Introduction to Teaching

Lesson Plans

 

The lesson plan is a guide for teachers. While a syllabus lists the objectives for the whole course, a lesson plans break the course down into manageable, day-by-day chunks. A lesson plan is like a storyboard for your teaching. In general, your goal is to:

 

  1. Establish and maintain rapport
  2. Generate interest
  3. Deliver the training
  4. Solicit progress reports and feedback
  5. Define the “next day” action plan

 

Lesson plans guide you through session by session. You can use a lesson plan to guide your opening statements, to organize the day's content, to shape the exercises you design for the students, and to structure the key points to remark upon at the end.

 

Think of a lesson plan as a movie script which leaves room for improvisation. Yours might be very detailed the first time you teach a class. Later, key words and phrases could be enough to prod your memory and the flow of your class.

 

A good lesson plan will give you and your students a sense of accomplishment for the day. In advance, you'll think about what you want the students to learn in a given day and how it relates to the class topic. Then, you'll create one or more activities that will illustrate the skills or concept you want to communicate. You'll perfect the activity and try to anticipate problems or areas of knowledge that the students will need to have in order to grasp the lesson. Finally, you'll package the lesson with an introduction and a summary and bring it to class.

 

When you arrive in class, you can use your plan to announce to the class what you will cover. Then, delve into the topic and activities. Finally, you'll reframe and summarize the day's experience to help your students realize what they've learned.

 

There are three basic parts to a class session:

 

  1. You tell the students what you will cover today.
  2. You deliver the content and give them an opportunity to experience through activities.
  3. You remind the students what they've learned.