Education: Designing a successful lesson plan

One of the most important thing to keep in mind when designing a lesson plan is the time you have at your disposition. You don't want to be too ambitious with your lesson. Likewise, you really need to make sure that there is enough content to make a successful lesson. Timing is key and it's all about the content you're presenting and the way the content is being communicated to the class. You need to take into consideration the learning abilities of individual students. Make sure that no one is excluded. These are the stages that all lessons should include:

1. Introduction: A good way to start a lesson is by engaging students in a small discussion. Ask questions about the topic so as to understand what the students already know. Another good idea is to make a brainstorming session and, on your chalk-board, write a list of all the important points brought up by the students. You can use these points later to further develop the students' ideas.
   
2. Presentation: chances are that most of the students will not be very knowledgeable about the lesson's main topic. This is the chance to present the main points to the class. Make sure that you engage your students in the lesson. Ask lots of questions and highlight the main points of the lesson. Write these points on the chalk board.
3. Active engagement: if you have not engaged students in a discussion, then it is important that you do so. Active engagement can also involve students working out exercises in the classroom. This reinforces the new knowledge that students have just learned.
4. Feedback: Ask your students questions about the new topics. This will help you understand if your students have learned the main topics of the lesson.
5. Follow-up practice: You may refer to this as homework and may involve your students in conducting research, writing essays or working out exercises. This further reinforces the main points of the lesson.

Any other ideas? Feedback? Please leave comments.

Education Tips - Lesson Planning

Many seasoned teachers are able to walk into their classroom without having planned their lessons. They have become so familiar with their subject that they don't need to plan how to deliver their lessons anymore. In my opinion this is a somewhat objectionable way of educating. Teaching is a dynamic process and a successful teacher needs to make appealing lessons which accommodate the ever changing mindsets of his/her students.


Lesson planning can be divided in two: Schemes of Work and Lesson Plans. Schemes of work will allow you to plan in the long run. To create a scheme of work, choose a time-period and create a grid of days or weeks. You can add as much detail as you want (example a scheme of work showing daily lessons is more detailed than a scheme of work showing weekly lessons). In the scheme of work you need to set deadlines for when certain topics need to be finished. After you create your scheme of work, you need to make sure that you create lessons plans complimenting what you have planned in the scheme of work. Lesson Plans will detail how you need to deliver individual lessons and will allow you to add all the details you want in order to capture the attention of individual students in your classroom. Making your own lesson plans will allow you to deliver targeted content, for example: if your class are very interested in a particular movies, you can create a website with the theme of that movie. Lessons should allow room for individuality in the classroom and can be seen as a way of communicating particular topics in an interesting way.
I will be making more posts about lesson plans, giving more tips and downloadable lesson-plan formats...so stick around :)