentation. How does this compare with what was identified as intended learning?

A successful presentation is characterized by engaging the listeners in both the content and the delivery of the information. The audience should provide feedback in terms of what they learned from the presentation and suggestions for improvement.

With each presentation it is anticipated that the presenter will improve both content identification skills and delivery skills. This feedback can be reflected by teacher observation, audience participation, and self- reflection.

Assessment:

In presentation development, both content and process are considered. Students should demonstrate improvement in topic selection, identification of appropriate supporting details and visual aids, and organization of the introduction, body, and summary of the presentation. The process of delivery should improve in voice, clarity, tone, eye contact, and movement.

When considering the evaluation of presentation skills, it is as important to assess the presentation itself relative to the improvement of skills over time and with practice. Teacher input, student feedback, and self-reflection are key in developing a comfort level with oral communication skills.

Here's What You Need to Know About Lesson Plans

The best teachers use a simple, seven-step format.

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A lesson plan is a detailed step-by-step guide that outlines the teacher's objectives for what the students will accomplish during the course of the lesson and how they will learn it. Creating a lesson plan involves setting goals , developing activities, and determining the materials that you will use.

All good lesson plans contain specific  components  or steps, and all essentially derive from the seven-step method developed by Madeline Hunter , a UCLA professor and education author. The Hunter Method , as it came to be called, includes these elements: objective/purpose, anticipatory set, input modeling/modeled practice, check for understanding, guided practice, independent practice, and closure.

Regardless of the grade level you teach, Hunter's model has been adopted and used in various forms for decades by teachers across the nation and at every grade level. Follow the steps in this method, and you'll have a classic lesson plan that will be effective at any grade level. It doesn't have to be a rigid formula; consider it a general guideline that will help any teacher cover the necessary parts of a successful lesson.

Objective/Purpose

Students learn best when they know what they are expected learn and why, says the  U.S. Department of Education . The agency uses an eight-step version of Hunter's lesson plan, and its detailed explanations are well worth reading. The agency notes:

"The purpose or objective of the lesson includes why students need to learn the objective, what they will be able to do once they have met the criterion, (and) how they will demonstrate learning....The formula for the behavioral objective is: The learner will do what + with what + how well." 

For example, a high school history lesson might focus on  first-century Rome , so the teacher would explain to students that they are expected to learn the salient facts about the empire's government, its population, daily life, and culture.

Anticipatory Set

The anticipatory set involves the teacher working to get students excited about the upcoming lesson. For that reason, some lesson plan formats actually put this step first. Creating an anticipatory set "means doing something that creates a sense of anticipation and expectancy in the students," says Leslie Owen Wilson, Ed.D. in " The Second Principle ." This can include an activity, a game, a focused discussion, viewing a film or video clip, a field trip, or reflective exercise.

For example, for a second-grade lesson on animals, the class might take a field trip to a local zoo or watch a nature video. By contrast, in a high school class getting ready to study  William Shakespeare 's play, " Romeo and Juliet ," students might write a short, reflective essay on a love they lost, such as a former boyfriend or girlfriend.

Input Modeling/Modeled Practice

This step—sometimes called  direct instruction — takes place when the educator actually teaches the lesson. In a high school algebra class, for example, you might write an appropriate math problem on the board, and then show how to solve the problem in a relaxed, leisurely pace. If it's a first-grade lesson on important sight words to know, you might write the words on the board and explain what each word means. This step should be very visual, as the DOE explains:

"It is important for the students to 'see' what they are learning. It helps them when the teacher demonstrates what is to be learned."

Modeled practice, which some lesson plan templates list as a separate step, involves walking the students through a math problem or two as a class. You might write a problem on the board and then call on students to help you solve it, as they also write the problem, the steps to solve it, and then the answer. Similarly, you might have first-grade students copy the sight words as you spell each out verbally as a class.

Check for Understanding

You need to make sure students understand what you have taught. One easy way to do this is to ask questions. If you're teaching a lesson on simple geometry to seventh-graders, have students practice with the information you just taught, says the  ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) . And, be sure to guide the learning. If students don't seem to grasp the concepts you've just taught, stop and review. For the seventh-graders learning geometry, you may need to repeat the previous step by showing more geometry problems—and how to solve them—on the board.

Guided and Independent Practice 

If you're feeling like the lesson plan involves a lot of guidance, you're right. At the heart, that's what teachers do. Guided practice provides each student a chance to demonstrate her grasp of new learning by working through an activity or exercise under the teacher’s direct supervision. During this step, you might move around the room to determine your students' level of mastery and provide individual help as needed. You may need to pause to show students how to successfully work through problems if they are still struggling.

Independent practice , by contrast, can include homework or seatwork assignments, which you give to the students to complete successfully without the need for supervision or intervention.

