How to Write an Effective Lesson Plan

A lesson plan is a road map for teachers and students to follow. It also allows observers to know and understand your educaitonal choices.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Copy of state/professional standards that lesson is based on
• Textbooks, materials to be used in the lesson
• The Assessment

1. Consult the standards that are the basis for your course, whether they be state, county, or professional standards.

2. Decide what skill you want to teach. e.g. analyze a character, solve quadratic equations, write interview questions

3. Design the ASSESSMENT that will demonstrate that the students have learned the skill and can be proficient at using it. This should be done NOW so that you can then design lesson activities that will follow.

4. Write your objective using measurable words that relate to the skill and the assessment. For example, students will be able to identify direct and indirect characterization in order to compose a character sketch.

5. Design a drill/warm up that relates to something students did the previous day or something that they will do later in the lesson.

6. Write a series of activities that teach the steps that students will need to follow in order to meet the demands of the assessment. Be sure that each step has its own assessment so that everyone can follow the next part.

7. Give the assessment. Analyze the results to determine if it was successful. Plan the next day's lesson.

Tips & Warnings

• You should always be planned 1-2 weeks ahead.
• Be flexible...if the students/learners are not getting a step, stop and re-teach, don't move on.