Write a lesson plan for each lesson

You now need to plan what you will do in each lesson. Whichever way you teach, each lesson needs a clear purpose and ways to meet that purpose. Together, they form a program plan.

Many principles from planning a series of lesson also apply to individual lessons. For each session, draw up a plan. It must be written down. Here's what to do:

1. Write out clearly the purpose of each lesson as something that students will be able to do. Be brief and to the point.
    
2. Say why it is important. This is sometimes called “problematization.” That is, express the topic as a problem that needs to be solved, and give students an opportunity to see why it’s important. Perhaps, you could expand this to “need” or “opportunity”. (Some lessons don't work because students can't see any problem to be solved.)
    
3. Use forward planners. If you tell people what you're going to do, they can see where it's going and make more sense of it. They learn better because they have a clear framework to hang the details on. This applies to the whole course as well as each lesson. You can use your purpose to keep students on track for each lesson.
    
4. Select your information. You can't pack everything you know into one lesson, or even a series of lessons. The point is to select carefully what it is that students need to learn.
   
   Students will be confused if you spend too much time riding hobbyhorses around or talking about favourite subjects that don't help them achieve the purpose of the lesson. You usually make more progress by giving less information but have students be able to do what is planned, than giving students so much information that they can't achieve the purpose.
    
5. Express each point as a very clear, simple, accurate sentence. Keep it a short as possible so students get the basic message very easily.
   
   Six words is good. If you go over ten words, try again. Make sure your points lead students to achieve the purpose of the lesson. You will find your lessons will go very easily if students get the point the first time you say it. Otherwise, you will waste most of your time clearing up misunderstandings.
    
6. Put your lesson points is an order that will make sense and be useful to your students (not just to you). The sequencing principles are the same as above for planning the series. (More on that later.) For example, group content according to topics and decide on a sequence.
    
7. Choose the delivery methods and learning activities. (More on that later)
    
8. For every lesson point, give an example, illustration or demonstration that clearly matches the point. If it's a practical subject, you demonstrate it to students. If it's information and ideas, an example or illustration is appropriate.
    
9. Constantly give students opportunities to participate. In fact, you should explain requirements for effective participation early in the course. Then ask questions. Get opinions. Request examples. (Of course, you need to avoid embarrassing them.)
1. If it's ideas and information that you're teaching, let them discuss a point or give examples.
2. If it's a practical subject, let students show you whether they can do the each step. Ensure that students get enough practice so they can perform the skill themselves, even if it uses a substantial proportion of your session time.
    
10. Allocate time for each part of the lesson. Planning time usage in lessons is difficult and comes with experience as you learn to anticipate how learners will respond in class.

If you're brand new, you probably just need to ask advice about how long lesson parts will take. Without advice, don't be surprised if your long lesson takes no time at all, or you only get halfway through a lesson that didn't appear long. Later on, you'll be able to guess fairly accurately how long your plans will take to teach, and how to deal with digressions.

11. At the end of the lesson, recap the main points or steps to refresh in students' minds what they learnt. They need to be reminded. You can also reinforce previous learning by:
1. Referring to lessons from previous weeks.
2. Answering questions arising from previous weeks.
3. Discussion in preparation for assessment.
4. Incorporating previously learnt ideas or skills into new lessons, so that old skills are kept in practice.
    
12. Also at the end of your lesson, check whether students can do what you wanted them to be able to do. Even if you're not formally assessing them at this stage, you need at least to know whether your lesson achieved its purpose. (That is, it is formative assessment, and feedback of the effectiveness of your teaching.)
     
13. After the lesson, review how it went. What worked? What didn't? Could you use time more efficiently? What would you change?
     

Then go though and add any of the following that is necessary to each part of the program:

• ice breakers
• workplace tasks/applications
• practice opportunities
• assessment points to measure student progress
• duration of each activity or exercise
• references to textbooks or other resources
• location of training
• number of students
• resources (e.g. whiteboard, overhead projector) 
• OHS considerations
• assessment points to measure students' progress
   

If you do all this, you will have a good set of plans. They have to be workable, but they don't have to be perfect.