In this important step, the teacher wraps things up. Think of this phase as a concluding section in an essay. Just as a writer wouldn't leave her readers dangling without a conclusion, so too, the teacher should review all key points of the lesson. Go over any areas where students might still be struggling. And, always, asked focused questions: If students can answer specific questions about the lesson, they likely have learned the material. If not, you may need to revisit the lesson tomorrow.

Tips and Hints

Always gather all needed supplies ahead of time, and have them ready and available at the front of the room. If you'll be conducting a high school math lesson and all students will need are their textbooks, lined paper, and calculators, that makes your job easier. Do have extra pencils, textbooks, calculators, and paper available, though, in case any students have forgotten these items.

If you're conducting a science experiment lesson, make sure you have all of the ingredients needed so that all students can complete the experiment. You don't want to give a science lesson on  creating a volcano  and find out once students are gathered and ready that you've forgotten a key ingredient like baking soda.

To ease your job in creating a lesson plan, use a  template . The basic lesson plan format has been around for decades, so there's no need to start from scratch. Once you figure out what kind of  lesson plan  you will be writing, then you can determine the best way to use the format to fit your needs.

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Curriculum Development | Lesson Plans | Classroom Planning

What Is a Lesson Plan and How Do You Make One?

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March 28th, 2024 | 9 min. read

Brad Hummel

Coming from a family of educators, Brad knows both the joys and challenges of teaching well. Through his own teaching background, he’s experienced both firsthand. As a writer for iCEV, Brad’s goal is to help teachers empower their students by listening to educators’ concerns and creating content that answers their most pressing questions about career and technical education.

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A lesson plan is a teacher’s daily guide for what students need to learn, how it will be taught, and how learning will be measured.

Lesson plans help teachers be more effective in the classroom by providing a detailed outline to follow each class period.

This ensures every bit of class time is spent teaching new concepts and having meaningful discussions — not figuring it out on the fly!

The most effective lesson plans have six key parts:

• Lesson Objectives
• Related Requirements
• Lesson Materials
• Lesson Procedure
• Assessment Method
• Lesson Reflection

Because each part of a lesson plan plays a role in the learning experience of your students, it’s important to approach them with a clear plan in mind.

Let’s start with the first part of every lesson plan—the lesson objectives!

1. Lesson Objectives

Lesson objectives list what students will be able to do after completing the lesson.

These objectives let you easily tell if your lesson has effectively taught your students new concepts and skills.

It can feel overwhelming to pin down specific takeaways for a lesson. But when you break the process into steps, you can make lesson planning simple and effective.

First, it’s best to view your lesson objectives as goals for your class and students.

One of the most popular goal-setting strategies is the  “SMART” criteria ,  which ensures goals are focused.

In the context of lesson planning, you can use the SMART criteria to determine your lesson objectives:

• Is the objective  specific ?
• Is the objective  measurable ?
• Is the objective  attainable  by all students?
• Is the objective  relevant  to your class and students?
• Is the objective  time-based to align with your syllabus?

For each objective, it’s important to start with an action that relates to what students should be able to do after the lesson. Depending on what topic you’re teaching and the level of knowledge your students have, these actions will vary.

For example, when teaching brand new concepts, you may define actions like  define, identify, explain , and  determine . However, if your lesson involves more advanced tasks, the objectives may include actions like  create, use, perform , or  measure .

To see these phrases in context, let’s look at examples that a computer teacher might choose when teaching Microsoft Word .

For an introductory lesson about Microsoft Word, objectives could be:

• Identify parts of the ribbon menu
• Determine methods of selecting text in a document
• Define fonts and font styles

In a more advanced class, objectives might include:

• Insert a document header
• Use document themes
• Add a page border

When creating your lesson objectives, keep in mind that it’s easier to measure student success when you have specific goals.

Once you’ve put your lesson objectives together, it’s time to tie them in with the next part of your lesson plan—the related requirements!

2. Related Requirements

Related requirements are  national, state, or school standards  that dictate what you need to teach in a class.

If you teach a CTE course you likely need to tie your lessons to  certification requirements  as well.

Every lesson you teach should help you hit those requirements. Listing them in your lesson plans helps you satisfy those requirements while focusing on the end goal of your class!

On top of that, some administrators require teachers to distinctly show how they will teach course standards in each lesson. If you put them on your lesson plans, you’ve got a quick reference to prove you’re on the ball!

When listing course standards or certification items on your lesson plan, it’s smart to use the exact organizational system found on your standards to make sure your class aligns.

If you don’t have the specific outline for your course standards, ask another teacher or your administrator where you can find them.

To get detailed certification requirements, check the certification provider’s website for an exam outline or test plan.

Laying out each lesson plan according to your requirements can be tedious work, but it will ultimately help you stay organized and aligned with what you’re supposed to teach!

