By D. Molinari PhD

Lesson plans guide educational organizational needs. A one-page, one-hour, lesson plan provides time management, sets priorities, lists supplies, and describes achievement. Planning enables institutions to maintain schedules, and meet deadlines. The plan shepherds people during unexpected emergencies. The plan relieves pressure on teachers and allows them to be creative.

Why don’t parents utilize lesson plans for Family Home Evenings, home school, play dates, etc. Do parents view themselves as better teachers than those with certificates? My interviews indicate parents need at least as much help teaching and tracking progress as do public school teachers.

Teaching parents the value of lesson plans will introduce the basics of instructional design. So let’s run through the definitions, concepts. Give readers a chance to create their own plan and evaluate its value.

A home teacher’s lesson plan looks similar to many public school teacher’s document or it can be placed on a 4X6 card and kept in a recipe box. The vocabulary for home teaching is similar to the public teacher’s requirements. Some plans are so easy to make; people might refuse to organize saying, “Why bother”? I don’t have time for a useless task. Just give them the workbook page to complete.”

Lesson plans encourage best practices, provide paper trails, and permit replication over the years. Wouldn’t it be nice to remember well done lessons for the second or third child? Lesson Plans can serve as evaluation tools. Collaborating mother/teachers can save time and increase the quality of their teaching. This fact is important as many communities are deleting pre-school programs. Mothers will be forced to prepare their children for school. Let’s begin with the vocabulary.

Each term is mapped on the lesson plan form. See the form. When planning we think backwards to complete the form.

1. What is your outcome goal? What proof will you have that students learned the materials?
2. What is your title for the class? A simple and descriptive title is needed.
3. Create an overall learning goal for the class.
4. Chunk the material into small pieces and provide measurable objectives for each concept.
5. Outline the small sections of the lesson and create active learning and evaluative measures to discover how much students accomplished

 

Exercise: Learn and apply the vocabulary to a lesson plan:

Public School Teacher’s Vocabulary: Pre and Post Assessments, Goals, Objectives, Active Content

Home Teacher’s substitute Vocabulary:  Review Measures, Class Goals, Skill Achievement, Content, Evaluations for teaching and learning, and Life Skill Development.

Pre Assessment Measures:

pre-assessments are done before the class begins to decide questions like which plan elements are needed? One needs data to answer the question. Deadlines, attendance, time available, school standards, general student knowledge, equipment available and school plans keep the teacher busy before the lesson begins.

Home teachers HT) find their questions are the same as the public school instructor asks. HTs are blessed with fewer students and may have more child knowledge than a public school teacher.  BUT… DON’T COUNT ON IT! Families experience knowledge holes and mountains as often as public classrooms do. Teachers are trained to watch and assess children’s diverse needs. Children’s health, disabilities, language skills, and behavioral issues all impact learning.

Class Goals and Pre-assessment:

Goals may require adjustment after the pre-assessment measures participants’ knowledge, skills, and creative abilities. There is no need to waste time teaching principles the students already know. The class goal may not change, but often the sub-objectives need tweaking or the outcome needs a totally new expectation statement. Since the lesson plan highlights the learning trajectory toward the outcome, the teacher can alter supporting principles without disrupting the students during the class. Supporting objectives can morph into evaluations if the pre-assessment indicates existing knowledge. The class then moves faster through the active learning content when an objective is turned into an assessment.

Knowing when and how to adjust the lesson plan grows easier with experience. The lesson plan teaches teachers the instructional art.

No matter how brief or easy the lesson plan appears, the tool aids teachers;  as well as, students.

Pre-assessments also prepare the class for learning. Students need time to leave home issues behind and focus on learning. Teachers need to spend time on the pre-assessment in order to gain eager student attention.

Teachers need to understand how well each student can apply the learning content in real life. Assessment is vital to instructor understanding. Assessments after segments usually require oral responses while Students fill out the tools, rate items, or complete an activity that demonstrates existing conceptual knowledge before and after class. Active pre-assessment provides foreshadowing for the lesson and guidance for participants. If the class is about cooking, the pre-assessment cues students that fun is about to begin. They mentally leave their socializing for awhile and pay attention to promised activities.

Example: Let’s use this Lesson Plan form to describe a cooking class for children. Fill in the form sections and your class springs to life. A lesson plan will be the final assessment tool for this blog. The beginning measure will be the same post lesson plan measure. Participants will be asked to fill in the blanks for their cooking class The lesson will be taught with energy, enthusiasm, humor and clearly understood goals.

Goals usually require fewer than 10 words and include the planned result of the learning. Goals usually require fewer than 10 descriptive words and include the planned learning outcome.

Example: Students will: A. Create no-bake cookies  B. Demonstrate cooking safety. Some teachers include the location of the class in case travel or an unusual gathering place is required.

Every goal needs to be measured for successful teaching. Since most goals contain abstract concepts that are difficult to measure, lesson plans also contain several measurable objectives.

Learning Objectives: The language for creating objectives is simple. “At the end of the lesson, children will be able to – .” The objective’s purpose is to describe what children will be able to know and DO by the end of the class. Success measurements are also described.

Assessment or Evaluation Methods: Are teaching strategies outlining how you will assess each child’s progress? How will you know which students achieved the instructional objective and which did not? This usually requires assessments at both the beginning and end of the class, and after learning segments.

Objectives are statements of what principles are needed to reach the planned outcome and how each achievement will be measured. Clear objectives provide expectations for the activities. Without objectives, little is accomplished. Let us explore the different types of objectives.

A unifying vocabulary with well understood concepts and strategies for teaching/learning keeps teaching simple. This may sound counter intuitive, but the idea is correct. When teachers narrow their complex ideas into small information chunks with measurable objectives, they can teach abstract principles. It is sort of like eating an elephant. One needs to take one bite at a time with care given to different parts of the elephant’s anatomy. Instructional scientists studied and created aids to turn teaching into a science as well as an art.

 

Lesson Plan Form with Descriptions

Title: Kitchen Hygiene
Objective: Students will demonstrate kitchen hygiene while making no-bake cookies.
Step #1: Lesson’s Outcome:
Pre and Post Assessments:
Life Skill Application:
Lesson Stage	Explanation of Each Stage	Time Estimate
Warm-up/Review	a. Create an activity to review past lesson content. b. Create an activity to introduce new topic	5-10 min
Introduction	a. Create an activity to focus students’ attention on the new lesson. b. Assess prior knowledge of new lesson. Let students refer to this assessment during the summative evaluation b. State the objective. c. Relate the objective to participant’s lives.	5-10 min
Presentation & Active Engagement Strategies	a. Introduce new vocabulary and concepts. b. List a variety of strategies using visuals and activities c. Check level of understanding by asking questions, using non-verbal hand signals, etc.	30 min.
Practice & Life Skills Application	a. Model the activity or skill that students are to practice. b. Differentiate the activity for high, average, and low level students c. Monitor students’ practice by moving around the room. d. Provide an immediate feedback of the activity to students. e. Provide an activity that requires students to apply the learning to their own lives. f. Provide an activity to transfer the skills to a new situation.	30-40 min
Formative/Summative Assessment	a. Create an activity to assess each student’s attainment of the objective. Using oral, aural, written or applied performance assessments. b. Create an activity to reflect on the lesson’s learning strategies.	20-30 min

 

For Information on Writing and Assessing Objectives, read the next blog