Lesson Planning 101

Ever wonder how educators successfully deliver their lessons?

Well, the secret relies on their lesson plan. They say that once a teacher, forever a student. It is indeed true, and I guess it is one of the reasons why I choose Education. Because I love school very much. I have always been. I like being in school so much, not just because I can gain many friends and have a daily allowance, but because in school I can be me.

Even then, I have always looked up to my teachers. On how they successfully and smoothly deliver the lessons starting from the opening prayer up to the closing prayer. Have you also wondered about that? Then let me feed your curiosity a bit.

What is a lesson plan and what is their importance?

A lesson plan is the teacher's daily guide. This helps them to be more effective in the classroom by following detailed outlines in each class period. A lesson plan consists of what the students need to learn, how it will be taught, how learning will be measured, and how the whole lesson will be delivered. They say that every profession has their own language, and for the teachers, it is their lesson plan.

So, how to create a lesson plan?

There is also a guideline in creating a lesson plan. Now I remember, the first time that I ever encountered a lesson plan was during my first year in college. I took the General Academic Strand in senior high school so I was never given a chance to encounter a lesson plan before college. And that goes the same with my other classmates as well, so when our instructor told us to create one we did really have a difficulty.

Fortunately, a dear teacher of ours patiently taught us about lesson planning and its parts. So, I will include my first ever made lesson plan here as an example. However, during that time we were following the old format of the lesson plan but now the new format is now based on Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST).

In making a lesson plan you need to consider the six (6) key parts,

1. Objectives

First is the objectives. These will be your basis, and the one that will tell you if your lesson or discussion has effectively brought new learnings and skills to your students.

In the old format, the three objectives (cognitive, psychomotor, and affective) will be stated directly.

While the PPST based includes the content and performance standards.

The content and performance standards are all based on the curriculum guide of the specific subject so you just need to copy it. However, the objectives must be created by the teacher because it will serve as the goals for the students and the whole class.

In making the objective, it should be specific, measurable, attainable by every student, relevant, and time-based that is aligned in the syllabus.

It is also important to start the objectives with an action that relates to what students should be able to do after the lesson.

The students shall be able to…

At the end of the lesson, 95% of the students shall be able to…

Of course, your objectives depend on what topic you are teaching and their level of knowledge. The first objective is for the cognitive, the second is for the affective, and the third one is for the psychomotor.

2. Content

The second key part is the content or the title of your lesson, or what would be your lesson all about.

3. Materials or Resources

The third one would be the learning materials or the learning resources that you will use in your lesson and discussion.

 This will help you in delivering your lessons because you might accidentally forget something important for your discussion, so this will also serve as your guide.  

Mostly learning materials includes: Textbooks, visual aids (pictures, graphs, etc.), grading rubrics, etc. these materials will depend on how you will deliver the lesson or how you will measure the learning objectives to your students.

4. Procedure

Then here comes the procedure. Delivering lessons has procedures to be followed too. This is the skeleton of the lesson plan because the procedure is the step-by-step instruction or process in how the lesson will progress in the classroom. Start from the moment you walk inside the classroom, up until the moment you will bid goodbyes to the students.

A lesson plan has two types: the Semi-Detailed and the Detailed. Their differences vary on how you will make the procedure.

The procedure consists of two parts: the teacher’s activity and the student’s activity. This is like a conversation between teacher and students. You will put what you are going to say to the students, as well as their possible responses.

The procedure starts with the Preliminary Activities such as greetings, prayers, and all. It will then be followed by the Review or recalling previous discussion. Then after that it will be the Motivation or the introduction to the new lesson. It can be through video presentation or you will let the students watch a video in connection to your lesson, or you can engage them into singing and dancing that is related to your topic so they will be also get energized, or you can also present some flashcards and games to them as long as it is related to your topic.

Then after that would be the Discussion Proper in which you were going to discuss your lessons and present some examples with also the help of your visual aids. Remember that children are visual learners so you need to at least present something interesting in their eyes and try to make your discussion understandable and quick since children can only lend you little time for their attention and they might get bored. Then next is the Application, it is when you will measure the students' learning regarding the one that you’ve discussed. It can also be through a physical activity or game, anything as long as you will test the students' learning outcomes. Then after that, the Generalization will follow in which you will have a short run through or recap of your lesson.

5. Evaluation

Evaluation is like an assessment to measure whether your students did really or not understand your lesson. You can evaluate your learners in many ways such as giving quizzes, hand-on activities, oral recitations, group presentations, seat works, and etc.

6. Assignment

The last one is by giving an assignment. This will help them to assess their knowledge in their home. The purpose of this is to measure and for you to see how well your students learned the lesson based on the information that you’ve presented.

Each part of the lesson plan plays an important role in the learning experiences and development of your students, so it is important to approach them with a clear plan in mind. Laying out each lesson plan according to your requirements and expectations can be tedious work, but it will surely help you stay organized and aligned with what you’re supposed to teach.

Making a lesson plan isn’t easy at all, not to mention writing it every day in a different subject. Writing a lesson plan also helped me realize that being a teacher is no joke. They say that once a teacher, always a student. Yes, indeed because a teacher’s work doesn’t only end with teaching the students the things they need to learn and understand, they also learn something from them on an everyday basis.