Lesson Planning

Introduction:-
A lesson plan is a detailed plan of the objectives and activities for a particular class. It is
an important part of the teaching and learning process. A lesson plan reflects what a
teacher wants to achieve in each class and how it will be achieved? Planning a lesson
helps a teacher to control class time and its effective use. A teacher’s effectiveness is
usually judged by the ability to design and implement instruction that promotes learning.
Teaching goals, objectives, teaching methods and assessment forms all come together in
a lesson plan, which ideally facilitates student learning. A good lesson plan contains the
description and application of the instructional methods being used in a particular class to
meet the needs of different learners. At the end of the lesson the teacher evaluates how
effective the plan was and makes any additions or revisions for future use.
The lesson plans vary in degree of detail. Some teachers write only few notes of the plan,
while others carefully write the details of each step of the plan. The teachers discover the
system that works best with them.

Need Of Lesson Planning:-

A lesson plan is a road map of the instructions. It shows what will be taught and how it
will be done effectively during the class time. Teachers require a lesson plan to describe
their course of instruction for one class. The lesson plan is necessary to guide the
instruction. A lesson plan is required to describe the preferences of the, subject being
covered, activities being held in the class, and to ensure the progress of the students about
the lesson being taught to them.
A well-developed lesson plan reflects the interests and needs of students. It contains the
objectives of the lesson formulated in behavioral terms (indicate the change in behavior).
The best and appropriate practices of teaching methodology and techniques to achieve the
objectives are included in the lesson plan. The content to be covered in a class is
indicated in a lesson plan. The evaluation procedures are also included in the lesson plan.
Lesson planning is beneficial for the teacher in many ways; such as:
 It helps in achieving goals and objectives, and same can be said on the part of the
students.
 It helps to get rid of problems or avoid them.
 It gives a reality check of everyday performance.
 It improves the habit and attitude of the students.
 It improves the teaching skills.
 It makes teaching ordinary and easy.
 It makes the teacher organized during teaching.
 Lesson planning determines when to include the interesting facts to attract the
students’ attention.
 It enables the teacher to impart the things the students can do at the best of their
abilities.

Process of lesson planning:-

First of all, a teacher need to identify the learning objectives for the class, then design
appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student
learning.
A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:
 Objectives for student learning
 Teaching/learning activities
 Strategies to check student understanding
Objectives specified for student learning help in determining the kinds of teaching and
learning activities to be used in class. These activities will define the achievements of
learning objectives.

Pre Planning Stage:-

Before teaching the teacher has to think about the lesson plan for a particular class. The
Center of Excellence in teaching (1999) recommends that the answers to the following
questions may help the teachers to proceed for effective planning:
- What are my objectives for this class?
Objectives are the statements of what the teacher wants students to learn. The
objectives are most likely to be the same, or close to, the goals outlined during
course planning. These are specific for a particular class.
- What are the objectives for this class?
Objectives are the specific goal statements written in behavioral terms. They state
exactly what the students should be able to do, in a class/ on a paper/ in an exam,
etc. Objectives also specify the conditions under which the students should learn
the material.
- Why is this material important?
The teacher thinks about the importance of the skills or knowledge being taught to
the students.
- What content will be covered in the particular class?
Statement of the rationale (logical reasoning) will help the teachers to decide
What content needs to be conveyed? Or
What will students need to know to meet the goals and objectives laid down in the
course? Or
What content is most essential for them to understand
- What will the students already know?
Each learner has different knowledge, the teacher must try to assess, what it is the
students already understand or are able to do. Having the knowledge of the
students’ previous learning the teachers are in a better position to decide where to
begin the class and how to help students learn.
- What materials will be needed?
These are the equipment to accomplish the goals the teacher decides if he/she needs
equipments, overheads. Well planning in advance will allow the teachers to be
prepared.

