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How to Present a Lesson Plan

First days are always exciting, and expectation builds up about the contents of the task ahead, especially if you’re starting a class as a student or professor. This interaction will be significant because it will establish and define the subjects to be covered and the set of expectations flowing from the instructor towards the audience. 

Perhaps you are ready to begin your career as a teacher and need some guidance; otherwise, you are a seasoned instructor searching for a refresher in your program. No matter which of the above you represent, the truth of the matter is that you are probably seeking a better way to introduce the subjects you’ll be teaching to your students. 

What is a lesson plan? 

A lesson plan will be the set of subject matter materials you will be teaching during a specific timeframe. The lesson plan should be an index that students can constantly consult to understand better the parts of the learning journey they will go through during each session. 

Teachers and professors should have a lesson plan template that happens in every session. This is different from a syllabus because, in the latter case, the whole curriculum of the program will be laid out; however, for each lesson, there should be one individual lesson plan example to guide the instructor in the set timeframe. 

When building the materials for the class or lesson’s attention, it’s always essential to share elements like the purpose or rules that guide the learning process . This article will explore the best way to present a lesson plan and drive a learning session successfully from the instructor or professor’s view. 

How to write a lesson plan 

Education nowadays guides different sorts of students and target specific learning needs. Therefore, it’s important and relevant to understand how lesson plans can change and be varied to truly implement the best learning path for your students. Once you have this part figured out, the next step is to understand how you will transmit the information and use a PowerPoint Presentation to simplify creating and presenting a lesson plan to your students. 

Lesson plans will comprise several different sections that will clarify the first questions students can have: How long will the course be? Will it be an online course ? What will be the main objectives? Which subjects will be discussed along with the class? 

1. Introduction 

As the lesson begins, it’s essential to place a brief yet descriptive introduction about what the session will cover. A good practice is to create a catchy title for each lesson to have an overall understanding of the information they will be receiving.

Example: Digital Marketing Basics: Industry background, historical review years 1980-2010. In this session, we will cover the birth of digital marketing, including all the touchpoints that shaped today’s industry. 

2. Audience

If your class is a one-time-only or recurring session, or even a blended learning journey, it’s essential to explain to your students who this class is for; this will allow them to calibrate their expectations about the matter to be taught ahead. 

Example: This lesson is directed to professionals who work in traditional marketing, business owners, or communication specialists seeking to have a profound understanding of how digital marketing came to be. 

3. Lesson Objectives 

This piece is critical because it will allow the students to assess the intention of each lesson. When thinking about the objectives, it’s vital to consider the acquired skills we expect our students to have at the end of the class. Like any other goals in life or business, each one should be actionable and measurable, meaning after each class, students should be able to use what they have learned and put into action the concepts. 

Example : Understand and be able to create a timeline framework of reference to explain the story of the Internet.

4. Materials 

Suppose the lesson requires using any specific materials, physical or not, including any software or hardware necessary. In that case, it´s important to list or include within the lesson plan so students can set clear expectations on what they might require. This is particularly important if the session you will be delivering requires them beforehand to bring anything. 

Example : 

• Computer 
• Scratch paper 

5. Learning Activities 

We´ve covered all the logistics by this point; however, now we need to start sharing the actual activities during the lesson. Ideally, this is a play-by-play of how each activity will guide the lesson towards the already established objectives. To add the list of learning activities that will be helpful for your students, take into account how all of them align with each goal and the requirements students need. 

Make sure that you add variety to the activities that you are proposing, go ahead and research trends of how many other teachers or professors, students will appreciate your search to engage them in learning. 

Also, consider how much time they will take so that you can note it in the next section. 

• Create a timeline on the wall with the most important moments of digital marketing history, including creation of social media, mainstream of email, etc.

Time periods

Pairing each learning activity with a specific timeframe will be useful both for instructors and students. Make sure you calculate a reasonable amount of time for each activity and list it within the lesson plan so everyone can set correct expectations. Assigning time slots for each exercise will also help students and teachers stay on track with the lesson and not waste valuable time invested in learning.

Example : Creation of a timeline – 45 min

How to present a lesson plan 

We have now listed the components of the lesson plan structure, everything looks beautiful in the draft, but now we need to start planning how we will present the program to the students. This part is challenging because you have to choose a template that makes sense for you and will be helpful for your students to understand.

A PowerPoint presentation is a great way to showcase all the contents of the lesson plan, however, the trick is to decide how you want to structure it.

Lesson Plan Design

By this point, you’ve structured a lesson plan template that can go through any test. Nevertheless, creating the materials to accompany it can be a key in the commitment generates between the students and the professor.

Design and Style

Before adding any text to your presentation template , think about the requirements you have: Does the academic institution where you work require the use of logos? Do you have to follow any visual guidelines? This might be important for the cohesiveness of your presentation.

It’s essential to think about how you would like to present the lesson plan. You may want to keep it simple and have a 1 pager and talk through it to understand your students fully, or perhaps you need to create one full presentation where every slide will be a relevant piece of information. Let’s explore this a bit further. 

One Pager Lesson Plan 

If your style is more towards simplicity, this is a great solution: succinct, minimalistic, and straight to the point. You can complete a one-page lesson plan with bullets of the relevant data and send it out to students. A great advantage of this format is that you can either send it as a PDF or even as a single image (JPG or PNG), exporting it directly from PowerPoint. 

One significant advantage is that your students will only have to check for one source by choosing this simple format when revising the lesson during the class or afterward. 

Several pages lesson plan 

Almost like a syllabus, a more extended presentation will include several slides so you can include the information in different formats. 

For example, you can use the first slide to include the lesson title; afterward, a new slide can define the purpose or introduction of the lesson. In the upcoming slides, you can include materials, contents, and even ad charts or similar to explain how grades will be affected by each lesson’s assignments on the upcoming slides. 

Text in the presentation 

It’s always good to follow the reliable practices of presentations and include the necessary information without overwhelming students. Don’t add an excessive amount of text to one slide; actually, make sure that every piece of data is helpful for students to plan their time both during and after class. 

However, if you will be sending out the presentation to your students before reviewing it, consider that they will be using it for their reference to follow through with your lesson. So make sure all the information is easy to read and accessible. 

Additional elements 

Learners of all sorts have become increasingly visual, so don’t be afraid to add infographics, images, photographs, icons or any other elements to make your lesson plan presentation more appealing visually. 

Final Words 

Remember the lesson plan presentation will be the first approach your students will have with the subject matter. Take your time, enjoy the process, and create comprehensive and attractive lesson plan slides that will inspire your students to have thoughtful and deep learning. 

1. 1-Slide Lesson Plan PowerPoint Template

Create a simple and minimalist one-pager lesson plan for your academic uses, course planning, and even as student handouts, with this eye-catching PowerPoint template. 

Use This Template

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How to Create an Effective Lesson Plan Presentation

Regardless of the subject or content you’re teaching, having a lesson plan in place prepares you for class by offering detailed guidelines for the session. The lesson plan doesn’t have to be lengthy or complex—it just needs to include elements about what you’re teaching, the method of presenting this material, and what objective and goals you wish your students to achieve as part of the curriculum.

Why Lesson Plans Are Important

It’s crucial for teachers to prepare their lessons in advance and implement the best teaching approaches. Attending a session without a lesson plan can be counterproductive for both students and teachers. Without the right preparation beforehand, classes can end up being unproductive or confusing.

Below are a few reasons why you should consider lesson planning:

Lesson Planning is Handy for Classroom Management

Developing the lesson plan from the learning objectives provides flexibility in adapting to different teaching methods and classroom management techniques. For instance, hybrid or online classes require a different delivery approach from the traditional classes, which means making modifications to any existing plans. With the right foresight and plan in place, classes can stay on topic and effective. Such circumstances underscore how crucial lesson plans are in ensuring that the class runs smoothly, regardless of the learning environment.  

Lesson Planning Creates Student Success

Various studies have shown that students benefit immensely from and appreciate well-structured lessons. Thus, success is more likely when students engage and show interest in the material being taught. Using a curriculum guide, teachers can develop valuable lesson plans based on specific objectives and goals (what’s intended for students to learn). 

​​Lesson Planning Is Central to Teacher Success

Teachers’ success is, to some extent, pegged on students’ success. Besides that, the documents you develop as part of the lesson planning process are often part of your assessment by school administrators. What’s more, as you advance your teaching career, your lesson plans serve as a repository for your expanding body of knowledge. Thus, the significance of lesson planning cannot be overlooked when it comes to advancing your career as an educator.

Lesson Planning is Vital in Student Assessment

Lastly, lesson plans turn the learning sessions into clear objectives for students and a way to gauge their understanding of the subject matter. One notable benefit of the lesson plan is tailoring the assessment to a particular objective while considering students’ specific needs. You can use common assessment methods such as quizzes, tests, and homework assignments.

How to Write a Lesson Plan

Lesson plans include different sections that clarify questions students might have about the subject on hand. What are the lesson objectives? What subjects will be covered during the session? How long will the course take?

• Introduction – As the lesson commences, it’s good to have a concise yet vivid introduction about what the lesson will cover. The ideal practice is to create a memorable title for every lesson to create a general understanding of the learning material students will be interacting with.
• **Lesson Objectives –**This section is critical as it allows the students to ascertain each lesson. When it comes to objectives, it is crucial to consider the acquired skills you expect the students to gain by the end of the session. Each objective should be measurable and actionable; meaning after every session, students should be able to apply what they’ve learned.
• Learning Activities – This should be a detailed account of how each activity will lead the class to achieve its predetermined goals. To create valuable activities, consider how each learning activity fits each objective, and the requirements students need.
• Practice – Practices are primarily intended to assess students’ comprehension of the material and aid in memorizing what they have learned in class. Therefore, it is crucial to include this in the lesson plan so that assessments can always be done at the appropriate time.

Today, lesson planning has been made less time-consuming and easier, thanks to smart whiteboards for the classroom . A digital whiteboard like the Vibe Board Pro provides unmatched performance that shows you know your craft and are way ahead of the pack.

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How Smart Whiteboards Simplify Lesson Plan Creation and Presentation

Not only does using a smart whiteboard make learning accessible , it’s also a great way of enhancing and enriching your lesson plans with interactive activities for the class. Smart whiteboards function as a touch screen for all; during class sessions, you and your students can use it as a digital whiteboard to create a space where students’ engagement, knowledge, and teamwork are appreciated.

While the smart whiteboard aids in making your lesson more engaging, interactive, and educational, you as the teacher can still customize your teachings to what you want them to be. This helps in foiling any hitches in your lesson presentation and makes switching from one topic to another seamless.

Below are more specific ways how smart whiteboards make your lesson plan presentation better:

Take Advantage of Built-in Templates

Once you invest in a smart whiteboard, make sure to take advantage of the wide variety of built-in lesson planning templates. You can use these templates to improve lesson plans while leveraging the technology associated with smart whiteboards. Even better, these templates can be easily customized for every lesson plan and cover different subject matters, allowing you to create new lesson plans without always starting from scratch quickly. How cool is that?

Organize and Present Lesson Plans Better

Smart whiteboards combine the power of the traditional whiteboard and a TV/projector into one hub, allowing you to write on the board while concurrently projecting it to the classroom. This allows you to conduct lesson plan presentations on a larger scale while also letting students see what’s going on.

For instance, if you’re presenting on an extensive topic involving multiple subtopics, a smart whiteboard will help you walk students through each subtopic with ease. Begin with the presentation divided into primary or main sections, highlight key definitions, and add infographics and videos to ensure that every student understands the tiniest detail.

Additionally, you can get students involved in the lesson plan presentation by asking questions, polling them on key points, or allowing them to follow along on their tablets or laptops.

Record Lesson Plan Presentations

Another benefit of using smart whiteboards in the classroom is that a lesson plan presentation can be recorded and accessed long after the session is over. This allows your students to access the material on their own time.

Final Words: Creating a Lesson Plan Presentation

Lesson plan presentation offers students the first interaction with the material they will learn. Take your time, appreciate the process, and create an attractive and comprehensive lesson plan that will encourage your students to have deep and thoughtful learning experiences. Even better, all of this can be made easier with smart whiteboard technology. Leave the spiral notebooks and sticky notes at home. A smart whiteboard is all you need.

What is the presentation stage in lesson planning?

Presentation is usually the core of the lesson plan. During this stage, theteacher introduces the topic and the key subject matter the students need to master. Presenting with smart whiteboards is exceedingly easy and less time-consuming.

What are the 5 steps in lesson planning?

The five steps are:

• Objective: A learning concept or objective is introduced.
• Warm-up: Revise the previous lesson
• Presentation: Present the material using suitable tools and techniques.
• Practice: Students try to apply what they have learned.
• Assessment: Evaluate whether the objectives were achieved

How does lesson planning help teachers?

Planning lessons in advance allows teachers to arrive at class each day prepared to introduce new concepts and facilitate engaging discussions rather than improvising as they go. In other words, without a lesson plan, teachers may be left scrambling, making students lose interest in the material to be learned.

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Lesson Plan Procedures: A Guide for Teachers

Lesson Plan Procedures

In this article, we will explain how to properly perform a lesson plan in school by diving deeper into lesson plan procedures. We will discuss the three major steps involved in lesson plan procedures and share how teachers can self-evaluate their lesson plan success.

What is a Lesson Plan Procedure?

Lesson plan procedures are the sequence or step-by-step guidelines detailing how a teacher plans to deliver a lesson to students. This includes the activities, methods, materials, and timing necessary to effectively facilitate learning.

Typically, there are three stages of a lesson plan that make up the lesson plan procedure. These stages are the motivational opening, the development of the lesson, and the closing of the lesson. However, there may also be some form of formal or informal periodic assessment. Periodic assessment throughout a lesson will alert you to any misconceptions or misunderstandings students may have long before they conclude the lesson.

Let’s take a closer look at the three major stages of effective lesson planning.

The Three Stages of Lesson Plan Procedures

Step 1: the motivational opening.