As you teach, you'll notice what works well and what doesn't, and you'll probably revise your plans every time you teach. And you might adapt them depending on changes in content, different groups, etc. They should never be static documents.

The introductory session

If your students don't know each other, they can be nervous and need to be eased in. Start with simple introductions and make them feel comfortable with you and with each other.

Your students should know what kind of course they are getting into. This will allay their fears that the course will be boring, too difficult, or too easy.

It could well make them more enthusiastic about what they will learn. When the program is individualized or on-the-job, this stage becomes even more significant for students, because it may affect their schedules and expectations.

The introductory session in any series is important for creating a supportive learning environment. Fortunately, introductory sessions are rather uniform:

1. Welcome people in and check that everybody is there.
    
2. Introduce yourself and get each student to introduce themselves briefly to the group. (Make sure you don't ask students for any information that could be construed to invade their privacy.)
    
3. Brief students on OHS (e.g. location of toilets, evacuation procedure, incident or hazard reporting).
    
4. Discuss and clarify individual and group objectives and expectations. ("What do you want to get out of this course?")
    
5. You are not required to go through the Unit Statement with students, although that is probably the easiest and best way for a group. Give out a written unit description, which should include assessment requirements. Go through the main points and any house rules, then discuss and clarify it. Give students a chance to ask any questions. It is good practice to encourage them to ask outside the class if they want.
    
6. Explain to and discuss with students:
• program goals and what students need to learn
• an overview of the particular unit
• any particular activities (field trips, guest speakers, etc.)
• how the program works, or your reasons for presenting it the way you do.
• any other staff who will play a role (e.g. relating to admin).
   
7. There may be some admin: forms to fill in, fees to pay, etc.
    
8. Answer questions and make them comfortable with the process. Confirm that they understand your explanation.
    
9. You should have time to start on the series. In this first session, you'll probably want to answer the questions: "What is this topic about?" "Why is it important?" "How can it be applied?"

So there's a bonus. It's prepared for you.

Plan effective use of time

As the teacher, it’s your job to get the best use of your classroom time and move the pace along.

A very good guide to teacher effectiveness is simply the percentage of lesson time that all students are fully engaged in effective learning activities. Admittedly, it's based on process rather than results, but it is fairly easy to observe. You are being effective if:

• nearly all your students spend nearly all lesson time interacting in effective learning activities,
• you limit your stand and explain teaching to sessions of no more than ten minutes, and
• you keep your dead time to an absolute minimum.

We've seen that good learning tends to be active: students participate or do things that indicate learning. Good learning may be also be passive, especially for some learning styles: Students can be listening, thinking and forming their own understandings (that is, fully engaged) with little outward sign of activity. And usually the best way to know that students are passively learning is to stop fairly often and interact with them. (The trap is to think that telling is teaching.)

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you must rush through the lesson at top speed. In fact:

• You may need to go slowly through some complex topics so that students actually learn them.
• Students might need extra practice to overlearn some things. This especially applies to learnings that must be automatic responses that are quick and efficient, and have little or no room for error. (It often works to make this kind of activity into a competition or race.)

Using this as a criterion, you are not being effective if you have dead time:

• You are start late.
• You take a long time gathering people together after a five-minute break.
• Students take extra time moving around the classroom, moving furniture, or organizing equipment.
• Students take extra time making transitions from one learning activity to another.
• Some students aren’t really listening or participating.
• You spend time on administrative details.
• You have to repeat an unclear explanation.
• You lose time on interruptions.
• You spend time on details that are not part of your learning goals.
• You digress to topics that are not part of your learning goals.
• A learning activity or a whole lesson doesn’t work and students either misunderstand it or are confused. You have to un-confuse students, change the approach, and teach the topic again.
• A learning activity has the wrong goals for your course.
• You tie students up in busywork, that is, an activity that keep students busy without helping them achieve the lesson purpose.
• You waste time handing out notes. (Either give them out at registration, put them out on tables beforehand, or get students to hand them out.)

Some of these problems result in nearly 100% wasted time for the whole class. Look through the list and identify them. It’s amazing how many teachers survive with less that 30% engagement. That is, their students spend most class time in dead time.

