1. Builds upon students’ prior knowledge

When planning for lessons, most of us focus tremendous effort on the content we will teach. And we try our best to cover the syllabus and reach the necessary progress in delivering our lessons.

Why?

Because we are restrained by time, assessment, and benchmarking.

Content does matter to our students’ success. Covering the syllabus is required, but it is not a sign of teachers’ success since it doesn’t necessarily imply that students are making progress.

So, instead of placing more emphasis on content, we should provide opportunities for students to connect what they already know (from their everyday life and previous lessons) with new learning and help clear up their misconceptions.

For this purpose, your lesson plan needs to reflect this objective.

How?

Before making any decision about your content, think about the following questions :
• What do my students need to know before learning the lesson’s topic?
• How are they supposed to use such prior knowledge to learn this lesson?
• How will I check their prior knowledge?
• What are some commonly held ideas (or possibly misconceptions) about this topic that students might be familiar with?
• What will I do to introduce this topic?

Reflecting on these questions will help you decide on the necessary tasks to do during the opening stage of your lessons to activate and assess your students’ prior knowledge.

You might decide to start with a revision of previous content because it’s relative to the learning requirements of your lesson. You can do a quiz or address a set of questions to tap such preexisting knowledge.

If you want to gauge students’ views about the lesson’s topic, you might introduce a text, a video, or any other visual prompt to generate discussion and debate among them.

When your lesson plan intends to build upon students’ prior knowledge, you’ll know how to cover their misconceptions that are actively interfering with their ability to learn the new material. This is because you’ve already planned how to correct them and provide practice to help them use accurate knowledge.

2. Allows for more flexibility

To meet students’ needs and interests and help them learn, teachers’ flexibility is required. Therefore, an effective lesson plan should allow for more flexibility.

How?

This is by providing a variety of activities and tasks in a lesson and a series of lessons, thereby helping students interact and process content differently.

Yet, flexibility doesn’t only mean varying activities and tasks. It also entails varying the way you provide your instruction.

So, it’s not always using the whiteboard, the textbook, the teacher’s handouts, asking the same questions, and interacting with the same students.

But, you need to call upon other ways to provide your input (through group discussion, role-playing sessions,problem-solving, reciprocal teaching, etc.)

Also, you should plan for differentiated lessons. So, based on what you know about your students, you can offer variety within tasks or a variety of tasks.

What does this mean?

1) Variety within tasks: Students work on the same task, but they respond in different ways, depending on their needs and interests.

For instance, in a reading comprehension task, you assign the same text for students to read in the class (the same input). They will work on that text differently. Students who performed well on a previous drama activity may turn this text into a role play. Those who require more thinking time and prefer to work individually could prepare their answers to comprehension questions, etc.

2) A variety of tasks: Students work on different tasks. Still, they work on the same concepts and ideas.

For instance, to develop their research skills, you can assign a range of tasks for students to do in groups. A group of students will practise research questioning strategies. This is through using questions and documenting the process they use to come up with a final research question. Another one will practise evaluating internet sources, justifying their choice of electronic citations, etc.

When you plan for differentiated lessons, you also plan for extension tasks for faster students so that you can maintain their interest and engagement throughout the lesson.

Finally, to allow for more flexibility, your lesson plan should also provide extra options or alternative tasks in case the unexpected happens. For instance, if your material runs short or your class might not respond well to a particular activity, you have something to fall back on.

3. Clarifies transitions

A major teacher’s task is to grab their students’ attention from the start of the lesson. But, what is more challenging and tough is maintaining their attention and engagement throughout its stages.

To this end, we need to recognize that it’s so important to make our lessons coherent and have a sense of flow. This is vital in providing the logic and consistency needed to make our students focused, thus optimizing learning.

Achieving coherence and flow does not only mean ensuring that the sequence of activities is logical and progresses from a basic level to a more complex skill level.

It’s also about using effective transitions to move from one activity to the next. Shifting students from one task to the next more efficiently is a common issue among teachers.

Why?

Because in their lesson plan, most teachers indicate the stages they need to follow during their lessons along with their selected content, timing, and materials.

But, they often don’t plan for the transitions that have a huge impact on classroom management.

Your lesson plan needs to show clearly those transitions. By doing so, you’ll know what to do next and so use your time more effectively and efficiently. Your students will also understand the rationale for each activity and get more attentive and engaged.

You may think that using transitions does not require planning. It comes out spontaneously as you go through teaching.

Yet, let me tell you in practice things look different!

We might not be able to manage everything happening in the classroom.

In every lesson, we have interactive students, asking questions, answering, and even raising issues that go beyond the lesson’s objectives. While others are either talkative, off-task, or passive and watch the whole class.

When you plan for your transitions, you’ll make them more purposeful. You’ll know how to shift students from one task to the next without distracting their attention or making them feel uncomfortable (for those who address unrelated questions).

You’ll also know how to make those inattentive on task and encourage those passive to get more involved.

Transitions are not just statements like saying to students: “Okay, let’s move on to the next point”.

They involve using questions, prompts, and different kinds of cues. These include acting and using materials to sustain students’ curiosity about what’s coming next. For instance, playing certain music, showing a video, a picture, flashcards, or an object that relates to the next idea/task, or making gestures, or sounds to point out that.

To be part of our routine, these transitions are to be taught to our students through explicit explanations, clear models, rehearsal, and review.

So, planning for your transitions can make you more intentional about them ( you know which transitions work best in your context) and flexible (not always opting for the same).

4. Allots time for students’ involvement

What’s the purpose of planning for our lessons?

Our lesson plan indeed guides us. It tells us what should be done, how, and when in a lesson.

But, most importantly, we plan to get more organized and make effective use of our time. Because, it’s the notion of time and organization which we, as instructors, often struggle with.

Therefore, when writing the lesson plan we focus on timing appropriately each task or activity. And we try to do our best in the class to adjust our practices accordingly.

But, how about ‘time for student involvement? Those moments we need to devote to students to think, interact, act, speak their minds, and also have some fun and enjoy learning together.

Have you ever thought about them when planning for our lessons?

An effective lesson plan also allows such time when precious opportunities for students arise to learn and achieve their personal growth.

So, whenever you plan for your lessons, think about those moments and how much time you should allocate so that students can exploit them.

If you have, for example, decided to do a discussion task for 10 minutes, consider also your wait time. That is, the amount of time your students need to think about their ideas before sharing them with others.

Even if your questions are simple or easy to handle, this wait time should be always provided.

Indeed, planning for those moments helps you know when you should stop talking and give opportunities for students to speak and express themselves.

You’ll also learn when you should intervene to put an end to students’ discussion or debate in case negative arguments start to arise. And what you should do when students feel bored or off task.

5. Prompts teachers to reflect

The lesson plan should not be considered as an end in itself. But, rather as the starting point for teachers to reflect and streamline.

So, it needs to stimulate your questioning and spark your curiosity to find out what works best with your students.

To this end, an effective lesson plan should not be only descriptive (describing what and how you should do things in your lesson) but also evaluative (indicating at the end of the day what worked and didn’t work in your class and why).

You can reflect on :
-The type of activities you selected,
-the way you sequenced them,
-students’ participation in class,
-the procedures used to introduce your activities,
-the time allotted to your activities,
-the way you checked for your students’ understanding,

Your lesson plan can open up avenues for you to innovate and make changes based on your students’ learning needs. So, use it as a reflective tool to foster their learning.

These are the characteristics of lesson plan. You can achieve this goal and support your students to learn better.

If you want to learn more about the process of lesson planning you can check out this post: Effective Lesson Planning: Procedures and Tips.