The first stage of a lesson plan is critical! It’s how you’ll stimulate students’ interest in the topic.

Start by asking students a thought-provoking question, such as, “How would you like to sleep for four months every year?” or “Did you know we can measure any tree on the playground without climbing it?”Other attention-grabbing openers can include the use of models, maps, apparatus, or a demonstration.

When starting a lesson, don’t make the mistake of assuming what students know. For example, just because students studied  American history  in elementary school, had a basic  history  course in middle school, and are now in your high school history class, don't assume they know all there is to know about American history. Take the time to find out. Bottom line: Always know what your students know!

Step 2: The Development of the Lesson

The development of a lesson plan is the heart of any lesson. It’s the portion where you teach and students learn.

This vital stage is when students will obtain valuable information, manipulate data, and engage in active discovery through total involvement. Include some of the following elements in this stage:

• Lesson methodologies.  Not only is it important to give some thought as to what you're going to teach, it is equally significant that you consider the methods of presentation as well. I'm sure you've been in a class where the only method of instruction was dry, stale lectures. You undoubtedly found the class boring and wearying. The same fate awaits your students if you provide them with an overabundance of one type of teaching methodology to the exclusion of others. (These are addressed in  Lesson Methodologies )
• Problem-solving.  As I discuss in  another article , problem-solving is an inherent part of any lesson. Providing students with the opportunities to solve their own problems in their own way is a valuable motivational technique.
• Creative thinking.  Learning is much more than the memorization of facts. Any lesson must allow students opportunities to manipulate data in new and unusual ways.
• Hands-on activities.  It's critical that students have sufficient opportunities to create products based on what they learn. These might include but are not limited to posters, dioramas,  charts, graphs , mobiles, notebooks,  portfolios , and models.
• Students critique the directions or set up for a presentation or demonstration.
• Students verbalize the steps they're taking during the completion of an activity.
• Students manipulate objects or devices and verbalize their feelings about their actions.
• Students work in small groups to share information learned and how it relates to prior knowledge.
• Students graph or illustrate significant points on the chalkboard for class critique.

Teaching Tip! When creating lesson plans, consider both short-term and long-term projects for students. This will keep the learning experience interesting as you switch up styles.

Step 3: The Closing of the Lesson

The closing of the lesson is a vital stage where you recap key points and help students consolidate their learning. It’s an opportunity to review the lesson's objectives and assess whether they have been met. This can be done through summary discussions, quizzes, or reflective activities.

It's also important to provide an outlook for the next lesson, thus creating a seamless transition and maintaining students' interest.

Teaching Tip! To keep your students engaged, try ending the lesson on a cliffhanger. This can be by proposing a question or telling them an enticing bit of information (e.g.“, Tomorrow I'll bring in a creature with eight eyes. You won't want to miss it!”).

Lastly, it’s good practice to end the lesson on a positive note to boost students' confidence and encourage them to look forward to the next session.

Self-Evaluation in Creating Lesson Plan Procedures

As you write lessons, include a brief section at the end that allows you to self-evaluate. This will be important when and if you decide to teach the lesson again. It will also provide you with some important insights relative to your perceived level of success.

You might consider some of these self-evaluative questions:

• “How was my pacing?”
• “Did students understand the content?”
• “Did students understand the important concepts?”
• “Did I use my time appropriately?”
• “What changes should I make the next time I teach this lesson?”
• “Were students engaged and involved?”
• “What new activities or procedures could I include?”
• “Did I present the lesson well?”

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Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning

Stiliana milkova center for research on learning and teaching.

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting.  Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:

• Objectives for student learning
• Teaching/learning activities
• Strategies to check student understanding

Specifying concrete objectives for student learning will help you determine the kinds of teaching and learning activities you will use in class, while those activities will define how you will check whether the learning objectives have been accomplished (see Fig. 1).

Steps for Preparing a Lesson Plan

Below are six steps to guide you when you create your first lesson plans. Each step is accompanied by a set of questions meant to prompt reflection and aid you in designing your teaching and learning activities.

(1) Outline learning objectives

The first step is to determine what you want students to learn and be able to do at the end of class. To help you specify your objectives for student learning, answer the following questions:

• What is the topic of the lesson?
• What do I want students to learn?
• What do I want them to understand and be able to do at the end of class?
• What do I want them to take away from this particular lesson?

Once you outline the learning objectives for the class meeting, rank them in terms of their importance. This step will prepare you for managing class time and accomplishing the more important learning objectives in case you are pressed for time. Consider the following questions:

• What are the most important concepts, ideas, or skills I want students to be able to grasp and apply?
• Why are they important?
• If I ran out of time, which ones could not be omitted?
• And conversely, which ones could I skip if pressed for time?

(2) Develop the introduction

Now that you have your learning objectives in order of their importance, design the specific activities you will use to get students to understand and apply what they have learned. Because you will have a diverse body of students with different academic and personal experiences, they may already be familiar with the topic. That is why you might start with a question or activity to gauge students’ knowledge of the subject or possibly, their preconceived notions about it. For example, you can take a simple poll: “How many of you have heard of X? Raise your hand if you have.” You can also gather background information from your students prior to class by sending students an electronic survey or asking them to write comments on index cards. This additional information can help shape your introduction, learning activities, etc.  When you have an idea of the students’ familiarity with the topic, you will also have a sense of what to focus on.

Develop a creative introduction to the topic to stimulate interest and encourage thinking. You can use a variety of approaches to engage students (e.g., personal anecdote, historical event, thought-provoking dilemma, real-world example, short video clip, practical application, probing question, etc.). Consider the following questions when planning your introduction:

• How will I check whether students know anything about the topic or have any preconceived notions about it?
• What are some commonly held ideas (or possibly misconceptions) about this topic that students might be familiar with or might espouse?
• What will I do to introduce the topic?

 (3) Plan the specific learning activities (the main body of the lesson)

Prepare several different ways of explaining the material (real-life examples, analogies, visuals, etc.) to catch the attention of more students and appeal to different learning styles. As you plan your examples and activities, estimate how much time you will spend on each. Build in time for extended explanation or discussion, but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding. These questions would help you design the learning activities you will use:

• What will I do to explain the topic?
• What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?
• How can I engage students in the topic?
• What are some relevant real-life examples, analogies, or situations that can help students understand the topic?
• What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?

(4) Plan to check for understanding

Now that you have explained the topic and illustrated it with different examples, you need to check for student understanding – how will you know that students are learning? Think about specific questions you can ask students in order to check for understanding, write them down, and then paraphrase them so that you are prepared to ask the questions in different ways. Try to predict the answers your questions will generate. Decide on whether you want students to respond orally or in writing. You can look at Strategies to Extend Student Thinking , http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P4_4.php to help you generate some ideas and you can also ask yourself these questions:

• What questions will I ask students to check for understanding?
• What will I have students do to demonstrate that they are following?
• Going back to my list of learning objectives, what activity can I have students do to check whether each of those has been accomplished?

An important strategy that will also help you with time management is to anticipate students’ questions. When planning your lesson, decide what kinds of questions will be productive for discussion and what questions might sidetrack the class. Think about and decide on the balance between covering content (accomplishing your learning objectives) and ensuring that students understand.

(5) Develop a conclusion and a preview

Go over the material covered in class by summarizing the main points of the lesson. You can do this in a number of ways: you can state the main points yourself (“Today we talked about…”), you can ask a student to help you summarize them, or you can even ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think were the main points of the lesson. You can review the students’ answers to gauge their understanding of the topic and then explain anything unclear the following class. Conclude the lesson not only by summarizing the main points, but also by previewing the next lesson. How does the topic relate to the one that’s coming? This preview will spur students’ interest and help them connect the different ideas within a larger context.

(6) Create a realistic timeline

GSIs know how easy it is to run out of time and not cover all of the many points they had planned to cover. A list of ten learning objectives is not realistic, so narrow down your list to the two or three key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn. Instructors also agree that they often need to adjust their lesson plan during class depending on what the students need. Your list of prioritized learning objectives will help you make decisions on the spot and adjust your lesson plan as needed. Having additional examples or alternative activities will also allow you to be flexible. A realistic timeline will reflect your flexibility and readiness to adapt to the specific classroom environment. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:

• Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each
• When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take
• Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points
• Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left
• Be flexible – be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students’ needs and focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your original plan

Presenting the Lesson Plan

Letting your students know what they will be learning and doing in class will help keep them more engaged and on track. You can share your lesson plan by writing a brief agenda on the board or telling students explicitly what they will be learning and doing in class. You can outline on the board or on a handout the learning objectives for the class. Providing a meaningful organization of the class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the rationale behind in-class activities. Having a clearly visible agenda (e.g., on the board) will also help you and students stay on track.

Reflecting on Your Lesson Plan

A lesson plan may not work as well as you had expected due to a number of extraneous circumstances. You should not get discouraged – it happens to even the most experienced teachers! Take a few minutes after each class to reflect on what worked well and why, and what you could have done differently. Identifying successful and less successful organization of class time and activities would make it easier to adjust to the contingencies of the classroom. For additional feedback on planning and managing class time, you can use the following resources: student feedback, peer observation, viewing a videotape of your teaching, and consultation with a staff member at CRLT (see also, Improving Your Teaching: Obtaining Feedback , http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P9_1.php and Early Feedback Form , http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/earlyfeedback.pdf).

To be effective, the lesson plan does not have to be an exhaustive document that describes each and every possible classroom scenario. Nor does it have to anticipate each and every student’s response or question. Instead, it should provide you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them. It is a reminder of what you want to do and how you want to do it. A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and instructors learn from each other.

Additional Resources

Video clips of GSIs at the University of Michigan actively engaging students in a practice teaching session: https://crlte.engin.umich.edu/engineering-gsi-videos/ 

Plan the First Day's Session: How to create to a lesson plan for the first day of class:  http://gsi.berkeley.edu/gsi-guide-contents/pre-semester-intro/first-day-plan/

Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center. Retrieved from https://www.ideaedu.org/idea_papers/integrated-course-design/

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What is ‘Presentation, Practice, Production’ (PPP)?

And how can i best use it in my classroom.

Presentation, practice, production (PPP) is a lesson structure, a way to order activities in your lessons.

Although quite old and heavily criticised over the years, PPP is probably the most commonly used lesson structure in teaching English to foreign learners today. It’s also still widely taught to new teachers and seen on initial teacher training courses like the CELTA and CertTESOL.

Most course books that you’re likely to use will structure their chapters in ways similar or the same as PPP, meaning that you’ll get a lot of exposure to this method.

As the name suggests, there are three stages to this lesson structure, which we’ll look at now.

Thanks for reading Barefoot TEFL Teacher! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.

The ‘presentation’ stage

This is where the language is introduced, or ‘presented’ to the learners, usually by introducing a context or situation. For example, you could:

Tell or act out a short story or anecdote ( “I woke up this morning with a nasty cold… AHHH-CHOOO! I went to the doctor and…”)

Play a short audio clip

Show a clip from a movie or TV show.

Show objects you’ve brought in (e.g. newspaper cuttings, plane tickets, hobby materials)

The aim is to ensure students understand the context and get them thinking about it. You could elicit ideas or suggestions from students, get them to talk to each other about what they know or think about the situation, etc. This also helps them start to remember the language and vocabulary they already know about the topic (or ‘activate the schemata’, if you want the fancy term for it).

The ‘practice’ stage

The ‘practice’ stage is when students use the language in a controlled way. This stage is sometimes divided into two — a controlled practice and a freer practice. Again, among many things, you could get students to:

Drill sentences or sounds, chorally or individually.

Substitution drill in pairs

Sentence matching activities

Gap-fill exercises

Pair work asking and answering questions

The aim of this stage is accuracy . Error correction is important in this stage, so monitor the students closely and take time to correct errors immediately. A delayed error correction section after the activity would be useful for target language errors that seem to be common.

The ‘production’ stage

The ‘production’ stage is where the language is used more openly. Things like:

Communication tasks

Collaborative tasks

Discussion activities

The focus of this stage is using the language as fluently and naturally as possible , as students would do outside of the classroom.

Theory behind Presentation, Practice, Production

This is where PPP gets criticised. It started in the 1960s, and language learning theory has developed considerably since then. Academics who study second language acquisition get annoyed at how PPP doesn’t tick any of the boxes for how we’re supposed to learn a language and yet is still so widespread.

Some learning assumptions behind presentation, practice, production are:

Students should be told the grammar rules and then practice them (a deductive approach).

Language learning is a skill like any other and should be practised as such.

There should be a high level of teacher control, slowly handed over to learners as the lesson progresses.

Language is a series of items that can be learned in sequence.

The target language should be practised by removing unnecessary language to help focus.

All of these have been shown that this isn’t how we best learn languages (in fact, the opposite is largely true!).

However, it isn’t all bad. Here’s my opinion on the advantages and disadvantages of PPP:

It’s easy to learn for new teachers.

It’s very flexible.

It’s easy to plan for and has a logical progression.

It works for most types of classes, including larger classes.

Most course books use this or a similar method to structure their lessons and chapters.

Disadvantages

Research shows that it may not be the best way to teach/learn a language.

Weaker learners may overuse the target language from the practice session, so it sounds unnatural.

Learners may not know how to use the target language in different contexts.

It can be boring if used repeatedly for higher-level students.

Thoughts on Presentation, Practice, Production

Academics are often far removed from the classroom and the real world, studying the individual phenomenon in isolation.

I’ve often seen a light bulb moment for students whilst teaching PPP (although one could argue that it’s not strict PPP, and it’d be hard to isolate the teaching method from other variables). Teaching over a period of time with this method, you do see students improve. Consider also that it’s not done in isolation — you should be getting your learners to interact in English naturally and read extensively outside of class, for starters.

Presentation, practice, production works. Maybe not as well as something like task-based learning (TBL), but TBL takes longer to plan and implement, which becomes very difficult when your teaching hours are high.

Sure, so it might not be theoretically perfect, but it does work.

How to adapt the PPP method

Also, I believe it has evolved from the ‘traditional’ PPP approach described above. Here are some ways you can adapt the classic PPP structure:

Spend more time in the presentation stage eliciting.