3. Lesson Materials

The third section on your lesson plan is the list of materials that you need to teach the lesson and measure student outcomes.

This section prepares you to deliver your lessons every day. Without this list, you may accidentally forget to print an important document or sign out the shared laptop cart!

Common types of lesson materials include:

• Student handouts
• Visual aids
• Grading rubrics
• Activity packets
• Computers / Tablets

The list of materials for each lesson depends on what you plan to teach, how you’ll teach it, and how you’ll measure lesson objectives.

Because of this, many teachers compile their list of lesson materials in tandem with their lesson procedure!

4. Lesson Procedure

Your lesson procedure is an in-depth explanation of how the lesson will progress in the classroom.

The lesson procedure is essentially step-by-step instructions that walk you through everything from the time students enter the classroom until the bell rings at the end of the period.

It’s smart to be very detailed in this portion of your lesson plan. After all, there will be cases when another teacher or substitute needs to fill in for you!

When writing your lesson procedure, you need to choose the type of activities that will help students meet the lesson objectives.

To do that, you can answer a list of questions, including:

• How will you introduce the topic?
• What’s the best way to teach this information to your students?
• How can you incorporate problem solving and critical thinking?
• What real-life scenarios relate to this topic?
• Does this topic lend itself to group work?

It’s also a great idea to find out how other teachers address the topics in the classroom . You can do this by talking to coworkers, joining an online community, or searching for lesson ideas on educational blogs.

After writing out a rough draft of your lesson procedure, many teachers outline it according to a specific teaching strategy.

As an example, you might consider planning what exercise students will complete when they enter the class, how they'll proceed in learning the main content of the class period, and how you'll encourage students to reflect on what they've learned. You'll also want to plan how you'll reinforce learning at the end of class and in future class periods.

To accomplish these lessons, teachers use a variety of methods , from lectures to multimedia presentations, as well as both individual and group activities. Which methods you'll want to use will often vary depending on the type of material your teaching, the amount of time you have to cover it, and the particular knowledge and skills you want to emphasize in accordance with your standards.

Finally, you'll want to gauge if your students have achieved the lesson objectives through formative and summative assessments.

5. Assessment Method

The assessment method measures whether your students learned a lesson’s information and met your lesson objectives.

The methods listed on your lesson plan will most often be  formative assessments and vary from lesson to lesson.  To start, there are dozens of ways to measure student learning through formative assessments.

Some of the most common assessment options include:

• Hands-on activities
• Writing assignments
• Group presentations
• Class journal entries

In addition, your assessment method may be an in-class assignment or homework for students to complete prior to the next class.

When choosing your assessment method, it’s important to incorporate your lesson objectives.

If an objective was related to understanding a concept, consider an assessment that requires students to explain that concept. If an objective was for students to demonstrate a skill, design an assessment to confirm they can do that skill.

Also, while many assessments receive grades in a class, formative assessments don’t always need to be graded!

Ultimately, the purpose of this assessment is to measure how well your students learned a lesson’s material based on the way you presented information. This measurement will help you wrap up each lesson plan with the lesson reflection.

6. Lesson Reflection

The lesson reflection portion of a lesson plan encourages teachers to take notes on how to improve a lesson after it has been completed.

By this point, your lesson has clear objectives, a plan for teaching, and a way to assess student learning. But if you don’t critically consider whether you succeeded, you’re doing a disservice to your future students!

When completing your lesson reflection, ask yourself questions like:

• Did a part of the lesson take longer than expected?
• Was there a portion that students asked for a lot of help with?
• Did students breeze through the information with no problem?
• Were students engaged and interested in the lesson?
• Were the objectives met by most (or all) of the students?

Essentially, you want to note any part of your lesson that didn’t go as expected.

In addition, it’s smart to record ideas for improvement or adjustments in this section as well. That way, when you go to teach your lessons in the future, you have all of the information for improvement in one place!

Lessons Are Just the Beginning

Lesson plans are the first steps in creating a full-fledged curriculum for a class.

They dig into the details that ensure you teach the right information to your students at the right time, and they simplify your career by giving you a roadmap to follow each and every day.

But what about the big picture? This is one of the hardest parts of teaching for educators throughout the world. It’s not just the individual lessons that need your attention — it’s the class as a whole!

To do that, you need to create a curriculum.

A curriculum covers everything you need to teach an entire class. More than just a bunch of lesson plans, a comprehensive curriculum serves as a roadmap for teaching your course and setting each student up for success.

So where do you start? When you read about how to make a curriculum, you'll discover the key elements that make all the difference when building a complete course that will confidently meet your instructional standards.

Read the article and start building your ideal curriculum now: 

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1. What is a Lesson Plan?

