How to Write Lesson Plans
Lesson plans are important for more than just teachers. Many people find that at some time in their lives, they need to teach a class. It may be training people at work, volunteering at a school, or sharing a special skill with the community. School teachers aren't the only people who have something to teach! To be successful at your task, you need lesson plans to organize and plan ahead of time to ensure that your information is clearly presented and understood so that the students genuinely learn.
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Instructions
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GOAL The first element of lesson plans is the goal. This should be general such as, "To teach the HR department to understand the new computer system" or "To teach people to understand how to reduce their energy use."
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OBJECTIVE Next in the lesson plans, list specific, concrete, measurable objectives you want your students to learn. A great way to word this is: "The student will be able to . . ." For example: "to enter records into the computer program and save their work" or "to reduce gasoline use by 5 gallons a week."
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ACTIVITIES Decide which tasks you need to do with the students to teach that objective. It may be to read instructions or an article, brainstorm and discuss as a group, and/or complete a hands-on project. Give enough detail in your lesson plans to remind you of what to do and what materials you need to bring or have prepared.
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ACT After writing the lesson plans, comes the act of teaching the lesson. Be flexible. You may have assumed that your class would come with knowledge only to realize you need to back up in your lesson plans and review. For example, your students may need help double clicking a mouse before they can work Photoshop.
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ASSESS If someone gives a lesson and nobody learns, did that person teach? No. In the lesson plans, state what kind of "test" or assesment you plan to give at the end of the class to make sure your students understood and learned. It does not have to be a paper and pencil test. It may be reporting back to the group about how much energy they saved that month or demonstrating an understanding of the computer program with a sample project.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure to plan more than you need.
Be flexible and ready to change plans while "on your feet" if you see the need. These are plans, not laws.
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Comments
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Julie McElroy
Jan 23, 2009
Good tips on lesson plans which are OH so much fun! :)
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Lawrence N
Dec 19, 2008
These are excellent tips. When I was a public high school math teacher, in a sense I had it easy in this area. Our school had such a rigid template for math lesson plans that writing one was very easy. There was no room for creativity. It just followed a pattern, much like an episode of Scooby Doo...lol.