Turn the deductive aspect of explicit grammar instruction into an inductive aspect (so learners have to figure out the patterns themselves).

Add collaborative tasks during the practice stage, which learners must use the target language to complete successfully.

Include meta-learning strategies so students can learn how to learn.

Include more incidental language throughout the class so learners hear language in a more natural context.

Change the final stage into a task, such as you’d find in task-based learning .

These changes turn PPP into something else, a blended approach that addresses many of the criticisms of PPP.

Other structures have sought to improve upon the model of PPP. Variants include ESA (engage, study, activate) and CAP (context, analysis, practice)

However, the simplicity of PPP and its notoriety have kept it the most widely used model. I doubt it’s going away any time soon.

If you liked this article, you’ll love my books:

📝 Lesson Planning for Language Teachers - Plan better, faster, and stress-free (4.5 ⭐ , 175 ratings).

👩‍🎓 Essential Classroom Management - Develop calm students and a classroom full of learning (4.5 ⭐, 33 ratings).

🏰 Storytelling for Language Teachers - Use the power of storytelling to transform your lessons (4.5 ⭐, 11 ratings).

🤖 ChatGPT for Language Teachers - A collection of AI prompts and techniques to work better, faster (4.5 ⭐, 10 ratings).

💭 Reflective Teaching Practice Journal - Improve your teaching in five minutes daily (4.5 ⭐, 16 ratings).

📄 PDF versions available here.

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• Creating Lesson Plans

How to Build a Lesson Plan: Templates, Requirements, and More

Last Updated: April 7, 2024 Fact Checked

Sample Lesson Plans

Constructing a lesson plan, adjusting your lesson plans efficiently, presenting the lesson, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by César de León, M.Ed. and by wikiHow staff writer, Eric McClure . César de León is an Educational Leadership Consultant and currently serves as an Assistant Principal for the Austin Independent School District in Austin, TX. César specializes in education program development, curriculum improvement, student mentorship, social justice, equity leadership, and family and community engagement. He is passionate about eradicating inequities in schools for all children, especially those who have been historically underserved and marginalized. César holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education and Biology from Texas State University and a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from The University of Texas at Austin. There are 20 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,839,906 times.

As a teacher, developing a thoughtful lesson plan is an essential part of your job. Not only do your lesson plans lay out everything you’ll do in a given class, but they can be shared with subs to complete your lessons when you’re out sick, and administrators can use them to provide feedback and monitor your classroom. While writing a lesson plan may seem like a daunting task at first, take it from a former teacher that they’ll soon become second nature. In this article, we’ll walk you through what you need to include in each lesson plan, show you how to use your lesson plan to make you a better teacher, and walk you through what a class might look like based on your plans.

Things You Should Know

• A lesson plan outlines what you’ll teach in a given lesson and provides justification for why you’re teaching it.
• Every lesson plan needs an objective, relevant standards, a timeline of activities, an overview of the class, assessments, and required instructional materials.
• Overplan in case your lesson ends early and tailor your plans to suit the needs of your students.

• An example of a good objective might be, "Students will be able to analyze nonfiction texts by performing a close reading on a historical document."
• Most teachers will use Bloom’s taxonomy when choosing their objective verb.
• Teachers often abbreviate “Students will be able to” with “SWBAT” on their lesson plans.
• Many teachers start with the objective then work their way out from there, choosing class activities last. This is called “backmapping” and it’s the most widely accepted lesson organization style around today. [2] X Research source

• Our previous objective aligns nicely with the CCSS R.L.8.2, which reads “Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text…”
• A handful of states, including Florida, Virginia, and Texas, refuse to adopt common core. They have their own state standards.
• If you’re still in school to become a teacher, you may not have specific standards you need to cover just yet.
• Many schools will allow teachers to cover the objectives in whatever order they’d like so far as they cover all of them. Some schools will map out the standards to cover in their curriculum, though.

• For example, if your class is about Shakespeare's Hamlet , your overview might be “Introduction to Hamlet . Historical context, biographical info, and preliminary information. We’ll cover the folio, character list, and assign reading roles. Start Act 1 if time allows.”
• A single overview may get you through multiple classes, so you may find yourself copy and pasting the same overview into multiple plans. That’s totally okay!

• 1:00-1:10: Warm up . Bring class into focus and recap yesterday's discussion on great tragedies; relate it to Hamlet .
• 1:10-1:25: Present information. Discuss Shakespearean history briefly, focusing on his creative period 2 years before and after Hamlet.
• 1:25-1:40: Guided practice . Class discussion regarding major themes in the play.
• 1:40-1:55: Freer practice. Class writes single paragraph describing current event in Shakespearean terms. Individually encourage bright students to write 2 paragraphs, and coach slower students.
• 1:55-2:00: Conclusion. Collect papers, assign homework, dismiss class.

• Formative assessments are instructional tools. They’re anything you use to check if students are learning so you can adjust your lessons. Examples include: class discussions, teacher questions, pop quizzes, group work, surveys, and self-reflections.
• Summative assessments are how you prove a student learned something. They occur at the end of lesson arcs, units, or sections. Examples include: tests, quizzes, essays, presentations, and final projects.
• All summative assessments (outside of tests and quizzes) have rubrics, which are the set of standards you’re judging students on. You do not need to include your rubrics in the lesson plan, but you should be making rubrics.

• You might list textbooks, worksheets, novels, calculators, or whiteboards. If you need to borrow a TV or need a link to a specific YouTube video, include that, too.
• Skip the basic school supplies every student needs. You don’t need to mention pens, pencils, etc.
• Need a worksheet or special materials for a class but don’t want to spend super long making them from scratch? Check out Teachers Pay Teachers . Seasoned educators sell their instructional material to other teachers for cheap!

• Over time, you’ll need to do this less and less. Eventually, you'll be able to go in with practically nothing at all!

• If you find yourself constantly running over your schedule, know what you can and cannot scratch. What must you cover in order for the children to learn most? What is just fluff and time killers?

• Odds are you'll be working with a pile of extroverts and introverts. Some students will benefit more from working alone while others will thrive in pair work or in groups. Knowing this will help you format activities to different interaction preferences. [11] X Research source
• You'll also wind up having a few students that know just about as much as you do on the topic and some that, while smart, look at you like you're from another planet. If you know who these kids are, you can plan accordingly.

Joseph Meyer

Effective teaching strategies consider a student's individual strengths. Tailoring instruction to a student's existing skills and encouraging collaborative activities can improve a student's outcome. Recognizing diverse learning styles allows for a stronger approach, fostering potential in all learners.

• Really, any activity can be manipulated to be done separately, in pairs, or in groups. If you have ideas already mapped out, see if you can revamp them at all to mix it up.

• Every student learns differently. Some need to see the info, some need to hear it, and others need to literally get their hands on it. If you've spent a great while talking, stop and let them talk about it.
• You will likely have some students with IEPs, or Instructional Educational Plans. These are legal documents for students with special needs that require specific instructional adjustments.

• The easiest thing to do is to come up with a quick concluding game or discussion. Throw the students together and have them discuss their opinions or ask questions.

• Avoid using shorthand or acronyms that only you’ll be able to understand.

Eric McClure

"It helps if your backup lesson plans are very easy to find and clearly labeled as substitute plans. If there are any handouts, print those out ahead of time as well. This is the kind of thing that’s easy to overlook early in the year, but trust me—you’ll need a day off at some point and when you do, you won’t want to come in just to drop off lesson plans."

• The warm up can be a simple game (possibly about vocab on the topic to see where their current knowledge lies (or what they remember from last week!). Or, it can be questions, a mingle, or pictures used to start a conversation. Whatever it is, get them talking and thinking about the topic.

• Go over the objective at the beginning of class! Always let your students know why they’re doing what they’re doing.

• This is often explained by teachers as “I do, we do, you do.” In other words, you show them how to do it. Then, the whole class does it together. Finally, the students do it on their own.
• If you have time for two activities, all the better. It's a good idea to test their knowledge on two different levels -- for example, writing and speaking (two very different skills). Try to incorporate different activities for students that have different aptitudes.

• If you've been teaching the same group for a while, odds are you know the students who might struggle with certain concepts. If that's the case, pair them with stronger students to keep the class going.
• You don't want certain students left behind, but you also don't want the class held up, waiting for everyone to get on the same level.

• It all depends on the subject at hand and the skills you want to use. It can be anything from a 20-minute puppet making project to a two-week long dalliance with the oversoul in a heated debate on transcendentalism.

• If you have a group full of kids that can't be paid to raise their hands, turn them amongst themselves. Give them an aspect of the topic to discuss and 5 minutes to converse about it. Then bring the focus to the front of the class and lead a group discussion. Interesting points are bound to pop up!

• Assign and hand out any homework at the end of the class.

• Don’t worry if lesson planning feels really unfulfilling and pointless to you. A lot of new teachers think they feel like busy work at first—especially when classes don’t go as planned. Luckily, once you finish one year of teaching, you’ll have a full year’s worth of lessons to use! [24] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Lesson plans typically cover a single class period, although a more complex lesson may require 2-3 days to get through. A single lesson plan may also bleed over into multiple classes if there’s a fire alarm, some behavioral issue that requires attention, or you have to modify your schedule due to a school-wide event. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.nea.org/professional-excellence/student-engagement/tools-tips/5-tips-improve-your-lesson-plan
• ↑ https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/why-the-csu-matters/graduation-initiative-2025/co-requisite-mathematics-summit/Handouts/Backmapping_example_and_template.pdf
• ↑ https://drexel.edu/soe/resources/student-teaching/advice/how-to-write-a-lesson-plan/
• ↑ https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/cnm/cresource/q4/p16/
• ↑ https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Formative-Summative-Assessments
• ↑ https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~slm/AdjCI/Lessonplan/Elements.html
• ↑ https://awildsurmise.medium.com/improving-teaching-scripting-5950e1d15f54
• ↑ https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/511257/Eliminating-unnecessary-workload-around-planning-and-teaching-resources.pdf
• ↑ César de León, M.Ed.. Educational Leadership Consultant. Expert Interview. 11 November 2020.
• ↑ https://onlineprograms.ollusa.edu/ma-in-counseling/resources/learning-styles-of-introverts-and-extroverts
• ↑ http://www.auburn.edu/~nunnath/engl6240/seating.html
• ↑ https://teach.com/what/teachers-know/learning-styles/
• ↑ https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/pacing-lessons-for-optimal-learning
• ↑ https://www.chalk.com/introduction-to-lesson-planning/why-lesson-plan/
• ↑ https://www.edutopia.org/blog/having-an-off-day-josh-stock
• ↑ https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/teaching/teaching-how/chapter-2-teaching-successful-section/running-class
• ↑ https://readingrecovery.clemson.edu/home-2/reading-comprehension/lesson-structure/guided-practice/
• ↑ https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/d-h/free-practice
• ↑ https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/engaging-students/using-effective-questions
• ↑ https://www.tefl.net/elt/ideas/younglearners/finishing-preschool-english-lessons/

About This Article

If you need to make a lesson plan, start by creating a timeline based on the length of the class or the school day. As you get to know your class throughout the year, try to tailor your lesson plan to their strengths. For instance, some groups might learn better by taking notes during a lecture, while others might benefit more from group discussions or worksheets. Try to include several different activities during each class period so the kids don’t get bored, and also to appeal to the different learning styles in the classroom. Read on for sample lesson plans and more tips on how to budget your time! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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The Four Main Parts of a Lesson Plan Made Simple

by Brad Melsby – updated January 23, 2024

What is a lesson plan and why do you need one?

The world of education is full of (too) many lesson plan templates and styles.  As you develop as a teacher, you’ll naturally grow into a more detailed lesson plan format.  Your school or district may require a different format or style of lesson plan.  Whatever your situation, it’s most useful for newer teachers to focus on the four main parts of a lesson plan.  These four elements are essential to your early success in the classroom. 

Your lesson plan is the roadmap for how the class period will be organized.  In the lesson plan, you identify what will be taught, how it will be taught, and by what method you plan to see if students learned it.  Without a structured lesson plan, a class period can quickly lose focus or direction.

In this article, we’ll focus on the four main parts of a lesson plan.

Lesson Planning Simplified: The Four Main Parts of a Lesson Plan

Lesson component #1: identify the learning objectives.

Ask yourself: What new concepts, knowledge, or skills do I want my students to learn today?  

When I chat with new teachers about how their class is going, I sometimes hear them say, “We’re doing the Roman Empire right now” or “We’re doing fractions today.”   I get that the word “doing” in this context is just an expression.  

But I also remember the realities of being a new teacher.  In my first year or two, my goal was to “fill the period” with academic activities.  Surely if we are doing something, the kids will learn.  Right?  

“Doing” does not necessarily equate to learning.

For many new teachers, a major evolution is to focus less on “filling the period” — although unstructured class time is rarely good — and more on your learning objective(s).

Check out the sample learning objectives below. Notice how the addition of learning objectives shifts the focus away from the topic (“We’re doing the Roman Empire”) to the students and their skill acquisition.     

Here are a few sample learning objectives:

• At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify and explain six causes of World War II.
• By the end of the lesson, students will be able to apply the rules of the Order of Operations to evaluate algebraic expressions.
• Students will be able to categorize types of animals into the correct classes with a graphic organizer.
• By the end of the reading lesson, students will be able to identify the rising action, climax, and falling action on a plot diagram.

Learning objectives force the teacher to think strategically.  How can you best support the students in achieving the objective? What instructional or learning activities will best fit the objective?  Clear learning objectives are arguably the most important part of a lesson.

Lesson Component # 2: The Lesson “Hook”

Ask yourself: How will I introduce the topic? How can I get students interested in the topic?

A lesson introduction should:

• Provide brief context and background information on the topic while engaging interest
• Create excitement or interest.  Compel the class to want to know more about the topic
• Explain the relevance of the topic to the larger unit or course 
• Provide a clear link between today’s objectives and the student’s prior knowledge

Your students likely possess a wide variety of personal experiences and knowledge.  As a result, it’s helpful to use the introduction to gauge prior knowledge or misconceptions about the topic. 