A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed guide that outlines what students need to learn, how the subject would be delivered, and the achievement of class goals measured. No matter what subject is being taught, having a lesson plan guides the learning process by providing a clear outline to follow while teaching. Having the lessons planned ensures every bit of time spent in class turns out meaningful. The teacher and students would definitely know what to do in the classroom.

Details of a lesson plan may vary slightly depending on the subject being taught, the teacher's preference, and the needs of the students. Not every bit of the details has to be in a lesson plan. It should be a fine-tuned outline that builds on each period and provides a seamless transition from one lesson to the next.

2. What is Included in a Lesson Plan?

While lesson plans may vary slightly from one another, there are common components that build each one. The components work together to bring out the overall quality of a lesson plan. This will, in turn, determine how efficiently class time is utilized and the learning objectives achieved.

A good lesson plan that would work well for both teachers and students has to include the following.

1. Details of the lesson

Indicate what the lesson is about and the class you're going to teach. The details should include the unit, lesson number, class period, and the topic to be handled during the lesson.

2. Lesson objectives

The objectives of the lesson act like the mainframe of the whole plan. Setting out objectives targeted by the lesson is the most important part that will guide you to achieve what is expected from the class. Carefully write down three or four most relevant objectives students are expected to attain by the end of the lesson. The objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) and written from the learner's perspective.

3. Teaching aids

List the tools you'll use to facilitate learning by attracting your students' attention. The teaching materials should be adapted to the learning environment as well as students' learning levels. From pictures, flashcards, drawings, wall sheets, charts, and diagrams to real objects, the teacher should only write down what the lesson will use.

4. Lesson Procedure

Stages of the class session are like the framework of the lesson. Lesson procedure should work out to harmonize the following main stages of a lesson:

Warm-up stage – In which you should share, in a single sentence, how to prepare the students for the new lesson.

Presentation – Have at least three focused steps to introduce the lesson's content highlighted in the framework. The presentation should work out to capture the students' attention as you hammer in your lesson objectives.

Practice – You could divide this stage into controlled, guided, and free methods. Write one sentence indicating how to cover each type.

5. Evaluation

The evaluation stage has two categories:

Assessment – Write how to ascertain the students achieved the objectives set at the beginning of the lesson. You might have questions for students to answer in writing, or orally, give home assignments or anything suitably bringing out to what extent students have attained the lesson goals.

Self-evaluation – You, as a teacher, should take time to reflect on your lesson after ending it. Write out how things went on during class. Were the lesson objectives well achieved? Otherwise, what more needs to be done to achieve lesson goals?

During your lesson, for efficient time management, specify what time each stage will take and commit to the timeframe. If possible, have a specific time beside each stage, task, or activity.

3. Lesson Plan Examples for Teachers

1. lesson plan strategy.

2. Lesson Plan Template

3. Simple teacher lesson plan template

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4. Daily lesson plan template

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5. Simple science lesson plan sample

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6. Student, teacher guide lesson plan template

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7. Blank lesson plan template

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8. Word lesson plan template

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3. How to Make a Great Lesson Plan

Making an effective lesson plan requires you to identify suitable components that need to teach your class. It weighs into understanding the goals of the lesson and your students' abilities. While making a lesson plan, the overall objective should be to motivate the students to learn and retain what is taught.

Rely on the following steps to come out with a great lesson plan .

1. Know your students’ needs

Whether you’re introducing new topic or reviewing what you’ve already done before, you need to understand the students and let them know what to expect from the lesson. This will help them stay focused while meeting the class objectives.

When you engage your students in the whole process, it makes them more interested in what you’re to teach. Share with them what the lesson is all about and give out the outline you’ll be presenting. You could even introduce the topic informally by discussing certain relevant historical events, deriving a formula from scratch, etc.

2. Identify the objectives of the lesson

As a teacher, what do you want to accomplish by the end of class time? List the specific things that your students should know by the end of the lesson. The period objectives should be simple and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) as possible. Outline what you wish to achieve by providing an overview of the main topics or ideas by the end of the lesson.

3. List resources and materials that you’ll need for the lesson

Think and list what would be used during the period to attain the set objectives. These might include materials like paper, pens and rulers. Other technological resources like computers and gamified learning tools may be part of the lesson plan.

4. Plan your timeline

Break your lesson plan into sections if the topic to cover may not be concludable within the allotted time. This allows you to engage the students well and share the main ideas or points during the class. Planning your timeline ensures that the lesson objectives are met within the set period.

Try EdrawMax and make an excellent lesson plan to outlines the content of your lesson step-by-step.

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30 Lesson Plan Examples for Every Grade Level and Subject

Lots of ways to prepare for top-notch learning.

Lesson planning: Most teachers either love it or hate it. Either way, it’s something every teacher has to spend at least some time doing, so it’s worth learning to do well. Whether you’re a brand-new teacher or an experienced educator looking for some new ideas, these lesson plan examples offer inspiration for every subject and every grade level.

