We understand the importance of a great lesson plan. Whether it is your first lesson plan as a full-time teacher or you are just needing a refresher, we are here to help.

Why lesson plan? Having a plan in place will help you hold a solid lesson structure and will support your personal time management. We realise in teaching it is easy to get invested in new ideas and sharing of knowledge, but it is important to reflect on what you are expected to complete during the lesson.  Sharing tips within a community can help to success of those around you and that’s why we have found our four best tips for an effective lesson plan.

1.       Set clear goals.

Having a goal within your plan can optimise the learning outcomes. If you can set yourself goals within the lesson, you will be more likely to stay on track with your work. An effective way of giving yourself clear goals would be for you to go into the lesson with some clear pointers of what direction you want the lesson to go in and how you would like to achieve this. This can create a method of self-reflection during the lesson to stop the topic drifting relevance.

2.       Decide on the key learning objectives for individual lessons.

Knowing what your key learning objectives are for your lesson will help you gain personal control and confidence over your topic. Its important to look at what is most relevant to this lesson from the curriculum guidelines. It would be worth considering if it is worth going over an older topic that could help gain better understanding or are you solely looking to focus on new content?

Always refer to your curriculum to ensure you are teaching topics that are in line with the expected requirements. We would also suggest looking into factors that could make your teaching style and lesson feel more engaging to your students. You can look at factors such as age, what would a 6-year-old like to see to keep them interested vs a 16-year-old.

3.       Reflect on past success.

What have you done in the past that was successful and why did it work? Looking at lessons that felt effective and engaging can be a great starting point when creating a new plan. Reflection can aid growth as you will be able to use your proven success as a guideline for new teaching.

It could be worth taking some time at the end of each lesson to give personal feedback, or to ask the students for some feedback to help you move forward. 

4.       Be realistic about time.

There is no point setting yourself a huge lesson plan when you will not have the physical time to deliver everything. This will only lead to your teaching feeling rushed or it will put pressure on yourself to deliver as much content as possible.

Examples of this would be giving yourself topic timers, with each objective make it clear to yourself how long you should leave yourself for this topic and try to stick to this to avoid going on tangents. However, allow yourself some contingency time encase there is greater confusion with the topic than expected. 

5.       Set clear goals.

Be clear with yourself. Overcomplicating will only create personal confusion and conflict. Keep it simple when referring to your notes, as you will know what is relevant and what isn’t when you are delivering the lesson. Creating goals also gives you a simple and understandable map to follow so you won’t easily lose your train of thought or what topic is due top be covered next.

We hope these simple but effective tips will help you in your own personal development as a teacher and support your lesson plans in the future.