A few strategies for introducing the lesson:

Tell a personal story, analyze a relevant image or song, watch a video clip, provide a real-world connection or example, or present a probing challenge or question. 

Lesson Component #3 : The Learning Activities

Ask yourself: What will the students do to achieve the lesson objective?  

In a general sense, the learning activities can be divided into two parts: Guided Practice and Individual/Group Practice.  This is sometimes referred to as the gradual release of responsibility method: I Do, We Do, You Do.

Guided Practice (I Do, We Do): Here, the teacher explains and models the learning activity while answering clarifying questions.  Guided practice then allows students to participate in the learning activity under supervision and with direct feedback from the instructor.  

From a teacher’s perspective, guided practice is a key form of formative assessment.  Teachers use guided practice to determine whether students are ready to complete the activity without scaffolded support.  

Individual/Group Practice (You do):  Students complete the learning activity.  In guided practice, students learn with the steady support of the teacher.  Individual/group practice is the time for students to demonstrate proficiency on their own.  Independent practice can include homework assignments.   

Lesson Component #4 : Assessment and Closure

Ask yourself : How can I know if the students have met the learning objective of the lesson?

Lesson closure gives teachers the chance to briefly conduct one final review of the lesson and check to ensure that the intended student learning has occurred.

Go back to your original lesson objectives.  Create questions to ask students that address your learning goals.  You can place those questions on a homework assignment, an exit ticket , a quiz, or simply ask the questions in the form of a discussion.

Teachers use the assessment from today’s lesson to inform tomorrow’s lesson plan . 

What questions or confusion came up that need clarification? What if anything do I need to reteach?  What key concepts from today’s lesson will be useful to build on during tomorrow’s lesson?

Related resource:

Featured articles.

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Brad has taught history at the middle and high school levels for 19 years, almost exclusively in American public schools.  He holds a master’s in educational technology and is passionate about elevating the status of professional educators.

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Create Your Course

How to build a lesson plan (+ templates), share this article.

So you’ve got a great course topic , you’ve built a course outline to help you deliver, and now you’re all set to start your first lesson plan.

When it comes to building an online course that delivers, you need to be strategic about your lessons. Each lesson plan is a building block that ladders up to your overarching course goals.

Let’s talk about how to build a lesson plan that hits home.

Or grab them here for google docs or word!  

Skip ahead:

What does a good lesson plan look like? 

5 steps for building a lesson plan from scratch .

A well-designed lesson plan has seven key elements: 

Class objectives 

Objectives, at a basic level, are what the lesson sets out to achieve — think of them as your North Star. Objectives communicate three key things:

• Why students need the lesson
• What they’ll be able to do at the end of the lesson
• How they’ll demonstrate knowledge. 

Say one of the lessons in your social media course is “choosing the right channels.” In that case, your objective could be: At the end of this lesson, students will be able to compare different social media channels and choose the one that best aligns with their content goals. 

Teaching and learning are more effective when all the stakeholders understand the purpose of the lesson. When anyone veers off the track, they can easily realign themselves with the North Star.

Hook is what grabs the attention of your students. It is usually a statement surfacing the problem they are having — which is why they signed up for your course in the first place. This is your chance to prove that you understand their problem and can solve it. 

Back to our previous example, the hook could be a story about a creator who switched channels and finally got traction on social media after trying for many years. Or you could share data around how social channels affect how much money creators make.  

Learning activities 

Here, you spell out everything the lesson entails — from class activities and instruction time to independent work time and even assessments. Everyone involved needs to know what the lesson covers so they can prepare ahead of time. 

Again, referring to our earlier example, the learning activities might look like this: 

• Worksheets 
• Instructor-led sessions
• One Q and A session at the end of the class 
• Independent work time (which doubles as assessment) 
• Class discussions 

Learn more: Blended learning and scheduled class activities  

Timeline shows the duration of each activity in the lesson. More than showing how long the class will take, assign time limits to the different sessions within each lesson, including assessment, main instruction, breaks, and student participation. 

Build in a buffer between each session to take care of any unforeseen issues. Say you want to spend 15 minutes on a class presentation; assign 20 minutes to it instead. 

Having a realistic lesson timeline helps you stay on track, making sure you have enough time to cover all the key areas of your lesson. 

This is where you highlight what students need to make the most of your class — to set them up for success. The last thing you need is for your course to lose credibility because a particular student wasn’t sufficiently equipped for it. 

Maybe they need to complete a foundational course first to bring them up to the level of knowledge required for the lesson. Or they need access to certain tools and equipment. Tell them all about it here. 

For a social media class, for instance, students must have active accounts and maybe a certain number of followers. 

Closure is how you wrap up the class. It typically involves a recap of the key points covered in the lesson and a quick review of the class objectives. 

The instructor might ask reflective questions such as “What was the most challenging part of the lesson for you?” or “What would you like to learn more about in this topic?” Or ask students to create a mind map of the key points covered in the lesson.

At this point, students and instructors can reflect on the lesson activities at the end to see if they met their goals. Students can also ask last-minute questions before the final assessment. 

Assessment 

This is the parameter for measuring how well a student understands what they’ve learned in a particular lesson. It helps the course instructor assess students fairly. 

The assessment can take several forms. One might administer a summative test — like an end-of-class quiz. Or conduct a survey with open-ended questions at intervals to gauge students’ knowledge. 

Whichever method you choose, make sure you inform students ahead of time so they prepare adequately for it. 

Before you begin

Before you dive into lesson planning, start with a few key questions to determine the goal of your lesson. As the topic expert, the breadth of this course content is clear in your head, but your students are still figuring it out as they go along. 

Keep a narrow focus for each lesson while keeping the bigger picture in mind – this will help your students build knowledge in context so they can use it independently and remember it forever!

• What do your students already know? This is back to what you’ve covered in previous lessons or what foundational knowledge you expect students to have. Do they have all the definitions they need to understand today’s topic? Are there any gaps you need to close before you dive in? That will be your starting point for this lesson.
• What do they need to learn today? Eyes on the prize here – keep your goal clear, or you’ll get lost along the way! Set yourself a single goal for this lesson: should students understand the formula for a unique value proposition, or should they be able to write a great cover letter? What single concept or skill do you want this lesson to impart to your students? Remember to keep it simple; if it’s too complex, you might want to consider splitting it into smaller lessons to avoid confusing your students with information overload.
• What’s the best way to lock it into place? Now that you’ve locked down the goal for today’s lesson, you can decide on the best way to deliver the information. Is this something best delivered through video, or is it better explained with text and diagrams? Could you represent this as an infographic? What practice activities would help your students lock in their newly acquired skills?

Related: How to do a training needs assessment

It’s not always about downloading your brain onto the page. You need to consider how you explain things so your students fully understand not only the new facts, but the context surrounding them – that’s the key to them being able to apply these new skills independently when the course is over. 

With the Thinkific course builder, you have so many teaching tools and resources at your disposal – use them in harmony with one another to give your students a dynamic learning experience .

Now that you’ve got those three guiding principles in mind, let’s put them to work in your lesson plan.

Set the stage

Begin each new lesson by setting the stage for your students. You can do this in three key steps:

• Take a brief moment to look back at what you covered in the last lesson,
• Give a high-level overview of what today’s lesson will entail, and
• Tell students the key skills or takeaways they will have conquered by the end of the lesson.

In particular, consider if any content from previous lessons is applicable to the new lesson. Never miss an opportunity to name-drop or draw examples from old content while introducing new material! It’s a great opportunity to help your students build context between what might feel like a confusing array of new facts. When you build bridges between old and new knowledge, it creates that lightbulb moment for students to see how all the pieces fit together.

This is more than just summarizing or expectation-setting – it’s a strategic educational principle. By reminding students of previous lessons, you help them draw connections between old and new content so they can understand how everything fits together. 

When you share the key touchpoints for today’s lesson, you set up a framework for them to contextualize everything that follows. If they know what the final goal is, they will naturally be more attuned to anything you say about those skills from that point onwards. This brief process at the beginning of each lesson provides anchors for students to shape their understanding throughout the rest of the lesson.

Explain new information

This is the main component of any lesson plan. When it’s time to introduce new content, make sure to do so clearly and simply. Explain new concepts in the most straightforward way possible. Consider your weakest student, and explain things with them in mind – even your strongest students will still benefit from that simplicity!

Be sure to use lots of examples to help students develop context with new information. One tip here is to use a mix of examples that draw from general knowledge and subject-specific knowledge. For example, you can and should give concrete examples grounded in the course subject matter; for more abstract concepts, however, it can be helpful to explain things using everyday examples that everyone can relate to. 

Related: The Ultimate List of Free Online Course Lesson Plan Templates

Consider using apples and oranges to explain abstract economic concepts, or using nursery rhymes to explain music theory. This doesn’t mean you have to come up with mysterious hypothetical examples like the ones you might have found on a high school math quiz – just look for everyday situations you can use to explain more difficult concepts, so your students can ground their new understanding in something familiar.

Students learn in a myriad of different ways – some through text, others through video, and still others through graphic design or activities like writing by hand. While explaining things clearly in a well-produced video or article is always a great place to start, consider using a variety of methods to make your lesson plan stick.

• Create an infographic to illustrate key points from the lesson
• Provide fill-in-the-blank notes so students can follow along with you and pay attention for key information queues
• Link key words and concepts to external articles or videos to provide students with additional learning resources
• Create a slide deck of key points that students can use as a review tool
• The sky’s the limit – if you can think of an alternative way to present your information, your students will benefit! The Thinkific course builder has a number of different content types to suit your needs, wherever the inspiration leads you.

Learn more about different learning styles and how to teach to them . 

Practice makes perfect

After introducing new material to students, it’s vital to give them an opportunity to put their new skills into practice . This is what helps them lock new information into their brains and build contextual links with other skills. It’s also an important tool to help students master the content from this lesson before they move on to the next – as they work through practice activities and find themselves stuck on particular concepts or tasks, it will become clear which aspects of the material they didn’t quite understand. That gives students a targeted opportunity to ask good questions or go back through the course material until they master that skill.

Even in an online course , there are a number of practice activities you can prompt students to use:

• Ask students to define key concepts and use them in a paragraph, so they have an opportunity to put things into their own words
• Suggest students rephrase concepts by converting your notes into questions, like those they might expect to see on a quiz
• If you have a community or online group, ask students to share their summaries or reflections with each other in a dedicated lesson thread

Related: 8 ways to make online classes more interactive  

Assessments

Sometimes, you also need to assess student knowledge. While you won’t do this for each and every lesson, it’s a helpful tool to check student understanding at important course milestones.

Thinkific’s course platform makes it easy to deliver student assessments with quizzes, exams, and assignments to put your students to the test, but you should keep future assessments in mind while you plan lessons. As you build a series of lessons, keep these questions in mind for future assessments:

• What facts and skills from this lesson are necessary for a student to succeed in this course?
• Are there any facts in this lesson that students need to be reminded of to make sure they stick?

Keep a running list of these answers as you build your lessons. By the time you reach a course milestone and you’re ready to build an assessment, you’ll already have a list of key questions to use in your quiz or assignment. By drawing questions from across a series of lessons, you help students build contextual links between different batches of information and end up with a more cohesive learning experience.

Get ahead with our free lesson plan template

Building a lesson plan from scratch is challenging and quickly gets complicated if it’s your first time. To help you, we’ve created a customizable template you can tweak to suit your needs fast. 

You’re well on your way to building a great course , with solid principles that help you deliver dynamic lessons to your students!

Put your learning into action with Thinkific:

This blog was originally created in August 2020, it has since been updated in August 2023 to become even more useful!

Jenny is a Content Marketer at Thinkific. A lifelong learner, she loves writing about anything from Byron to blockchain. Formerly from Cape Town, she now spends her spare time wandering Vancouver in search of the perfect coffee.

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1. What is a Lesson Plan?

A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed guide that outlines what students need to learn, how the subject would be delivered, and the achievement of class goals measured. No matter what subject is being taught, having a lesson plan guides the learning process by providing a clear outline to follow while teaching. Having the lessons planned ensures every bit of time spent in class turns out meaningful. The teacher and students would definitely know what to do in the classroom.

Details of a lesson plan may vary slightly depending on the subject being taught, the teacher's preference, and the needs of the students. Not every bit of the details has to be in a lesson plan. It should be a fine-tuned outline that builds on each period and provides a seamless transition from one lesson to the next.

2. What is Included in a Lesson Plan?

While lesson plans may vary slightly from one another, there are common components that build each one. The components work together to bring out the overall quality of a lesson plan. This will, in turn, determine how efficiently class time is utilized and the learning objectives achieved.

A good lesson plan that would work well for both teachers and students has to include the following.

1. Details of the lesson

Indicate what the lesson is about and the class you're going to teach. The details should include the unit, lesson number, class period, and the topic to be handled during the lesson.

2. Lesson objectives

The objectives of the lesson act like the mainframe of the whole plan. Setting out objectives targeted by the lesson is the most important part that will guide you to achieve what is expected from the class. Carefully write down three or four most relevant objectives students are expected to attain by the end of the lesson. The objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) and written from the learner's perspective.

3. Teaching aids

List the tools you'll use to facilitate learning by attracting your students' attention. The teaching materials should be adapted to the learning environment as well as students' learning levels. From pictures, flashcards, drawings, wall sheets, charts, and diagrams to real objects, the teacher should only write down what the lesson will use.

4. Lesson Procedure

Stages of the class session are like the framework of the lesson. Lesson procedure should work out to harmonize the following main stages of a lesson:

Warm-up stage – In which you should share, in a single sentence, how to prepare the students for the new lesson.

Presentation – Have at least three focused steps to introduce the lesson's content highlighted in the framework. The presentation should work out to capture the students' attention as you hammer in your lesson objectives.