Choose learning activities

Students learn more if they actively do something. In a learning activity, students try out a new skill that they are learning or to explore it in some way.

Traps:

• Many teachers simply stand and tell. There is usually little evidence that students are learning anything. (In fact, i once heard of a professional development session called Telling ain't teaching and listening ain't learning.
• Busywork, that is, activities that don't achieve a clear learning purpose

Find what learning activities you can from existing materials and select what you will use if you can. If there is nothing that you can use, you will need to make up your own activities.

Remember:

Example 1

• Skill: Use a particular reference book
• How to teach it: Explain each step of using the reference book and get each student to do the same as you go.
• How to practice it: Practice using the reference book
• How to assess it: Tasks using the reference book

Example 2

• Skill: Ride a bicycle
• How to teach it: Coaching with a bicycle
• How to practice it: Practice with a bicycle
• How to assess it: Watch the student ride a bicycle.

Other than that, it's time to get creative. Generate a range of activities that will work for your students, consider the following variables:

• learning styles
• student characteristics
• delivery modes and activities
• visual aids (pictures, diagrams, objects, etc)
• available resources and materials and
• your ability to produce new materials

Consider these activities:

Plan how you will use your classroom space

It is your job to get the best use of your classroom space.

First, check that the room is reserved on the admin schedule. If possible, allow enough time before the session to set up, and afterwards to talk to students and pack anything back in place.

Second, set the room up to be suitable for any interactions you have planned:

1. All students should easily be able to see you and all your visual aids
2. You should be able to see and hear everyone else. This usually means that they need to sit close enough together
3. Everyone needs to be in the right places for any activity you have planned; this will prevent any unnecessary moving around during class.
4. Nobody is left out.
5. Minimize distractions.
1. For teaching adults, arrange the room so that the doorway is at the back of the room so people can come and go if they need to.
2. Eliminate any background noise (e.g. traffic), usually by closing some windows.*
3. For teaching computing, make sure that students can see you without being distracted by what’s on their computer screens.

If it’s a big space, some people might choose a space a long way from the teacher so that they are not near anybody else. This tends to make them less willing to interact and participate, and makes the class harder for you to teach. (Remember, learning is partly a communal exercise.)

The simplest way to minimize the problem is for you to set up the furniture beforehand so that you control the classroom environment. This may be:

• Small groups around tables: best for small group activities that require writing
• Small groups without tables: best for small group activities that require little or no writing
• One large circle
• Half-circle
• Concentric half-circles
• Desks in rows

Give clear instructions if you want people to move around. In a few cases, you won’t be able to set the room up beforehand for everything you want to do. For example, you might want to start by speaking to a large group together, then split into small groups for an activity, and then come back together.

The main thing that can go wrong

The main thing that can go wrong is a kind of chaos that wastes time and delays you from starting the next activity. You should be able to anticipate when this would happen and prevent it.

How to resolve it:

• Plan exactly what they must do beforehand.
• Take control; adults will appreciate the leadership. Give students clear, simple instructions at the time. Explain yourself, but don’t talk so much that students become confused.
• Take initiative to start the next activity as soon as possible. As the teacher, the pace of the lesson is your responsibility.

If you divide students into groups &hellips;

Have a simple system of dividing people into groups. Adults won’t normally waste much time, but you can speed the process along:

• Provide seating in groups.
• Have a predetermined way of putting people in groups (e.g. category on name-card).
• Appoint leaders.
• Appointing group scribes if they need to make notes.
• If teaching at a large location (as in a conference) you may designate on other rooms around the facility.

Free-form activities

You can allow students do drift from group to group according to what interests them, but this only works well for some kinds of creative activities when people need to explore their own interests. You will find a few people will want to go around and watch, but are reluctant to try anything. A few will tend to socialize more than learn.

___________

*In a large lecture you might need a sound system, and students won’t be able to hear each other, or perhaps even need to.

Ensure that any student questions are conveyed to the whole group through the sound system. You can do this by having microphones available to students or by relaying their questions through your rostrum microphone.