What are the 5 steps in a lesson plan?

“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” - Dwight D Eisenhower

Table of Contents Show

Lesson planning: subject knowledge
Explanations
Questioning and responding
Retrieval

As an NQT and trainee teacher, completing the dreaded lesson planning template was something I loathed.

I’m so glad that the clunky pro-forma format has largely been consigned to the past.

But the reason for the pro-forma was and remains a valid one: to encourage consistency.

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There is always a place for consistency, especially in light of the recent rise of cognitive science and the pivotal role that organisations like the Education Endowment Foundation play in enabling teachers to access high-quality educational research.

At a whole-school level, there continues to be much discussion around curriculum and the sequencing of content over time: but the planning of the individual lessons needs to reflect what we now know works.

Lesson planning: subject knowledge

We have to start here. What is the portable knowledge? What do students need to walk away knowing and/or understanding?

Explanations

Spend time getting these right and rehearsing them as a team in a year group or subject area. How exactly do you explain…? How do you draw it? What graphics do you use?

How is the unveiling of this tricky concept staged? What vocabulary do you use? What if the students don’t get that - what is your plan B explanation? Analogy? Pictures? Make that explanation the best it can be and well-versed.

Questioning and responding

Planning quality questions has always been important to assess understanding, but now we know so much more about embedding diagnostic questioning and the positive implications of elaborative questioning.

But focus on responding, too - are we spending time predicting how students might respond so we can suitably follow up with a question to clarify, consolidate or challenge?

Pre-planning for likely responses to my questions optimises my own cognitive load, freeing up space for other elements.

Modelling

The current popularity of the visualiser has reinvigorated the importance of live modelling; many teachers make this a staple ingredient in their students’ daily diet.

But again, we should pre-plan our live models so we can start predicting misconceptions and consider the best vocabulary and graphics to embed that model.

Plan here for clarity, conciseness and coherence with questions to check for understanding.

Retrieval

Consider the opportunities you’ll be providing in the future to drag that portable knowledge back to the surface to slow “sinking time”, where it can get lost in long-term memory. The frequency of retrieval and the spacing of this will also need to be considered.

All plans can be adapted, they are not set in stone but a plan is more than the PowerPoint slides and the stages of planning are a necessary foundation for all experience levels.

I’m not advocating a return to the lengthy documents of old; just consideration when we plan our teaching episodes to limit what we do on the hop and make sure that the favourable bets coming through are reflected in our planning.

This doesn’t take anything away from the nuance of individual teaching; instead, it provides consistency and that is key in limiting the “horizontal leakage” that is the loss of learning through inconsistency, which sometimes occurs in year groups and within subjects when we just expect everyone to implement what comes out of the CPD or the discussion.

There is a lot to be said for having a whole-school language for planning to support all levels of teacher and honouring the rich research findings coming to light.

Hanna Miller is assistant head for teaching and learning across the Thinking Schools Academy Trust. She tweets @notesfromthebun

Learning to write a good, strong lesson plan is the backbone of confident teaching. Without a plan, you can kiss that goal of supporting your learners to succeed goodbye and your students will definitely suffer in the long run.

When we talk about writing a lesson plan, there are key components that need to be in place. It’s not enough to cite a standard and bullet point your way through it. It’s going to take effort and you’re going to need to put some well developed thought into the process. Does this mean there can’t be room for serendipitous learning? Of course not. It’s just that a poorly planned lesson, more often than not, will end up being a clunker.

The lesson planning process can be challenging, so let’s take a look at 5 effective steps to better lesson planning.

1. Have an Objective

The biggest mistake that I observed when reviewing lesson plans for my teachers was that they hadn’t fully thought the lesson through. They had the textbook pages cited, pages to be read prepared, but they didn’t have their “eye on the prize”. What I mean by that is…they hadn’t taken the time to ask themselves, “What are my students going to be able to know and be ready to do when this lesson is over?” It’s as if they’d grabbed all the ingredients off a recipe card, baked the cake, and then didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to look or taste like. Without having the end game clearly in mind, meaningful learning is not going to take place. All the parts of the lesson plan will come together if you’re careful to give that objective your full attention.

2. Where are our materials?

Now that you have that great lesson well planned, there’s no doubt that you’ll need a good materials list to accompany it. Your “materials list” is that slew of resources, articles or manipulatives that you’ll need to make this lesson shine. It’s important to organize everything you need prior to the lesson so that it can flow smoothly. There is nothing worse than walking into a classroom and observing a teacher struggling to grab this and that while teaching a lesson. Meanwhile, students become increasingly unfocused. Let’s set our expectations for ourselves high and not shortchange our students. Double check that all your materials are in order and available and be ready to launch! Consider asking the students to help you get things prepared and include them in that process.

3. What’s your Hook?

Lesson plan is a go and materials are ready! Now…how are you going to hook your student’s attention and keep it? Too many times, I see teachers launching right into the textbook or lecture part of their lesson without an attention-grabbing “hook.” Don’t your students deserve a little more time and focus on this area? The answer is: yes, they do! It doesn’t matter the grade level – all kids need to feel a connection to the lesson. You can bring that to them in your lesson lead-in via video, movie clip or challenging question.. Make it fun, creative, and surprising.

4. Step through your Procedures

Working up how to best proceed in your lesson is important. If we return to the cake recipe analogy, we have our procedures for adding the ingredients to the mixing bowl, but if we neglect to follow them, we might end up with a disaster. The same is true for our lessons. The majority of our lesson procedure must include, among other things: activation of students prior knowledge, teaching and learning activities, and questions to guide student thought. Are you making sure that this happens in all your lessons? You should be.

5. It’s a wrap!

The lesson was a huge success and students loved it! Or did they? How do you know if they “got it?” Did you ask important closing questions? Did you do a quick assessment as students left the room? You can use all kinds of varied activities to check for understanding that don’t include formal test taking. Remember to check in with students throughout the lesson. You’ll need to do this to see what your next steps might be, even as you are working within the lesson. Wrapping up the lesson by checking for understanding sometimes gets lost in the busy-ness of the day. Make sure you don’t let this important last step get lost in the shuffle.

Are you already doing a bang up job in the lesson writing process? Could you use some extra resources? Check out this Pinterest Board with helpful ideas.