Practice – You could divide this stage into controlled, guided, and free methods. Write one sentence indicating how to cover each type.

5. Evaluation

The evaluation stage has two categories:

Assessment – Write how to ascertain the students achieved the objectives set at the beginning of the lesson. You might have questions for students to answer in writing, or orally, give home assignments or anything suitably bringing out to what extent students have attained the lesson goals.

Self-evaluation – You, as a teacher, should take time to reflect on your lesson after ending it. Write out how things went on during class. Were the lesson objectives well achieved? Otherwise, what more needs to be done to achieve lesson goals?

During your lesson, for efficient time management, specify what time each stage will take and commit to the timeframe. If possible, have a specific time beside each stage, task, or activity.

3. Lesson Plan Examples for Teachers

1. lesson plan strategy.

2. Lesson Plan Template

3. Simple teacher lesson plan template

Image source: pinterest

4. Daily lesson plan template

Image source: teachervision.com

5. Simple science lesson plan sample

Image source: venngage.com

6. Student, teacher guide lesson plan template

Image source: pinterest.com

7. Blank lesson plan template

Image source: teachwire.net

8. Word lesson plan template

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3. How to Make a Great Lesson Plan

Making an effective lesson plan requires you to identify suitable components that need to teach your class. It weighs into understanding the goals of the lesson and your students' abilities. While making a lesson plan, the overall objective should be to motivate the students to learn and retain what is taught.

Rely on the following steps to come out with a great lesson plan .

1. Know your students’ needs

Whether you’re introducing new topic or reviewing what you’ve already done before, you need to understand the students and let them know what to expect from the lesson. This will help them stay focused while meeting the class objectives.

When you engage your students in the whole process, it makes them more interested in what you’re to teach. Share with them what the lesson is all about and give out the outline you’ll be presenting. You could even introduce the topic informally by discussing certain relevant historical events, deriving a formula from scratch, etc.

2. Identify the objectives of the lesson

As a teacher, what do you want to accomplish by the end of class time? List the specific things that your students should know by the end of the lesson. The period objectives should be simple and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) as possible. Outline what you wish to achieve by providing an overview of the main topics or ideas by the end of the lesson.

3. List resources and materials that you’ll need for the lesson

Think and list what would be used during the period to attain the set objectives. These might include materials like paper, pens and rulers. Other technological resources like computers and gamified learning tools may be part of the lesson plan.

4. Plan your timeline

Break your lesson plan into sections if the topic to cover may not be concludable within the allotted time. This allows you to engage the students well and share the main ideas or points during the class. Planning your timeline ensures that the lesson objectives are met within the set period.

Try EdrawMax and make an excellent lesson plan to outlines the content of your lesson step-by-step.

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Lesson Planning

You are here, what is a lesson plan.

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. Having a carefully constructed lesson plan for each 3-hour lesson allows you to enter the classroom with more confidence and maximizes your chance of having a meaningful learning experience with your students.

A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates three key components:

• Learning Objectives
• Learning activities
• Assessment to check for student understanding

A lesson plan provides you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning objectives, and means to accomplish them, and is by no means exhaustive. A productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in which both students and instructor learn from each other. You may refer to an example of a 3 hour lesson plan here .

Before Class: Steps for preparing a lesson plan

Listed below are 6 steps for preparing your lesson plan before your class.

1. Identify the learning objectives

Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the lesson. A learning objective describes what the learner will know or be able to do after the learning experience rather than what the learner will be exposed to during the instruction (i.e. topics). Typically, it is written in a language that is easily understood by students and clearly related to the program learning outcomes. The table below contains the characteristics of clear learning objectives:

The Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( link ) is a useful resource for crafting learning objectives that are demonstrable and measurable.

2. Plan the specific learning activities

When planning learning activities you should consider the types of activities students will need to engage in, in order to develop the skills and knowledge required to demonstrate effective learning in the course. Learning activities should be directly related to the learning objectives of the course, and provide experiences that will enable students to engage in, practice, and gain feedback on specific progress towards those objectives.

As you plan your learning activities, estimate how much time you will spend on each. Build in time for extended explanation or discussion, but also be prepared to move on quickly to different applications or problems, and to identify strategies that check for understanding. Some questions to think about as you design the learning activities you will use are:

• What will I do to explain the topic?
• What will I do to illustrate the topic in a different way?
• How can I engage students in the topic?
• What are some relevant real-life examples, analogies, or situations that can help students understand the topic?
• What will students need to do to help them understand the topic better?

Many activities can be used to engage learners. The activity types (i.e. what the student is doing) and their examples provided below are by no means an exhaustive list, but will help you in thinking through how best to design and deliver high impact learning experiences for your students in a typical lesson.

It is important that each learning activity in the lesson must be (1) aligned to the lesson’s learning objectives, (2) meaningfully engage students in active, constructive, authentic, and collaborative ways, and (3) useful where the student is able to take what they have learnt from engaging with the activity and use it in another context, or for another purpose.

3. Plan to assess student understanding

Assessments (e.g., tests, papers, problem sets, performances) provide opportunities for students to demonstrate and practice the knowledge and skills articulated in the learning objectives, and for instructors to offer targeted feedback that can guide further learning.

Planning for assessment allows you to find out whether your students are learning. It involves making decisions about:

• Examples of different assessments
• Formative and/or summative
• Self-assessment
• Peer assessment
• Information about how various tasks are to be weighted and combined into an overall grade must be provided to students.
• Giving feedback to students on how to improve their learning, as well as giving feedback to instructors how to refine their teaching.

To learn more about designing assessment, click here .

4. Plan to sequence the lesson in an engaging and meaningful manner

Robert Gagne proposed a nine-step process called the events of instruction, which is useful for planning the sequence of your lesson. Using Gagne’s 9 events in conjunction with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( link ) aids in designing engaging and meaningful instruction.

Gange's Nine Events of Instruction by CourseArc is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

• Present a story or a problem to be solved.
• Utilize ice breaker activities, current news and events, case studies, YouTube videos, and so on. The objective is to quickly grab student attention and interest in the topic.
• Utilize technologies such as clickers, and surveys to ask leading questions prior to lecture, survey opinion, or gain a response to a controversial question.
• Include learning objectives in lecture slides, the syllabus, and in instructions for activities, projects and papers.
• Describe required performance.
• Describe criteria for standard performance.
• Help students make sense of new information by relating it to something they already know or something they have already experienced.
• Recall events from previous lecture, integrate results of activities into the current topic, and/or relate previous information to the current topic.
• Ask students about their understanding of previous concepts.
• Sequence and chunk the information to avoid cognitive overload.
• Blend the information to aid in information recall.
• Bloom's Revised Taxonomy can be used to help sequence the lesson by helping you chunk them into levels of difficulty.
• Provide instructional support as needed – as scaffolds (cues, hints, prompts) which can be removed after the student learns the task or content.
• Model varied learning strategies – mnemonics, concept mapping, role playing, visualizing.
• Use examples and non-examples.

To find out more about scaffolding student learning, click here.

• Allow students to apply knowledge in group or individual activities.
• Ask deep-learning questions, make reference to what students already know or have students collaborate with their peers.
• Ask students to recite, revisit, or reiterate information they have learned.
• Facilitate student elaborations – ask students to elaborate or explain details and provide more complexity to their responses.
• Consider using group / class level feedback (highlighting common errors, give examples or models of target performance, show students what you do not want).
• Consider implementing peer feedback.
• Require students to specify how they used feedback in subsequent works.
• Utilise a variety of assessment methods including exams/quizzes, written assignments, projects, and so on.
• Provide opportunities for students to relate course work to their personal experiences.
• Provide additional practice.

5. Create a realistic timeline

A list of ten learning objectives is not realistic, so narrow down your list to the two or three key concepts, ideas, or skills you want students to learn in the lesson. Your list of prioritized learning objectives will help you make decisions on the spot and adjust your lesson plan as needed. Here are some strategies for creating a realistic timeline:

• Estimate how much time each of the activities will take, then plan some extra time for each.
• When you prepare your lesson plan, next to each activity indicate how much time you expect it will take.
• Plan a few minutes at the end of class to answer any remaining questions and to sum up key points.
• Plan an extra activity or discussion question in case you have time left.
• Be flexible – be ready to adjust your lesson plan to students’ needs and focus on what seems to be more productive rather than sticking to your original plan.

6. Plan for a lesson closure

Lesson closure provides an opportunity to solidify student learning. Lesson closure is useful for both instructors and students.

You can use closure to:

• Check for student understanding and inform subsequent instruction (adjust your teaching accordingly)
• Emphasise key information
• Tie up loose ends
• Correct students’ misunderstandings
• Preview upcoming topics

Your students will find your closure helpful for:

• Summarizing, reviewing, and demonstrating their understanding of major points
• Consolidating and internalising key information
• Linking lesson ideas to a conceptual framework and/or previously-learned knowledge
• Transferring ideas to new situations

There are several ways in which you can put a closure to the lesson:

• State the main points yourself (“Today we talked about…”)
• Ask a student to help you summarize them
• Ask all students to write down on a piece of paper what they think were the main points of the lesson

During the class: Presenting your lesson plan

Letting your students know what they will be learning and doing in class will help keep them more engaged and on track. Providing a meaningful organisation of the class time can help students not only remember better, but also follow your presentation and understand the rationale behind the planned learning activities. You can share your lesson plan by writing a brief agenda on the whiteboard or telling students explicitly what they will be learning and doing in class. Click on link here for tips and techniques to facilitate an interactive lesson.

After the class: Reflecting on your lesson plan

Take a few minutes after each class to reflect on what worked well and why, and what you could have done differently. Identifying successful and less successful organization of class time and activities would make it easier to adjust to the contingencies of the classroom. If needed, revise the lesson plan.

Bibliography

• Ambrose, S., Bridges, M., Lovett, M., DiPietro, M., & Norman, M. (2010). How learning works: 7 research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
• EDUCAUSE (2005). Potential Learning Activities. Retrieved April 7 2017, from EDUCAUSE website: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0547B.pdf .
• Fink, D. L. (2005). Integrated course design. Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center. Retrieved from http://ideaedu.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Idea_Paper_42.pdf .
• Gagne, R. M., Wager, W.W., Golas, K. C. & Keller, J. M (2005). Principles of Instructional Design (5th edition). California: Wadsworth.
• Gredler, M. E. (2004). Games and simulations and their relationships to learning. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of research for educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 571-82). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Richardson, J.C., & Swan. K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to students' perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 7(1), 68-88.
• Schuell, T.J. (1986). Cognitive conceptions of learning. Review of Educational Research, 56, 411-436.

Home » Lesson Plans » Five Most Important Parts Of A Lesson Plan

Five Most Important Parts Of A Lesson Plan

How often do you have the feeling that you are entering a classroom without having a clear idea of what you are going to talk about for the entirety of the lesson? Nothing is slower than a classroom clock when you’ve got nothing else to say and the lesson needs to last for 20 more minutes.

In teaching, as in every other profession, preparation is key, and a solid lesson plan is the main tool you need to feel sure you’ll keep your class’ attention throughout the lesson.

The only way to prepare for the class and keep your students engaged and open to learning through the entirety of the lesson is to plan it properly. The question is, what should lesson plans include? We’ll go over every essential part of a lesson plan and show you how to write a lesson plan that will stop you from stressing over your classes.

Five Key Components of a Lesson Plan

Lesson plans are a teacher’s strongest tool and a way of ensuring that their lesson sticks to the intended trajectory—they help you plan exactly what you’re going to talk about, how you’re going to do it, and for how long. 

Thankfully, being a teacher no longer means going into a classroom, regurgitating textbook material you know by heart, and handing out tests every other week. You have much more freedom than that, and you should use it. Learning is important, and the best way to make your students gain new knowledge and implement new skills is to make learning fun .

This, of course, depends on the subject and the grade you’re teaching. Preschool lesson plans will focus on having fun and playing games much more than high school plans .

At the same time, you don’t have as much freedom when planning your math lessons as compared to art lesson plans.

Source: @cafealternativo via Twenty20

Make sure to use an appropriate lesson plan template that will guide you through the planning process and leave enough room for various lesson plan components. Still, regardless of the grade or subject you’re preparing for, every lesson plan should consist of:

• Lesson plan objective
• Assessment methods

Lesson Plan Objective

Think of each of these sections as answers to certain questions. A lesson plan objective should provide an answer to the question, “ What’s the point of this lesson? ”

An objective should be a single sentence that’s clear and concise and offers a specific goal you’re trying to achieve with your lesson. When writing an objective, use the S.M.A.R.T. formula, i.e., try and make your objective:

There’s no point to a lesson if you don’t have a specific goal in mind and you don’t know how to judge whether the goal has been achieved or not. Take a look at the following examples:

Lesson Materials

Lesson materials are a part of a lesson plan that consists of a list of various items that represent an answer to the question, “What will I need to carry out my lesson?”

Think of every single element that you’ll need for your class. There’s no worse feeling than getting a bunch of 1st graders excited about drawing only to figure out you didn’t bring any crayons.

Lesson materials can include:

• Googly eyes
• Letter blocks
• Game pieces
• Board games
• PowerPoint presentations

Learning Activities

Learning activities represent the element of a lesson plan where you answer the question, “ How will students achieve the lesson plan objective? ” You should try to be as creative as your curriculum , standards, and lesson topics allow you to be. Don’t make your lesson into a one-sided lecture—try to be interactive and let students engage with the material you present to them.

Source: @elizabethL via Twenty20

The activities you use will depend on the grade and subject as well, but you should always strive to make your lessons playful. For instance, you can use the following activities:

• Play a crossword puzzle or Scrabble
• Draw your parents
• Build a bridge
• Get two students to play the optimist-pessimist game
• Play the think-pair-share game after reading an excerpt
• Play Bingo with simple math equations on the card
• Assign group projects about U.S. government branches

Assessment Methods

How will you judge whether you have achieved the lesson plan objective or not? By using appropriate assessment methods to gauge your students’ understanding of the lesson. 