Lesson Plan Sections

Preschool lesson plan examples, elementary school lesson plan examples, middle and high school lesson plan examples.

Many lesson plans include some or all of the following sections.

• Objective : These should be specific and measurable. Often they align with Common Core or other learning standards.
• Materials: List any items you’ll need, including worksheets or handouts, school supplies, etc.
• Activities: This is usually the longest section, where you’ll lay out what the lesson and its activities look like. Some teachers write these in great detail. Others include just an overview to help them plan.
• Assessment : How will you assess your students’ learning? This could be a formal assessment or something simple like an exit ticket.
• Differentiation : Describe how you’ll vary the level of difficulty for students at all levels, including any enrichment for early finishers.

Some people think preschool is just playtime, but pre-K teachers know better! Here are some of the ways preschool teachers plan for their lessons.

Weekly Lesson Plan

Weekly preschool lesson planning helps you plan each day and ensure you’re tackling all the most important skills.

Learn more: Pre-K Weekly Lesson Plan

Pre-K Theme Lesson Plan

If you like to plan by theme, try a template like this. It includes space for a variety of activities that fit your topic.

Learn more: Pre-K Theme Lesson Plan

Alphabet Letter Lesson Plan

If you’re focusing on a new letter of the alphabet each week, try lesson planning like this. You can see the week at a glance, including all the materials and books you’ll need.

Learn more: Alphabet Letter Lesson Plan

Centers Lesson Plan

Your centers need some planning too! Whether you change them out weekly, monthly, or as needed, use plans like these to stay prepared.

Learn more: Centers Lesson Plan

Weekly Unit Lesson Plan

Adding pops of color and a few images can make it easier to locate the lesson plan you’re looking for in a snap.

Learn more: Weekly Weather Unit Lesson Plan

Since elementary teachers tackle multiple subjects every day, their lesson plans might look like a general overview. Or they may prepare more detailed lesson plans for each topic to help them stay on track. The choice is up to you.

Weekly Overview Lesson Plan

Don’t be afraid to write out your lesson plans by hand! A side-by-side setup like this lets you see a whole week at once. We love the use of color to highlight special things like fire drills.

Learn more: Elementary Weekly Overview Lesson Plan

Unit Lesson Plan

Planning out a unit helps ensure you cover all the important topics and meet your learning objectives.

Learn more: Unit Lesson Plan

Yearlong Schedule

Planning a whole year may seem daunting, but it can show you where you’re going to need to stretch a unit and where you can circle back and review. Mrs. D from Mrs. D’s Corner has ideas on how to structure a yearlong lesson plan using Google Sheets.

Guided Math Lesson Plan

This example on adding three numbers together can be altered to fit any math lesson plan.

Learn more: Guided Math Lesson Plan

Art Lesson Plan

While these are elementary art lesson plan examples, you can easily use this style for teaching art at upper levels too.

Learn more: Art Lesson Plans

Special Education Lesson Plans

Lesson planning for special education looks different than general classroom lessons in that the lessons have to cover specific IEP goals and include lots and lots of progress monitoring. The Bender Bunch starts each lesson with independent work (read: IEP practice) and then heads into mini-lessons and group work.

Learn more: Special Education Lesson Plan

Interactive Read-Aloud Plan

Interactive read-alouds take some careful planning. The Colorful Apple explains how to choose a book, get to know it, and get ready to teach it. Once you’re in the book, sticky notes may be the best lesson-planning tool you have for marking questions and vocabulary words you want to point out to students.

Learn more: Interactive Read-Aloud Plan

Social Studies Lesson Plan

Including images of your anchor charts is a great idea! That way, you can pull one out and have it ready to go in advance.

Learn more: Social Studies Lesson Plan

5E Lesson Plan for Elementary School

The 5Es stand for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaborate, and Evaluate. This type of lesson planning can be helpful for students as they work through each of the 5Es related to the topic you’re studying.

Learn more: 5E Lesson Plan for Elementary Math

Science Lesson Plans

If you like to plan your lessons in more detail, take a look at this elementary science lesson plan example.

Learn more: Science Lesson Plan Template

Reading Group Lesson Plan

Lots of elementary schools have differentiated reading groups. Use a template like this one to plan for each one, all on one page.

P.E. Lesson Plan

Gym teachers will love this lesson plan idea, which includes directions for playing the games.

Learn more: PE Lesson Plan

Music Class Lesson Plan

Plan out the skills and songs you’ll need for a meaningful music class with a lesson plan like this one.

Learn more: Music Class Lesson Plan

At the middle and high school levels, teachers often need more detailed plans for each class, which they may teach multiple times a day. Here are some examples to try.

Google Sheets Lesson Plans

Google Sheets (or Excel) is terrific for lesson planning! Create a new tab for each week, unit, or class.