Designing a lesson plan:-

There are three main elements to a lesson plan that most of the teachers use. There is
variation among these components. All of these may not be used in every class, because
some plans may spread out over two or more classes. The elements are as following:
i) Introduction
The introduction is a way to warm up students, to ease them into the class and to
give them a context for what they are about to learn. Any of the following will be
helpfull to take a good start:
 Provide an outline of what will be done in the class. Giving a structure helps
the students to organize their thoughts and integrate new ideas.
 Summarize the previous lesson if the ideas are similar to this class. Recall of
previous knowledge helps the students to relate new ideas too.
 Present an issue related to the topic and ask students to generate a list of
questions. Connecting the lesson with these questions will give a picture of
students’ experiences, they are familiar with and be able to relates the topic
to their lives. This shows that what you are teaching is relevant and draws
their attention.
ii) Development
Development is an important part as it describes about teaching, or “instructional
methods” such as, lectures, discussions, labs, collaborative learning, etc.
 Try to engage students as much as possible in the learning process. Active
learning is one of the ways to engage students. It not only retains students’
attention but also helps them to develop higher-level thinking skills.
 Attempt to use a variety of teaching methods in a class. Any single method
may not work for all students. A variety of methods keeps their attention
and enhances learning.
 Give students the chance to apply the taught skills by using the concepts. This
will help them learn and give a chance to the teacher to assess informally. This
assessment will provide clarification of learning and need for further practice.
iii) Conclusion
Planning of how to tie it all together for the students is also important. Tell them
once again what they would learn and why it is important to them. Consider the
following activities in conclusion:
iv) Ask for questions:
The last few minutes of class are an excellent time to have students raise questions
and explore the ideas on their own.
v) Summarize the main points and explain how they relate to the course:
Students do not always see how everything fits together. The teacher makes the
link between the activities of one class to the larger course. In this way a teacher
best helps the students develop a conceptual understanding.
vi)Next lesson :
Again, this shows relevance to the lessons linked to one another and helps students
develop a conceptual understanding.
vii) Recapitalize or one-minute writing about the taught lesson:
With one or two minutes remaining in class, ask students to take out a sheet of
paper and, without putting their name on it, write what they believe was the main
idea of the class and one question they have about the lesson content.

Post Planning Stage:-

The teacher’s lesson planning process should take into consideration the need to assess
whether students have learned? How effective the lesson was?
This assessment is not a complicated or difficult task. It is very simple and informal. For
instance, using part of the class to let students work on problems you have given them, or
discuss issues and apply concepts, can give you a good sense of what and how much they
have learned. The one-minute writing about the lesson or homework problems can be
similarly helpful.
Let us do an activity to ensure the learning of the read concept.
Activity
Carried out interviews and collect views of 05 – 10 teachers on ‘why they plan
lessons’? Prepare a list of reasons of lesson plan on the basis of their opinions.
Let us do the following exercise to check the knowledge.

Approches of lesson plan:-

There are different styles of lesson planning. The common style of lesson planning
contains the following basic elements:
 3-5 lesson objectives
 Content to be covered
 Activities (lecture, group work, problem-solving, etc.)
 Resources and materials needed (including technology)
 Timing
 Out of class work and assessment
The following classic lesson planning models are most popular in lesson planning. These are:
1) Gagne’s frame work for instructional development,
2) Hunter’s seven steps of lesson planning and
3) The 5 E's lesson planning model

Gagne framework for instructional

Development :-
A famous educational psychologist, Robert Gagne, identified nine instructional
events that support learning and that can be used in lesson planning. These points
are often used as a framework for instructional development by the teachers.
Gagne’s frame work focus on the acquisition of intellectual skills during
instruction. The nine events of instruction are:
i) Gaining attention:- Students attention is gained towards the lesson. There
are many ways to gain students’ attention; such as teacher links the lesson
with the students’ previous knowledge, start from the daily experiences of
the students related to the lesson.
ii) Informing learners of the objective:- state the objectives of the lesson. Make
the students aware of what they are going to learn.
iii) Stimulating recall of prior learning:- in order to make link with the previous
knowledge, the teacher may asks questions to recall the prior learning.
iv) Presenting the content:- the teachers present the new concepts. Define and
describe the details of the concepts before the students.
v) Providing learning guidance:- the teachers use the audio and visual aids in
order to create a best learning environment.
vi) Providing opportunities to practice:- the teachers use examples from the
daily life and provide opportunities to revise/drill the new lesson.
Sometimes the teachers give class work for the improvement in learning.
vii) Providing feedback (information about how to improve):- the work
assignments of the students are checked by the teacher and comments are
given. The students are asked to correct the work.
viii) Assessing performance (exam, tests, papers):- the evaluation methods are
used to check the students’ performance on the learned concepts. Thelxx
assessment of students’ progress can be carried out by daily/monthly tests,
examinations, etc.
ix) Enhancing retention and transfer:- the teacher organize activities to help
students remember and retain the learned concepts. The learned behavior of
the student is confirmed when he/she applies the knowledge on to different
situations to solve other problems (transfer it to other scenarios).