You should plan how you’re going to evaluate whether students have gained new knowledge or learned a new skill to a satisfactory level. You can use good, old-fashioned tests, but you should try to diversify your methods and make your lessons less stressful for students.

Aside from a test, assessment methods include:

• Hands-on activities
• Writing assignments
• Group activities
• Individual and group assignments
• Presentations
• Class journal entries

Lesson Timeline

The last component of your lesson plan should provide an answer to the question, “ How are you going to use the allocated time ?”

Source: GIPHY

You should plan your schedule and make sure you leave enough space for every activity and assessment method you’ve listed. While your timeline should be detailed, make sure to leave some leeway as you can never know how much time some students will take to master new material.

One way to organize your lesson is to allocate time to the following sections:

• Get students’ attention
• Share the objective with students
• Recall prior learning
• Present new information
• Offer guidance
• Give feedback
• Assess students’ performance
• Enhance retention (i.e., let students apply the information to personal contexts)

Finding Ready-Made Lesson Plans Online

A lot goes into a lesson plan, and you need to be skillful and experienced in writing a lesson plan to make sure you don’t miss any important detail. Creating a lesson plan from scratch takes time and effort. Why do it by yourself if someone’s already done it for you?

You can find thousands of lesson plans online, both paid and free. The problem is, you can’t know which ones are good until you go through them thoroughly. Free lesson plans are worth as much as you pay for them, while paid lesson plans offer you only a small preview, and you have to pay the full price to download them.

You can end up spending hundreds of dollars on unusable lesson plans that don’t follow your curriculum, have vague objectives, and use repetitive and uninspiring learning activities.

The only way to avoid this is by finding a source of high-quality lesson plans and materials that doesn’t charge you per download.

Source: @annann_9 via Twenty20

Teach Simple—The Best Source for All Your Teaching Needs

Teach Simple is a subscription-based source of top-drawer teaching materials made for teachers by teachers. Every material we publish has been created and tested by teachers that contribute to our database. With Teach Simple, you can rely on resources that have been made by people who know what it’s like to walk into a classroom full of students whose wandering brains need taming.

When you sign up for Teach Simple , you’ll be able to make unlimited downloads of all materials that catch your eye without any additional costs. You can use our marketplace to find lesson plans for 2nd graders , kindergarten , ESL students , and various subject-specific ones like biology , social studies , foreign languages , and geography .

Aside from lesson plans, you can find various other materials, including flash cards , games , projects, ebooks , weekly lesson plan templates , and graphics . You can use our user-friendly navigational tools and combine filters to find specific materials, such as ancient history lesson plans for 3rd graders .

The best part is that you can help out your colleagues by subscribing. Teach Simple will dedicate half of your subscription fee to its contributors.

Another advantage of using Teach Simple is that we focus on students with all backgrounds and learning abilities. You can find materials dedicated to students with special educat i on and speech therapy needs , as well as materials that can help your pupils develop social-emotional and life skills .

Lesson Plans on Teach Simple—Our Top Picks

Check out this list to find some of the high-quality lesson plans that await you on Teach Simple:

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• A Paired Text Reading and Writing Unit: Wind Energy Fact File or Lapbook
• 101 Math Activities for Calculating Kids—Lesson Plan
• Poetry Writing Sub Plans Lessons (Print & Pass)

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• TOPIC 4 - QUIZ View Receive a grade Receive a passing grade
• TOPIC 5 - QUIZ View Receive a grade Receive a passing grade
• Introduction Mark as done
• 1.1 DEFINITIONS, TYPES & PROCESSES OF LEARNING Mark as done
• What is learning Mark as done
• Behaviourism Mark as done
• Constructivism Mark as done
• Social-constructivism Mark as done
• Cognitivism Mark as done
• Conclusion on learning theories Mark as done
• 1.2 LEARNING STYLES Mark as done
• Introduction to learning styles Mark as done
• Overview of learning styles Mark as done
• Interpersonal learners Mark as done
• Intrapersonal learners Mark as done
• Kinesthetic learners Mark as done
• Verbal learners Mark as done
• Visual learners Mark as done
• Logical learners Mark as done
• Auditory learners Mark as done
• Identifying learning styles Mark as done
• 1.3 LEVELS OF COGNITION Mark as done
• Introduction to Bloom's taxonomy Mark as done
• How Bloom’s Taxonomy is useful for teachers Mark as done
• 2.1 FOUNDATION AND RATIONALE Mark as done
• Introduction to Active Teaching and Learning Mark as done
• Defining Active Teaching and Learning Mark as done
• Rationale for Active Teaching and Learning Mark as done
• 2.2 METHODS, TECHNIQUES & TOOLS Mark as done
• METHODS FOR ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING Mark as done
• Problem-based learning Mark as done
• Project-based learning Mark as done
• Learning stations Mark as done
• Learning contracts Mark as done
• TECHNIQUES FOR ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING Mark as done
• Groupwork Mark as done
• Demonstration Mark as done
• Presentation Mark as done
• Brainstorming Mark as done
• Simulation Mark as done
• Storytelling Mark as done
• Drill Mark as done
• TOOLS FOR ACTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING Mark as done
• Quiz Mark as done
• Roleplay Mark as done
• Low cost experiments Mark as done
• Flashcards Mark as done
• Videos Mark as done
• Images Mark as done
• Charts and maps Mark as done
• Diagrams Mark as done
• Student portfolio Mark as done
• 2.3 BARRIES IN INTEGRATING ACTIVE TEACHING Mark as done
• Identifying Barriers Mark as done
• 3.1 INTRODUCTION TO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION Mark as done
• Defining classroom management Mark as done
• The role of the teacher Mark as done
• Defining classroom organization Mark as done
• Classroom seating arrangement Mark as done
• Overview of classroom seating arrangement styles Mark as done
• Benefits of effective classroom management and organization Mark as done
• 3.2 STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT Mark as done
• The teacher as a model Mark as done
• Desired learner behaviour Mark as done
• Rewarding learners Mark as done
• Types of rewards Mark as done
• Reinforcing learners Mark as done
• Delivering a reinforcement Mark as done
• 3.3 LESSON PLANNING Mark as done
• Definition of a lesson plan Mark as done
• Components of a lesson plan Mark as done
• 4.1 INTRODUCTION TO ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION Mark as done
• Definition of assessment Mark as done
• Formative vs. summative assessment Mark as done
• Assessment for learning Mark as done
• Assessment vs. evaluation Mark as done
• 4.2 CLASS ASSESSMENT TOOLS Mark as done
• Assessment rubrics Mark as done
• Self-assessment Mark as done
• Peer-assessment Mark as done
• 4.3 REFLECTIVE PRACTICE Mark as done
• Definition of reflective practice Mark as done
• The reflective cycle Mark as done
• 5.1 CONCEPT OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS Mark as done
• Introduction to teaching and learning materials Mark as done
• Purpose of teaching and learning materials Mark as done
• 5.2 TYPES OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS Mark as done
• Traditional and innovative resources Mark as done
• Podcasts Mark as done
• Screencasts Mark as done
• Educational videos Mark as done
• Educational posters Mark as done
• Open Educational Resources (OERs) Mark as done
• 5.3 CHOOSING INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS Mark as done
• Integrating instructional materials Mark as done
• Factors to consider when selecting instructional materials Mark as done

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Presentation

A presentation delivers content through oral, audio and visual channels allowing teacher-learner interaction and making the learning process more attractive. Through presentations, teachers can clearly introduce difficult concepts by illustrating the key principles and by engaging the audience in active discussions. When presentations are designed by learners, their knowledge sharing competences, their communication skills and their confidence are developed.

• Define the objectives of the presentation in accordance to the lesson plan (lesson planning)
• Prepare the structure of the presentation, including text, illustrations and other content (lesson planning)
• Set up and test the presentation equipment and provide a conducive seating arrangement and environment for the audience (lesson planning)
• Invite the audience to reflect on the presentation and give feedback (lesson delivery)
• After the presentation, propose activities or tasks to check the learners’ understanding
• Use Mentimeter for interactive presentations and to get instant feedback from your audience (consult this written tutorial on how to use Mentimeter).
• An infographic; graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge, is an innovative way to present. Use the digital tool Canva to create your own infographics (consult this  written tutorial  on how to use Canva).
• Use Google Slides or the Microsoft software PowerPoint , to easily create digital presentations.
• The purpose of a presentation is to visually reinforce what you are saying. Therefore the text should contain few words and concise ideas organised in bullet-point.
• Support your text using images .
• Provide time for reflection and interaction between the presenter and the audience, for example by using  Mentimeter .

    Techniques/ Demonstration                                                                Techniques/ Brainstorming

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Here's What You Need to Know About Lesson Plans

The best teachers use a simple, seven-step format.

Janelle Cox

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• M.S., Education, Buffalo State College
• B.S., Education, Buffalo State College

A lesson plan is a detailed step-by-step guide that outlines the teacher's objectives for what the students will accomplish during the course of the lesson and how they will learn it. Creating a lesson plan involves setting goals , developing activities, and determining the materials that you will use.

All good lesson plans contain specific  components  or steps, and all essentially derive from the seven-step method developed by Madeline Hunter , a UCLA professor and education author. The Hunter Method , as it came to be called, includes these elements: objective/purpose, anticipatory set, input modeling/modeled practice, check for understanding, guided practice, independent practice, and closure.

Regardless of the grade level you teach, Hunter's model has been adopted and used in various forms for decades by teachers across the nation and at every grade level. Follow the steps in this method, and you'll have a classic lesson plan that will be effective at any grade level. It doesn't have to be a rigid formula; consider it a general guideline that will help any teacher cover the necessary parts of a successful lesson.

Objective/Purpose

Students learn best when they know what they are expected learn and why, says the  U.S. Department of Education . The agency uses an eight-step version of Hunter's lesson plan, and its detailed explanations are well worth reading. The agency notes:

"The purpose or objective of the lesson includes why students need to learn the objective, what they will be able to do once they have met the criterion, (and) how they will demonstrate learning....The formula for the behavioral objective is: The learner will do what + with what + how well." 

For example, a high school history lesson might focus on  first-century Rome , so the teacher would explain to students that they are expected to learn the salient facts about the empire's government, its population, daily life, and culture.

Anticipatory Set

The anticipatory set involves the teacher working to get students excited about the upcoming lesson. For that reason, some lesson plan formats actually put this step first. Creating an anticipatory set "means doing something that creates a sense of anticipation and expectancy in the students," says Leslie Owen Wilson, Ed.D. in " The Second Principle ." This can include an activity, a game, a focused discussion, viewing a film or video clip, a field trip, or reflective exercise.

For example, for a second-grade lesson on animals, the class might take a field trip to a local zoo or watch a nature video. By contrast, in a high school class getting ready to study  William Shakespeare 's play, " Romeo and Juliet ," students might write a short, reflective essay on a love they lost, such as a former boyfriend or girlfriend.

Input Modeling/Modeled Practice

This step—sometimes called  direct instruction — takes place when the educator actually teaches the lesson. In a high school algebra class, for example, you might write an appropriate math problem on the board, and then show how to solve the problem in a relaxed, leisurely pace. If it's a first-grade lesson on important sight words to know, you might write the words on the board and explain what each word means. This step should be very visual, as the DOE explains:

"It is important for the students to 'see' what they are learning. It helps them when the teacher demonstrates what is to be learned."

Modeled practice, which some lesson plan templates list as a separate step, involves walking the students through a math problem or two as a class. You might write a problem on the board and then call on students to help you solve it, as they also write the problem, the steps to solve it, and then the answer. Similarly, you might have first-grade students copy the sight words as you spell each out verbally as a class.

Check for Understanding

You need to make sure students understand what you have taught. One easy way to do this is to ask questions. If you're teaching a lesson on simple geometry to seventh-graders, have students practice with the information you just taught, says the  ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) . And, be sure to guide the learning. If students don't seem to grasp the concepts you've just taught, stop and review. For the seventh-graders learning geometry, you may need to repeat the previous step by showing more geometry problems—and how to solve them—on the board.

Guided and Independent Practice 

If you're feeling like the lesson plan involves a lot of guidance, you're right. At the heart, that's what teachers do. Guided practice provides each student a chance to demonstrate her grasp of new learning by working through an activity or exercise under the teacher’s direct supervision. During this step, you might move around the room to determine your students' level of mastery and provide individual help as needed. You may need to pause to show students how to successfully work through problems if they are still struggling.

Independent practice , by contrast, can include homework or seatwork assignments, which you give to the students to complete successfully without the need for supervision or intervention.

In this important step, the teacher wraps things up. Think of this phase as a concluding section in an essay. Just as a writer wouldn't leave her readers dangling without a conclusion, so too, the teacher should review all key points of the lesson. Go over any areas where students might still be struggling. And, always, asked focused questions: If students can answer specific questions about the lesson, they likely have learned the material. If not, you may need to revisit the lesson tomorrow.

Tips and Hints

Always gather all needed supplies ahead of time, and have them ready and available at the front of the room. If you'll be conducting a high school math lesson and all students will need are their textbooks, lined paper, and calculators, that makes your job easier. Do have extra pencils, textbooks, calculators, and paper available, though, in case any students have forgotten these items.

If you're conducting a science experiment lesson, make sure you have all of the ingredients needed so that all students can complete the experiment. You don't want to give a science lesson on  creating a volcano  and find out once students are gathered and ready that you've forgotten a key ingredient like baking soda.

To ease your job in creating a lesson plan, use a  template . The basic lesson plan format has been around for decades, so there's no need to start from scratch. Once you figure out what kind of  lesson plan  you will be writing, then you can determine the best way to use the format to fit your needs.

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• Thematic Unit Definition and How to Create One

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Curriculum Development | Lesson Plans | Classroom Planning

What Is a Lesson Plan and How Do You Make One?

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March 28th, 2024 | 9 min. read

Brad Hummel

Coming from a family of educators, Brad knows both the joys and challenges of teaching well. Through his own teaching background, he’s experienced both firsthand. As a writer for iCEV, Brad’s goal is to help teachers empower their students by listening to educators’ concerns and creating content that answers their most pressing questions about career and technical education.