Learn more: Google Sheets Lesson Plan

Handwritten Lesson Plan

Some people really prefer to write things out by hand, highlighting important parts and making notes as they go. You can always convert this kind of plan to a digital format later if you need to.

Learn more: Handwritten Lesson Plan

Weekly History Plan

This example shows how you can plan out a week’s worth of lessons at once, and see the entire week all in one spot. This example is for history, but you could use this for math, ELA, or social studies too.

Learn more: Weekly History Plan

Outline and Pacing Guide Lesson Plan

A pacing guide or outline works for both you and your students. Share it at the beginning of a unit to let them know what’s ahead.

Learn more: Outline and Pacing Guide

5E Lessons in Middle and High School

5E lesson plans (Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaborate, Evaluate) are great for middle and high school as well. This example is for science, but you can use the 5E structure across all lessons.

Learn more: Middle and High School 5E Lesson Plans

Sticky-Note Lesson Plan

At some point, you’ll know what students are doing each day, you’ll just need some reminders for questions to ask and key points to cover. The nice thing about using sticky notes for lesson planning is if you get ahead or behind schedule, you can move the entire sticky-note lesson to another day. ( Find more ways to use sticky notes in the classroom here .)

Learn more: Sticky Note Lesson Plan

Backwards Planning Lesson Plan

If your school uses backwards planning, you’ll be thinking about the outcome first and working back from there (rather than forward from an activity or task). Backwards planning lesson plans are intensive, but they’re also something you can use over and over, modifying them slightly for each group of students you have.

Learn more: Backwards Planning Lesson Plan

Visual Arts Lesson Plan

Detailed lesson plans take longer to prepare, but they make it easier on the day (especially if you wind up needing a sub).

Learn more: Visual Arts Lesson Plan Template

ELL or World Language Lesson Plan

Whether you’re teaching English-language learners (ELL) or a world language to English speakers, this lesson plan style is perfect.

Learn more: ELL/World Language Lesson Plan

Music Lesson Plan

Use a lesson plan like this for choir, orchestra, band, or individual music lessons.

Learn more: HS Music Lesson Plan

Blended Learning Lesson Plan

If your instruction includes both computer-based and in-person elements, this lesson plan idea might be just what you need.

Learn more: Hot Lunch Tray

One-Sentence Lesson Plan

This kind of lesson planning isn’t for everyone, but the extreme simplicity works well for some. Describe what students will learn, how they will learn it, and how they’ll demonstrate their knowledge.

Learn more: One-Sentence Lesson Plan

Need more help with lesson planning? Come ask for ideas in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook !

Plus, check out ways to make time for more creativity in your lesson plans ..

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Topic: Presentation Skills

As you can see in the slide (giving presentations)

Step into the world of presentations with this handy lesson! Students explore vocabulary for structuring presentations, read the text of a presentation and watch a video on how to communicate ideas clearly.

Presentation: putting skills into action

With this lesson plan, students practise giving a presentation in English by doing a lot of different speaking activities. The lesson is the third of the three-part series of lessons about delivering presentations. 

Moving through your presentation

With this lesson plan, students learn plenty of useful phrases for presentations in English. They also prepare presentation excerpts, and learn how to start a presentation. The lesson is the second of the three-part series of lessons about delivering presentations. 

How to nail that presentation

In this lesson about business presentations in English, students discuss presentation structures in depth, watch a video with tips on giving presentations, and learn useful words and phrases related to the topic. The lesson is the first of the three-part series of lessons about delivering presentations. 

The city of the future is here

With this lesson plan based on a video about Toyota’s city of the future students learn some useful language for presentations and then practise their presentation skills.

The chair that conquered the world

This lesson plan about the chair that conquered the world includes a variety of tasks for students to learn new vocabulary related to describing furniture design and practise their presentation skills. 

How do you like your milk?

In this lesson, students will learn advanced cooking verbs, discuss different types of milk and do an English class project.

Apple’s legendary keynotes

The objective of this lesson plan is to teach students some adjectives for describing products and show them a video analysing Apple’s legendary keynotes.

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Teaching with museum collections lesson plans.

Antietam National Battlefield

• Antietam: The Aftermath

Arlington House - The Robert E. Lee Memorial

• Family Life at Arlington House
• "From Slavery to Freedom: Different Journeys to Liberty"
• Sitting in Robert E. Lee's Writing Chair

Bandelier National Monument

• Ancestral Pueblo Tools
• Designing Civilian Conservation Corps Style Tinwork and Woodcarving
• Community Roles of Pueblo Peoples: Past and Present
• Exploring Cultural Continuity Through Pottery
• A New Deal for Artists
• Magical Collaborations
• Passing Traditions Through Time

Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site

• Always the Young Seekers: Carl Sandburg, The Early Years
• Carl Sandburg: Collector of Life in Word and Song
• Carl Sandburg’s Rock: The Connemara Home
• Carl Sandburg: Visionary Poet
• Working and Writing for a Living at Connemara

Clara Barton National Historic Site

• Clara Barton, Founder of the American Red Cross, Pioneer and Innovator
• Clara Barton Needs You!
• Preservation at Clara Barton National Historic Site

Death Valley National Park

• Native Tools for Food Harvest
• Who is Death Valley Scotty?