Madeline Hunters seven Steps lesson plan:-

Hunter developed a seven steps model of lesson planning. These steps are
associated with the direct instruction method and behavior change practices. The
seven steps fall under four categories as follows:
i) Getting Students Ready to Learn
1. Review:- review of prior learning is necessary to make students ready to
learn the new concept.
2. Protective Set:- focus attention, gain interest – knowledge and
experiences of the students about the new concept are assessed. The
teacher connects the previous knowledge and experience of the students to
the new topic/concept.
3. Stating the objective:- most specifically the objectives of the lesson are
stated by the teacher.
ii) Instruction
Input and modeling:- the teacher presents instructions to the class. He/she
uses different modes keeping in mind the students’ interests and abilities.
Various examples from the daily life experiences help students to grasp the
new concepts.
iii) Checking for Understanding
1. Check for understanding:- students learn the lesson according to their
own style of learning. Teachers check students understanding in the middle
and at the end of the lesson and decide whether further clarification is
required or not or which areas/points needs more clarification either
through teaching material or through different strategies. The teachers use
class assignments for this purpose
2. Guided practice (provide feedback without grading):- a teacher’s
remark on students’ work is very essential. It provides feed back to the
students about their progress, learning and weaknesses, areas where
improvement is required.
iv) Independent Practice
Independent practice (usually for a graded assignment):- students’
learning of new concepts is regularly checked through continues
assessment; i.e. monthly tests, quarterly exams. The teachers mark and
give grades to their work.

Five E's Lesson planning:-

Learning theory of Constructivism states that learners construct new ideas or
concepts on the basis of their current/past knowledge. This model is based on the
ideas of constructive learning. Teachers design their instructions/ lessons around
the learning objective, gather resources, and provide students an opportunity to
explore, build, and demonstrate their learning. It shifts the learning environment
from teacher-centered to learner-centered.
The 5 E's Lesson Planning Model is most often associated with constructivist
learning design. It involves following 5 E’s:
 Engage - students come across the material, define their questions, do the
basic work for their class work, make connections between new and known
ideas, identify the relevant practices from their daily life.
 Explore - students directly involved with material, go through the learning
process to solve the problems. They work in a team to share the
knowledge.
 Explain – the student gets an opportunity to explain the learned concepts
such as discoveries, processes, and ideas by written/ verbal assignments or
through creative writing/ projects. The teacher supplies material, books/
resources, gives feedback, enhances vocabulary, and clarifies
misconceptions/wrong points if any.
 Elaborate – the teachers can enhance students’ knowledge with the help of
other examples and expand their knowledge by explaining similar
concepts, and asking them to apply it to other situations. The learning of
the new concepts also raises questions relating to other concepts (lead to
new inquiry).
 Evaluate – evaluation of learning is an on-going (continuous) process.
Both teacher and learner check the understanding of the concepts. Different
evaluation techniques can be used such as rubrics, checklists, teacher
interviews, portfolios, problem-based learning outputs, and assessments
results. Results are used to evaluate the students’ progress and to modify
instructional needs in future.
Activity
Prepare a lesson plan on the topic of “water” from the book of Science for class IV on
the design of 5 E’s model of lesson planning.