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A lesson plan is a teacher’s daily guide for what students need to learn, how it will be taught, and how learning will be measured.

Lesson plans help teachers be more effective in the classroom by providing a detailed outline to follow each class period.

This ensures every bit of class time is spent teaching new concepts and having meaningful discussions — not figuring it out on the fly!

The most effective lesson plans have six key parts:

• Lesson Objectives
• Related Requirements
• Lesson Materials
• Lesson Procedure
• Assessment Method
• Lesson Reflection

Because each part of a lesson plan plays a role in the learning experience of your students, it’s important to approach them with a clear plan in mind.

Let’s start with the first part of every lesson plan—the lesson objectives!

1. Lesson Objectives

Lesson objectives list what students will be able to do after completing the lesson.

These objectives let you easily tell if your lesson has effectively taught your students new concepts and skills.

It can feel overwhelming to pin down specific takeaways for a lesson. But when you break the process into steps, you can make lesson planning simple and effective.

First, it’s best to view your lesson objectives as goals for your class and students.

One of the most popular goal-setting strategies is the  “SMART” criteria ,  which ensures goals are focused.

In the context of lesson planning, you can use the SMART criteria to determine your lesson objectives:

• Is the objective  specific ?
• Is the objective  measurable ?
• Is the objective  attainable  by all students?
• Is the objective  relevant  to your class and students?
• Is the objective  time-based to align with your syllabus?

For each objective, it’s important to start with an action that relates to what students should be able to do after the lesson. Depending on what topic you’re teaching and the level of knowledge your students have, these actions will vary.

For example, when teaching brand new concepts, you may define actions like  define, identify, explain , and  determine . However, if your lesson involves more advanced tasks, the objectives may include actions like  create, use, perform , or  measure .

To see these phrases in context, let’s look at examples that a computer teacher might choose when teaching Microsoft Word .

For an introductory lesson about Microsoft Word, objectives could be:

• Identify parts of the ribbon menu
• Determine methods of selecting text in a document
• Define fonts and font styles

In a more advanced class, objectives might include:

• Insert a document header
• Use document themes
• Add a page border

When creating your lesson objectives, keep in mind that it’s easier to measure student success when you have specific goals.

Once you’ve put your lesson objectives together, it’s time to tie them in with the next part of your lesson plan—the related requirements!

2. Related Requirements

Related requirements are  national, state, or school standards  that dictate what you need to teach in a class.

If you teach a CTE course you likely need to tie your lessons to  certification requirements  as well.

Every lesson you teach should help you hit those requirements. Listing them in your lesson plans helps you satisfy those requirements while focusing on the end goal of your class!

On top of that, some administrators require teachers to distinctly show how they will teach course standards in each lesson. If you put them on your lesson plans, you’ve got a quick reference to prove you’re on the ball!

When listing course standards or certification items on your lesson plan, it’s smart to use the exact organizational system found on your standards to make sure your class aligns.

If you don’t have the specific outline for your course standards, ask another teacher or your administrator where you can find them.

To get detailed certification requirements, check the certification provider’s website for an exam outline or test plan.

Laying out each lesson plan according to your requirements can be tedious work, but it will ultimately help you stay organized and aligned with what you’re supposed to teach!

3. Lesson Materials

The third section on your lesson plan is the list of materials that you need to teach the lesson and measure student outcomes.

This section prepares you to deliver your lessons every day. Without this list, you may accidentally forget to print an important document or sign out the shared laptop cart!

Common types of lesson materials include:

• Student handouts
• Visual aids
• Grading rubrics
• Activity packets
• Computers / Tablets

The list of materials for each lesson depends on what you plan to teach, how you’ll teach it, and how you’ll measure lesson objectives.

Because of this, many teachers compile their list of lesson materials in tandem with their lesson procedure!

4. Lesson Procedure

Your lesson procedure is an in-depth explanation of how the lesson will progress in the classroom.

The lesson procedure is essentially step-by-step instructions that walk you through everything from the time students enter the classroom until the bell rings at the end of the period.

It’s smart to be very detailed in this portion of your lesson plan. After all, there will be cases when another teacher or substitute needs to fill in for you!

When writing your lesson procedure, you need to choose the type of activities that will help students meet the lesson objectives.

To do that, you can answer a list of questions, including:

• How will you introduce the topic?
• What’s the best way to teach this information to your students?
• How can you incorporate problem solving and critical thinking?
• What real-life scenarios relate to this topic?
• Does this topic lend itself to group work?

It’s also a great idea to find out how other teachers address the topics in the classroom . You can do this by talking to coworkers, joining an online community, or searching for lesson ideas on educational blogs.

After writing out a rough draft of your lesson procedure, many teachers outline it according to a specific teaching strategy.

As an example, you might consider planning what exercise students will complete when they enter the class, how they'll proceed in learning the main content of the class period, and how you'll encourage students to reflect on what they've learned. You'll also want to plan how you'll reinforce learning at the end of class and in future class periods.

To accomplish these lessons, teachers use a variety of methods , from lectures to multimedia presentations, as well as both individual and group activities. Which methods you'll want to use will often vary depending on the type of material your teaching, the amount of time you have to cover it, and the particular knowledge and skills you want to emphasize in accordance with your standards.

Finally, you'll want to gauge if your students have achieved the lesson objectives through formative and summative assessments.

5. Assessment Method

The assessment method measures whether your students learned a lesson’s information and met your lesson objectives.

The methods listed on your lesson plan will most often be  formative assessments and vary from lesson to lesson.  To start, there are dozens of ways to measure student learning through formative assessments.

Some of the most common assessment options include:

• Hands-on activities
• Writing assignments
• Group presentations
• Class journal entries

In addition, your assessment method may be an in-class assignment or homework for students to complete prior to the next class.

When choosing your assessment method, it’s important to incorporate your lesson objectives.

If an objective was related to understanding a concept, consider an assessment that requires students to explain that concept. If an objective was for students to demonstrate a skill, design an assessment to confirm they can do that skill.

Also, while many assessments receive grades in a class, formative assessments don’t always need to be graded!

Ultimately, the purpose of this assessment is to measure how well your students learned a lesson’s material based on the way you presented information. This measurement will help you wrap up each lesson plan with the lesson reflection.

6. Lesson Reflection

The lesson reflection portion of a lesson plan encourages teachers to take notes on how to improve a lesson after it has been completed.

By this point, your lesson has clear objectives, a plan for teaching, and a way to assess student learning. But if you don’t critically consider whether you succeeded, you’re doing a disservice to your future students!

When completing your lesson reflection, ask yourself questions like:

• Did a part of the lesson take longer than expected?
• Was there a portion that students asked for a lot of help with?
• Did students breeze through the information with no problem?
• Were students engaged and interested in the lesson?
• Were the objectives met by most (or all) of the students?

Essentially, you want to note any part of your lesson that didn’t go as expected.

In addition, it’s smart to record ideas for improvement or adjustments in this section as well. That way, when you go to teach your lessons in the future, you have all of the information for improvement in one place!

Lessons Are Just the Beginning

Lesson plans are the first steps in creating a full-fledged curriculum for a class.

They dig into the details that ensure you teach the right information to your students at the right time, and they simplify your career by giving you a roadmap to follow each and every day.

But what about the big picture? This is one of the hardest parts of teaching for educators throughout the world. It’s not just the individual lessons that need your attention — it’s the class as a whole!

To do that, you need to create a curriculum.

A curriculum covers everything you need to teach an entire class. More than just a bunch of lesson plans, a comprehensive curriculum serves as a roadmap for teaching your course and setting each student up for success.

So where do you start? When you read about how to make a curriculum, you'll discover the key elements that make all the difference when building a complete course that will confidently meet your instructional standards.

Read the article and start building your ideal curriculum now: 

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Creating engaging teacher presentations: tips, ideas, and tools

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Anete Ezera August 21, 2024

Teacher presentations should effectively convey information, engage students, and enrich the learning process. While business presentations often focus on sales or data analysis, educational presentations aim to foster comprehension and spark curiosity. This article delves into the differences between teacher presentations and other presentation types, provides practical tips for educators, and shares design strategies for creating engaging teacher presentations. Additionally, we’ll highlight Prezi , a tool known for its format that offers a refreshing take on educational presentations.

Understanding teacher presentations

Purpose and audience.

The main objective of a teacher presentation is to educate. Whether the presentations are used to introduce new ideas, revisit old topics, or help students understand complex concepts, the main aim is to make the content easy to understand and interesting. In contrast, business presentations usually seek to convince or update stakeholders. A teacher presentation is tailored for the student audience. Ultimately, it should accommodate learning preferences, keep students engaged, and promote participation.

Design and structure

When preparing a teacher presentation, it’s crucial to maintain simplicity. Steer clear of overcrowding slides with information or incorporating flashy visuals that could divert attention from the main message. Opt for a balanced layout that leverages visuals to complement the delivery rather than overshadowing it. Using Prezi , with its non-linear format, empowers teachers to create compelling presentations that flow seamlessly and engage students effectively.

Tips for creating effective teacher presentations

1. know your audience.

Knowing the age, background knowledge, and learning preferences of your students is essential when creating a teacher presentation. Customize your material to suit their requirements, making sure it strikes a balance between being overly complicated and overly simplistic. When presenting to students, make sure to include plenty of visuals and interactive features, and focus on providing in-depth explanations and fostering discussions.

2. Focus on clarity and simplicity

Avoid cluttering your presentation with too much text or too many graphics. Use bullet points to break down information and keep the slides clean. Remember, presentation is a tool to support your teaching, not to replace your voice. The content on your slides should be clear, concise, and directly related to your lesson objectives.

3. Use engaging visuals and media

Using aids like pictures, videos, and diagrams can help improve comprehension and memory of information. Prezi enables you to design captivating presentations with zoom features that assist students in engagingly exploring the material. In contrast to slide decks, Prezi’s canvas offers a natural progression of content, simplifying the task of emphasizing relationships between ideas.

4. Encourage interaction

Incorporate interactive elements into your presentation to keep students engaged. Ask questions, use polls, or include discussion points that require student participation. Prezi’s format supports this by allowing teachers to zoom in on specific points for discussion, making the presentation feel more like a conversation than a lecture.

5. Rehearse and time your presentation

Practicing your presentation ensures that you can deliver it smoothly and confidently. Time your presentation to fit within the class period, leaving room for questions and discussions. A well-timed teacher presentation keeps students engaged and allows for a natural flow of information.

Things to keep in mind when creating a teacher presentation

When preparing a teacher presentation, it’s important to concentrate on developing a useful resource that improves student’s understanding. Here are some dos and don’ts to consider, especially when incorporating images and text, and designing the layout:

Teacher presentation dos:

Use high-quality visuals: Include clear, high-resolution images and graphics that support your lesson content. Visual aids can significantly improve understanding, especially for visual learners. Infographics, charts, and diagrams can be powerful tools to illustrate complex concepts.

Keep text minimal: When creating slides, opt for bullet points and concise phrases. Ensure that your slide content supports your spoken presentation rather than duplicating it. Also, highlight the points that students should keep in mind.

Incorporate multimedia: Use videos, audio clips, and animations where appropriate. These elements can help bring your lesson to life and maintain student interest. However, ensure that any multimedia used directly relates to and enhances the lesson.

Ensure consistent design: Maintain a consistent design throughout your presentation. Use the same font, color scheme, and layout style across all slides. Consistency helps create a professional look and makes the presentation easier to follow.

Use contrasting colors: Choose colors that contrast well, especially between text and background. This ensures that your content is easily readable, even from the back of the classroom. For example, dark text on a light background works well, as does light text on a dark background.

Teacher presentation don’ts:

Avoid overloading slides with information: Avoid overcrowding a slide with information. Too much content on one slide can be daunting for students, and it may distract from the key messages you intend to communicate. Strive for a clear design instead.

Don’t use distracting fonts or colors: Avoid using fonts or colors that clash. Opt for fonts and colors that improve visibility without taking attention from the content. Limit yourself to two or three fonts, and avoid using more than four colors in your presentation.

Don’t overuse animations or transitions: Avoid using too many animations or transitions when switching between slides. Although these elements can make the presentation engaging, excessive movement might become a distraction and take away from the educational material. It’s best to use them with intent.

Avoid irrelevant visuals: Avoid adding any pictures or illustrations that aren’t closely tied to the lesson. Even though visuals can improve a presentation, unrelated ones might perplex students and lessen the significance of your points.

Don’t neglect accessibility: Remember to take into account the learning requirements of students. Make sure your presentation is easy for all students to access by using clear fonts, including text for images, and providing transcripts for any video or audio materials.

By following these guidelines, you can create a teacher presentation that not only looks good but also effectively conveys your lesson material. Keep in mind that the aim is to leverage visuals and design features to enrich learning rather than detract from the information.

Exploring teacher presentation tools: spotlight on Prezi

When it comes to creating captivating teacher presentations, selecting the right tool is key. Although PowerPoint and Google Slides are commonly used, Prezi presents an option that can revolutionize the way educators deliver information.

What makes Prezi stand out?

Prezi’s unique presentation style allows educators to deliver information in a more captivating manner. Rather than following a slide progression, Prezi empowers teachers to explore various aspects of their presentations by zooming in and out, creating a storytelling experience rather than a traditional lecture. This method can engage students effectively and simplify subjects by visually emphasizing the relationships among concepts.

According to research from Prezi, this format is more engaging and memorable compared to traditional slide-based presentations. The study found that Prezi presentations are 25% more effective in keeping audience attention and 20% more effective in making content memorable.

Examples of engaging teacher presentations using Prezi

To illustrate how Prezi can be used effectively in the classroom, here are a few teacher presentation ideas that stand out:

Literacy Genres Prezi Video : This presentation gives a look at types of literary genres using Prezi’s zoom function to delve into each genre extensively. It serves as a method to familiarize students with ideas in an interactive and visually captivating way.