Eisenhower National Historic Site

• The Eisenhower Farm: Leaving the Land Better Than He Found It!
• Eisenhower's Presidency
• I Like Mamie!

Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site

• A Few of Eleanor’s Favorite Things: Learning about History by Looking at Objects

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

• Frederick Douglass' Hat
• Forward March: Continuing Frederick Douglass' Footsteps

Gettysburg National Military Park

• Life of a Civil War Soldier

Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site

• A Brand is Forever
• Cowboy Doctor
• Home on the Range

Guilford Courthouse National Military Park

• The American Revolution, A Revolution of Possibilities: Politics, Economy, and Society

Hampton National Historic Site

• On the Move: The Travel Experiences of Americans in the Nineteenth Century

Harry S Truman

• The Etiquette of Calling
• The Many Hats of Harry S Truman

Lincoln National Historic Site

• Lincoln's Legal Career
• Lincoln- The Candidate: “The Taste is in My Mouth a Little”
• Reminder of the Past, Lincoln Keepsakes
• The Abraham Lincoln Home in Springfield, IL
• Mary Todd Lincoln and the Boys

Manzanar National Historic Site

• Traveling Beads: American Indian Currency
• The Language of Confinement: Writing from Manzanar

Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site

• Dinner Discussions at Maggie Walker’s House

Nez Perce National Historical Park

• Fashion Detective – An Investigation of Continuity and Change in Nez Perce Country
• Nez Perce Flutes
• The Seasonal Round: a strong influence on the Daily Pulse of the Nez Perce
• Daily Life in the Ancient Times of the Nez Perce
• Historic Nez Perce Clothing and Adornment
• Nez Perce Spirituality: an integrated arts; literature, visual art, music and dance unit
• Native American Games: Nez Perce Stick Game (Lopmix game)
• Trade and Transportation

Prince William Forest Park

• Nurturing the Human Crop

Treasured Landscape s

• Lesson 1: The National Park System: America’s Best Ideas
• Lesson 2: Explore Your World!
• Lesson 3: For the Record
• Lesson 4: The Campaign for Yellowstone
• Lesson 5: The Bull Pen: A Photographic Comparison
• Lesson 6: Crafting Your Campaign

Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site

Valley Forge National Historical Park

• Lesson 1: Daily Life at Valley Forge
• Lesson 2: In Their Own Words
• Lesson 3: Von Steuben Makes an Army
• Lesson 4: Remember the Ladies
• Lesson 5: The Economy of War

Vicksburg National Military Park

• Life Aboard the USS Cairo
• Naval Warfare during the Civil War
• The Army and Navy: Significant Factors in the Vicksburg Campaign During the Civil War
• The Siege of Vicksburg
• William T. Rigby and His Walking Cane

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Last updated: August 23, 2024

Lesson Plan

Aug. 29, 2024, 2:01 p.m.

7 teaching resources for Labor Day

Updated on August 29, 2024

Looking for powerful Labor Day lesson plans and resources? Help students understand the history of the labor movement and its current relevance at home and around the world.

1. Lesson plan: Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and migrant workers

Take a look at these primary sources of the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist factory of 1911 and the hardships migrant workers have faced in the U.S. for decades. Be sure to check out the political cartoon activity that follows the lesson above here .

Screenshot of New-York Tribune. March 26, 1911 via Journalism in Action

Screenshot from New-York Tribune. March 26, 1911 via PBS NewsHour Classroom's Journalism in Action

2. Lesson Plan: Dolores Huerta — a lifetime of activism

Learn about Dolores Huerta’s role as a labor leader, organizer and activist beginning with the California grape strike and boycott in 1965.

Press conference with the UFW leadership, Dolores Huerta, Richard César Chávez, and Rick Tejada-Flores, 1972. Photo Credit: Farmworker Movement Documentation Project

3. Lesson plan: How the Amazon Labor Union was formed

Learn more about the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and the role of the news media in covering unionizing efforts.

“This campaign should be the most talked about campaign in the country. … We’re talking about workers. Workers from the bottom who have nothing.” — Christian Smalls, president, Amazon Labor Union

Screenshot of Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, taken in March 20, 2022 on Krystal, Kyle & Friends. Credit: Krystal, Kyle & Friends

4. Muckrakers and Progressive Era mini-lessons

Using Journalism in Action , NewsHour Classroom's website on the history of journalism in America, take a closer look at the harsh conditions facing workers in the U.S. as reported by the "muckrakers" at the turn of the 19th century.