Course and Unit Planning:-

Once you have determined the needs of learners, it is time to consider designing and
planning the course. Following are some suggested steps in this process.
- Decide a topic
- Determine objectives
- Identify learning outcomes- (the desirable results)
- Determine assessment
- Design learning experiences and organize material- the content
- Develop evaluation mechanism-evaluation
- Information marketing-course description
Deciding on a Topic
– Consult with your students
– What topics are of interest to your students?
– What is driving your students' interests?
– What worked/didn't work in the past and why?
– How might existing courses be developed or modified?
– Which exercises/problems/assessment assignments were most appropriate?
Planning Backwards
Begin with the end in mind - Steven Covey
When planning a course, the best place to start is at the end. Determine what students
might reasonably be expected to achieve from a course and then plan how material can be
organised and delivered to reach this end.
Overarching Goals
Overarching goals describe the most important understandings that students should
develop during an entire course. Ask yourself:
When my students leave my class at the end of this course, what are the essential
understandings that I want them to take away?
Where possible, students should have a role in determining the goals of a programme.
However, in instances where goals are determined by an outside body, e.g. stage agency
or funding body, it is important to ensure consultation and collaboration between all the
stakeholders.
Learning Outcomes
Once the overarching goal is determined, the next step is to break this into identifiable
and manageable units of achievement, i.e. learning outcomes. Statements of what a
learner is expected to know, understand and/or be able to demonstrate after completion of
a process of learning.
Students may ask, what will I learn from this course? What will I be able to do when the
course is over? Sometimes the course description alone does not provide sufficient detail.
Generalised learning outcomes do not supply much additional information to prospective
students. More focused outcomes can identify key tasks in the learning process, or
observe stages in cognitive development.
Levels of Abstraction
In the 1950's Benjamin Bloom created taxonomy for categorising levels of thinking. The
taxonomy provides a useful structure in which to categorise learning outcomes and,
subsequently, assessment questions. Introductory courses, and some interest courses, may
expect to have outcomes at the initial levels of abstraction, whereas accredited and
certified courses would be expected to have more complex outcomes at higher levels of
abstraction. The system has been used widely across a variety of educational spheres
since its inception.
In the 1990's, Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) revised the taxonomy with a view to
making it more relevant to the twenty-first century.
utcomes
Outcomes can be written up in the following format:
At the end of this course students should be able to:
Define...
Summarise...
Demonstrate...
Analyse...
Critique...
Integrate...

Daily and weekly Planning:-

Daily and weekly planning are essential for the teachers. These create enough time for
meeting multiple responsibilities. The teacher can plan days and weeks carefully to
include time for teaching exercises, such as collecting and organizing material, writing
questions, preparing class assignments, and managing activities of different nature. This
process allows creating a clear path for teacher that maintains a healthy balance between
teaching and preparation.
Strategies for daily and weekly planning
The following points demonstrate why planning is so critical to success.
 Planning can greatly reduce your stress quotient. Proper planning gives you the
peace of mind of knowing that you have formulated a feasible plan of action and
that your goals are attainable.
 Planning also helps you to be prepared for obstacles because part of the planning
process is creating a emergency pan for unexpected problems.
 Planning serves as a way to evaluate your progress as you work. Planning your
daily and weekly activities will clearly illustrate whether or not you are staying on
schedule.
The following tips will provide you with strategies to implement your planning to
achieve your objectives.
 The first step to planning is to clearly define your objectives. Taking a few minutes

to put your goals into writing will be very beneficial in helping you to plan for your
success.
 Once you have defined your objectives, it is time to brainstorm on the tasks that are
required to complete your project. Ordering all of the necessary tasks into a logical
order and assigning an estimated time for completion to each objective will be
beneficial when you begin scheduling these activities.
 Next it is useful to define the roles that you will take in fulfilling your goal as well
as the roles of any others who will be assisting you. This is important because you
can use this time to determine who will handle certain tasks to avoid redundancy.
 Once you have determined your goal, the tasks required, the key players and the
tasks they will complete, it is finally time to start your daily and weekly scheduling.
The weekly schedule is important for the overall success of the project but it is the
daily planning that will help you to track your progress and determine whether or not
you are on schedule. Try using significant project milestones in your weekly
planning but for daily planning break each milestone down into the necessary
components and plan the completion of those components on a daily basis.
 As the teaching lesson progresses, continually evaluate your performance to
determine whether you are on track or need to adjust your schedule. This is where
daily planning becomes so important. Take a few minutes at the middle of the day
and at the conclusion of the day to evaluate your progress and make adjustments as
necessary.
 Finally once you have successfully completed your project review your planning
process to determine how successful it was. This will help you by illustrating
whether or not you have achieved an optimal planning system or whether you need
to more carefully plan subsequent projects.

Steps in lesson planning:-

The plans of class room activities to be happened each day make the teaching effective.
The teachers go through many steps for planning a lesson.
Six steps are given below to guide the teachers to create their first lesson plans. Each step is comprised
by a set of questions:
1. Outline learning objectives
The lesson objectives are usefully stated in terms of what students will achieve at
the end of the lesson. The first step is to determine as a teacher what you want
students to learn and be able to do at the end of class. To help you specify your
objectives for student learning, answer the following questions:
 What is the topic of the lesson?
 What do I want students to learn?
 What do I want them to understand and be able to do at the end of class?
 What do I want them to take away from this particular lesson?
Once you outline the learning objectives for the class meeting, rank them in terms
of their importance. This step will prepare you for managing class time and
completing the learning objectives.

2. Develop the introduction

After determining learning objectives and specifying them in order of their
importance, the teacher has to design the specific activities for the students. They
may already be familiar with the topic; therefore it is necessary to gather
background information from the students prior to lesson. You may start with a
question or activity to assess students’ knowledge of the topic. For example you
can ask a question or take a simple poll: “How many of you have heard about this?
Raise your hand if you have” or ask them to write comments on paper. This
additional information can help you to shape the introduction and learning
activities of the new concept.
Develop a creative introduction to the topic to encourage thinking. You can use a
variety of approaches to engage students for example, personal anecdote, historical
event, real example, short video clip, practical application, probing question, etc.

3. Plan the specific learning activities (the main body of the

lesson)
Prepare several and different examples (ways) to explain the topic/concept (real-
life examples, similarities, visuals, etc.) to catch the attention of all students. After
planning examples and activities for the lesson, estimate how much time you will
spend on each. Manage the time for different applications or problems, and for the
check of learning and understanding of the students. The following questions
would help you design the learning activities you will use in the class:
 What will I do to explain the topic?
 What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?
 How can I engage students in the topic?
 What are some relevant real-life examples, similarities, or situations that can
help students understand the topic?
 What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?
4. Plan to check for understanding
Up till now the topic has been explained with different examples. At this stage you
need to check for student understanding. Therefore you are required to plan for
how will you know that students are learning? Think about specific questions you
can ask students in order to check for understanding, and write them down. Try to
predict the answers to your questions. Decide on whether you want students to
respond orally or in writing. Ask yourself the following questions:
 What questions will I ask students to check for understanding?
 How will students demonstrate that they are following?
 Going back to the list of learning objectives, what activity students can do to
check whether each of those has been completed?
Decide what kinds of questions will be productive for discussion and what
questions might sidetrack the class. Think about the balance between achieving
learning objectives and ensuring that students understand.
5 Develop a conclusion and a preview
Repeat the material covered in class by summarizing the main points of the lesson.
You can do this in a number of ways: you can state the main points yourself
(“Today we talked about…”), you can ask a student to help you summarize them,
or you can even ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think
were the main points of the lesson. You can review the students’ answers to
estimate their understanding of the topic and then explain anything unclear the
following class.
Conclude the lesson not only by summarizing the main points, but also by making
its link to the next lesson. How does the topic relate to the one that’s coming up next? This opportunity
will increase students’ interest and help them connect the
different ideas within a larger context.
6. Create a realistic timeline
A realistic timeline will reflect your flexibility and readiness to adapt to the specific
classroom environment. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:
 Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra
time for each
 When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much
time you expect it will take
 Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and
to sum up the key points
 Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left
 Be flexible – be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students’ needs and
focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your
original plan.
Lesson plan Format:-
There are many formats for a lesson plan. Most lesson plans contain some or all of the
following elements, in this order:
 Title of the lesson
 Time required to complete the lesson
 List of required materials
 List of objectives- the objectives may be behavioral objectives (what the student
can do at lesson completion) or knowledge objectives (what the student knows at
lesson completion)
 The set (bridge-in) that focuses students on the lesson's concept or skills. these
include pictures or models and asking leading questions or recalling the previous
lessons
 An instructional component- it describes the sequence of events included in a
lesson. It includes the teacher's instructional input and guided practice. the students
try to understand new skills/work with new ideas
 Independent practice- this practice allows students to extend knowledge and
skills by them selves
 A summary- the teacher wraps up the discussion and answers to the students’
questions
 An evaluation component- a test for mastery of the instructed skills or concepts—
such as a set of questions to answer or a set of instructions to follow
 Analysis component- the teacher reflects on the lesson—such as what has been
achieved/learned, or what needs improvement
 A continuity component – it reviews and relates to the content from the previous
lesson.