Ida Tarbell and Standard Oil (2 activities)

Upton Sinclair and the meatpacking industry

Jacob Riis and living conditions in NYC's tenement housing

5. Lesson Plan: Role of labor unions today and in the past

United Auto Workers, Aramark workers carry strike signs while picketing outside the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. September 15, 2019. Photo by Rebecca Cook/Reuters

6. Student activity: For Labor Day, explore this labor/management negotiation scenario

Use this lesson to engage students in the basics of labor negotiations through the lens of professional sports and a simulation activity that puts students in the seat of negotiators.

Supporters of the California Grape Boycott demonstrate in Toronto, Ontario, December, 1968. Credit: "United Farm Workers Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

7. Student activity: The global effort in making a t-shirt

NPR’s Planet Money decided to make a t-shirt and follow the process of its creation around the globe. This lesson plan takes your class along for the ride by interspersing activities with NPR’s exciting video tour around the world.

Fill out this form to share your thoughts on Classroom’s resources. Sign up for NewsHour Classroom’s ready-to-go Daily News Lessons delivered to your inbox each morning.

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Lesson plan: History of Juneteenth and why it became a national holiday

Explore the significance of Juneteenth and the value of making it a national holiday

Lesson Plan: Political Parties: Two is Company, Three’s a Crowd

The Founders did not intend to create a two-party system and yet that is exactly what has thrived in American history. But what about the role of third-party candidates?

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Interpreting AI in the News: A Media Literacy Lesson Plan

August 27, 2024  • Aspen Digital

Get a Copy of the Lesson Plan

Download via microsoft word, download via google drive.

Media coverage of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) often fails to distinguish between hype and reality. This results in public misconceptions that can fuel unnecessary fears or unrealistic hopes.

To improve the public’s understanding of these tools, Aspen Digital created   educational primers   on the fundamentals, ran a public event on   how to talk better about AI,  and launched a   hall of fame   highlighting examples of great reporting on AI.

This latest effort focuses on helping students understand these systems by publishing open education resources for high school and junior college teachers that promote media literacy. The “Interpreting AI in the News” lesson plan teaches students how to recognize and critically interpret how writing choices impact readers’ perceptions of how AI works, what it can be used to do, and who is using it.

Aspen Digital consulted with the   National Association for Media Literacy Education   (NAMLE), the   AI Education Project   (aiEDU), as well as high school educators to develop this lesson plan so that teachers have resources to promote a more nuanced and comprehensive dialogue on AI in media literacy.

The plan includes a comprehensive set of resources: a materials list, resource links, detailed instructions, a sample presentation, conversation starters, assessment guidelines, and a vocabulary guide.

In the spirit of open access and to make this work as useful as possible to educators, we’ve also uploaded the lesson plan to the following websites:   OER Commons   and   Merlot . We welcome educators and anyone to use, repurpose, and expand upon this work, which is made available under the   Creative Commons   Attribution 4.0 International License.

Acknowledgements

This work was produced by Tom Latkowski, B Cavello, and Eleanor Tursman, and was made possible thanks to generous support from  Siegel Family Endowment .

Thank you to the educators and organizations who provided invaluable feedback and edits: Sheeva Azma, Ashwin Dubey, Megan Fromm, Creighton Laughary, Steve Miller, Ed Puchalla, Gabriel Quiroga, and the aiEDU Learning Team.

Share Your Thoughts

If this work is helpful to you,   please let us know ! We actively solicit feedback on our work so that we can make it more useful to people like you.

Interpreting AI in the News: A Media Literacy Lesson Plan   by Aspen Digital is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 .

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KS2 Character Description & Adjectives || INTERVIEW LESSON

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

24 August 2024

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Hi there! ~_~

• Extensive Lesson plan
• Deployment sheet for a TA (great for interview!)
• Lesson presentation
• Table labels (helpful for interviews)
• Learning objective and success criteria labels for childrens’ books
• A4 document of characters to describe (although I used alternative drawings that I made myself)
• and some pre-written adjectives to describe given characters for LA children.

This lesson would take around 35/40 minutes, and would be perfect for a refresher lesson, or perhaps an interview. It’s greatly tweakable for different year groups and the like.

I hope it’s useful for you!

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KS2: 3 Potential Interview Lessons (BUNDLE)

Hi! In this bundle, there are three potential interview lessons covering the following LO's. LO: To understand and use subordinate clauses LO: To understand and implement the processes behind mathematical word problems LO: To use adventurous vocabulary to describe characters In each pack, there's a TA deployment sheet, an extensive plan, a lesson prompt, a powerpoint and all the differentiated resources provided.

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