Board Game Lesson Plan Template : This template uses the concept of a board game to structure the lesson, making learning feel like an adventure. It’s perfect for gamifying lessons and keeping students excited about the material.

The Civil Rights Movement VOR : This presentation explores the background of the Civil Rights Movement, showcasing Prezi features to zoom in on events and individuals. It illustrates how Prezi can animate narratives effectively.

Back to School Template VOR : Ideal for the first day of school, this presentation helps teachers introduce themselves and outline class expectations in a fun and engaging way. It’s a great alternative to a traditional teacher introduction PowerPoint.

Light Book Report Template VOR : This is a creative template that inspires students to showcase their book reports, encouraging them to analyze and share their opinions thoughtfully.

For more inspiration, teachers can explore the Prezi Gallery’s Teacher Picks , which offers a variety of templates and examples designed specifically for educational purposes.

Additional teacher presentation ideas

Teacher introduction presentation.

At the start of the year, teachers have a chance to introduce themselves to their students. Using platforms like Prezi, educators can create a narrative that showcases their personality, teaching style, and what learners can expect in the course. Incorporating anecdotes and engaging elements helps in building a rapport with students from the beginning.

Interactive lesson recaps

To enrich learning, think about using Prezi for making summaries of lessons. When wrapping up a unit or lesson, a recap presentation can go over aspects, pose queries, and even incorporate a quiz to improve comprehension. This method strengthens the content and maintains student interest and active participation in their educational journey.

Virtual field trips

The increasing use of tools in education has made virtual field trips more popular as a means to explore the world without leaving the classroom. Teachers can now create tours using platforms such as Prezi, giving students a look at different locations and providing them with an engaging learning experience that improves their knowledge of geography, history, and science subjects.

Try Prezi for your next teacher presentation

In summary, preparing a teacher presentation entails capturing the needs of your audience, emphasizing clarity, promoting interaction, and sharpening your delivery skills. Through platforms such as Prezi, educators can enhance their presentations to captivate students with engaging content. Whether you’re introducing yourself at the beginning of the year, revisiting topics, or guiding students through a virtual excursion, a thoughtfully prepared presentation can enrich the learning experience and leave a lasting impact on your teaching.

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Topic: Presentation Skills

As you can see in the slide (giving presentations)

Step into the world of presentations with this handy lesson! Students explore vocabulary for structuring presentations, read the text of a presentation and watch a video on how to communicate ideas clearly.

Presentation: putting skills into action

With this lesson plan, students practise giving a presentation in English by doing a lot of different speaking activities. The lesson is the third of the three-part series of lessons about delivering presentations. 

Moving through your presentation

With this lesson plan, students learn plenty of useful phrases for presentations in English. They also prepare presentation excerpts, and learn how to start a presentation. The lesson is the second of the three-part series of lessons about delivering presentations. 

How to nail that presentation

In this lesson about business presentations in English, students discuss presentation structures in depth, watch a video with tips on giving presentations, and learn useful words and phrases related to the topic. The lesson is the first of the three-part series of lessons about delivering presentations. 

The city of the future is here

With this lesson plan based on a video about Toyota’s city of the future students learn some useful language for presentations and then practise their presentation skills.

The chair that conquered the world

This lesson plan about the chair that conquered the world includes a variety of tasks for students to learn new vocabulary related to describing furniture design and practise their presentation skills. 

How do you like your milk?

In this lesson, students will learn advanced cooking verbs, discuss different types of milk and do an English class project.

Apple’s legendary keynotes

The objective of this lesson plan is to teach students some adjectives for describing products and show them a video analysing Apple’s legendary keynotes.

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Lesson Plan: Presentation

Oral communication is a highly valuable skill that is becoming lost in a world of emails, texts, and tweets. There is a new generation of youngsters and young adults for whom speaking-discussion, or a group presentation is frightening. If it is true that “practice makes perfect,” then it is no wonder that students may find themselves dreading speaking in a formal setting, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to practice. Effective presentation skills foster student learning by establishing clear communication and helping students to engage in the learning process. While it might begin for a presentation, practicing public speaking will carry over to important life experiences and help students build self-confidence, poise, and learn to communicate effectively in a variety of settings.

The student will be able to select a topic, create a presentation that will provide information on that topic, and deliver the presentation to others in an interesting, informative and engaging way.

Objectives:

Academic Content:

(This will be provided in the curriculum of the section that you are teaching.)

• Select an appropriate topic.
• Narrow the topic so that it can be comfortably delivered in the allotted time.
• Create an outline of the important points to be covered.
• Create visual aids, when appropriate, to enhance the understanding of the topic.
• Present the information clearly.
• Check for understanding.

Presentation Skills:

• Identify the elements that will be used to deliver the information including, demonstration, visual aids, technology, etc.
• Identify a plan for connecting with the audience including the use of questions, anecdotes, humor, etc.
• Practice speaking clearly and loudly enough to be heard by everyone.
• Engage the audience with opportunities to interact and provide feedback.
• Consider a variety of elements of delivery including, making eye contact, speaking with enthusiasm and relating subject matter to life experiences.

Lesson Sequence:

A successful presentation begins with identifying an appropriate topic and carefully planning the content and delivery of the presentation.

• Select a topic. While it is possible to assign topics, students will be more engaged and enthusiastic about the presentation when they have had an opportunity to identify the topic they would like to present.
• Narrow the topic. Select the information that will be presented in order to effectively communicate the essential information in the time frame provided.
• Identify what listeners will learn from the content of this presentation.
• Create an outline for presenting the information. The outline should have enough detail that the ideas are clear but should consists of words and phrases that cannot be used as a script, but rather guide the explanation.
• Select and design appropriate supporting materials that most effectively enhance the topic.
• Practice the delivery of the presentation until a comfort level is established and delivery is smooth and relaxed.
• Build in opportunities to interact with the audience including time for comments, questions and feedback.
• Create a feedback form for the audience that will provide them with an opportunity to explain what they learned from the presentation. How does this compare with what was identified as intended learning?

A successful presentation is characterized by engaging the listeners in both the content and the delivery of the information. The audience should provide feedback in terms of what they learned from the presentation and suggestions for improvement.

With each presentation it is anticipated that the presenter will improve both content identification skills and delivery skills. This feedback can be reflected by teacher observation, audience participation, and self- reflection.

Assessment:

In presentation development, both content and process are considered. Students should demonstrate improvement in topic selection, identification of appropriate supporting details and visual aids, and organization of the introduction, body, and summary of the presentation. The process of delivery should improve in voice, clarity, tone, eye contact, and movement.

When considering the evaluation of presentation skills, it is as important to assess the presentation itself relative to the improvement of skills over time and with practice. Teacher input, student feedback, and self-reflection are key in developing a comfort level with oral communication skills.

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EXAMPLE LESSON PLANS

Following the ppp model.

It is difficult to find a universally perfect lesson plan that would always be suitable for a certain level at a certain point in a course.  Some would argue that it is impossible.  Still, those classes which share a sufficient number of common characteristics in its profile can be given a similar lesson plan.  What makes the lesson plan stronger is how the teacher uses it while actually in the classroom.  The students and teacher together shape the form it takes on during its execution.  The lesson plan is an anticipation of the directions the teacher wants to take the class and how to go about it.

The lesson plans listed here are suggestions and models to serve in reaching other teachers to help their understanding and to stimulate & encourage them to produce their own versions, customized to reflect their particular experiences, perspectives and situations.  And the reader is reminded that the PPP model is only one of many possible approaches to teaching a language class.  Where a teacher has flexibility and interest, it is recommended to experiment and explore ideas that might contribute to a richer level of appreciation of the teaching/learning environment and one’s place in it.

A.     BEING FLEXIBLE IN YOUR LESSON PLANNING

Some considerations to keep in mind

On this page there are 8 examples of lesson plans you can look at, four of which have been previously presented.  If you compare them, you may notice some differences such as in LP2 (Lesson Plan 2) there are 3 Presentations, not one.  These differences are there to show you that you can apply the model with some flexibility, depending on your objectives.

Most of the examples focus on presenting grammar or vocabulary but LP3 is done differently because there is a stronger focus on the input (reading), so a PWP approach is used.  Just because you want to focus more on a reading or listening activity doesn’t mean you can’t have the students look at and use some grammatical structures or new vocabulary, but because that target language is of a lower priority and has less time and fewer activities surrounding it, the PWP model is used.  In either model you still want to get your students talking (and perhaps writing) about the theme and the input.

The Production activity in these examples has been for speaking, but writing could be another end to strive for, and you follow the same procedure (Context → Input → Presentation → Practice → Production) to get the students orientated and using the target language in the way defined in your objectives.  For example, By the end of the class, the students will be able to organize their ideas and use some appropriate expressions in a formal letter requesting information about living in a campus residence for the next university year.

It has been emphasized a few times in this article that the PPP model can be useful in many ways, but the teacher is encouraged to modify it or use other approaches, depending on the situation and objectives.  Using a song in class might be presented in different ways, but both LP6 & LP7 suggest ways that could be theoretically followed using the PPP model.  LP6 focuses on vocabulary for its target language in a low or intermediate group and LP7 uses the same song but is used for an advanced level and to focus on one aspect of pronunciation (connected speech) rather than a grammar or vocabulary aim.

Sometimes teachers want to get their students speaking more.  This can be done in many ways but to demonstrate how this model might be applied, a clear objective is recommended and building the students up to that end constitutes the bulk of the class.  LP8 is one possible example of how that could be done.  What’s important to realize is that unless you have imposed limits placed on you, you have a great amount of freedom to create a lesson plan suitable for you and your students.  The PPP model offers you one way, and you can play with it to best reach your ends, or choose other approaches if they seem more worthwhile.

The format of these plans is done in a way to highlight how you can approach doing them with the PPP perspective.  If you are working for a school or some company that wishes you to submit your lesson plan, make sure you follow their recommended format, not the one presented here.  Also, official observations aside, you want to have a plan that is very user friendly TO YOU, so feel free to make any changes to the format that help you feel more comfortable designing the plan and later executing it in the classroom.

B.     PREVIOUSLY PRESENTED LESSON PLANS

Here are some links to lesson plans already presented in this article

Click on the number or description to have a look at the lesson plan.  Note that sometimes the lesson plan is part of a greater explanation, so you may want to have a look at what is written before or after the lesson plan.

Click on ‘Download’ below the description to have a look at the lesson plan.  Note that the first 3 lesson plans aren’t accompanied by materials.  They are simply examples and part of a greater explanation cited in the line below ‘Download’.

View or Download lesson plan 1

Lesson Plan 1 is from The PPP Model Explained , Section C which reviews the terminology and concepts previously presented.

View or Download lesson plan 2

Lesson Plan 2 is from The PPP Model Explained , Section D where the concepts are explored further, providing more details and insights on how the model can be used.

View or Download lesson plan 3

Lesson Plan 3 is from The PWP Model which compares how this model is similar and different to the PPP model.  The PWP model has a greater focus on reading or listening.

Lesson Plan 4 is the one used in teaching the class demonstrated in Class In Action .  This lesson plan has been more fully developed, complete with accompanying materials.  If you want to see any of them, click on ‘Download’ below the image:

Download lesson plan

Download Handout 1: Reading Qs

Download answer key

Download Handout 2: worksheet

Alternative options to lesson plan 4

A FEW FINAL WORDS: It’s a good idea to include your intentions (objectives), what you expect the students to do (how you’re going about that) and what you as the teacher will be doing for different reasons.  When somebody other than the teacher is reading the lesson plan, it is not always clear how and why things are to be done in a certain way.  For that matter, it might not be clear to the teacher either, so it is a good exercise to get accustomed to including those extra details.  Sometimes a class goes over very well and the teacher wants to save the lesson plan to use with another class some time in the future.  A year later when you look at the plan again and are trying to interpret what to do and why it should be done, there may be some ideas lost or unclear because they weren’t spelled out in the original.

Two more tips for lesson planners: 1) If you’re having an official observation or have to fill out your lesson plan using a certain form, make another version for yourself that you can easily follow while you are actually teaching.  It might just be a series of big circled numbers listed on a page with a few notes jotted down to remind you what to do in which order.  Or it could be a power point presentation with detailed notes in the margins describing step be step what you want to say and do.  Whatever helps you feel comfortable and directed during the class should by the notes you follow while teaching.  And if there are official forms, then you can do them in the expected way to give to the proper people.

2) During or shortly after the class, make a few notes which reflect any insights or ideas that come to mind when executing the plan.  Maybe some issues came up, students had some good suggestions or you had an inspiration.  This can help you immensely if you want to repeat the plan with another class, or when you are thinking what to do in the next class.

C.     MORE EXAMPLES, THIS TIME WITH A CHALLENGE

You might like to see what kind of lesson plan you can come up with

Here are a few more examples.  You have two options.  One is to simply click on each example and have a look. Another is to accept THE CHALLENGE.  This is an invitation for you to choose one or more situations and then try to write your own lesson plan corresponding to that situation.  When you are done, or have done as much as you care to, then compare your version with the one provided.  You can take on the challenge at any level you wish.  That might mean just having a few thoughts about how you might go about it, you could scratch out a minimal skeleton plan, or you could develop it further with some details.

When you compare your version with the given one, it’s important to remember that there is no final true ‘correct’ answer or perfect plan.  Two very experienced teachers could very easily come up with very different plans.  And a teacher with less experience would come up with what is within her/his current resources and perspectives, which would be appropriate for her/his situation.  When you encounter differences between the two versions (yours and the one here), look at them as different options and consider the benefits of each one.  This might stimulate more ideas on what you might be able to do in your classes.  Also keep in mind that how you imagined your class profile would be different in some ways to how another would do that, so it is possible that while the two plans would vary, they would each be appropriate to their respective imagined situation.

OPTION ONE:  So, if you want to simply view the examples, click on those that catch your eye.  You may want to have a look at Before You Start and A Few Thoughts as well.

OPTION TWO:  You want to try the challenge. – Choose the situation (LP5, LP6, LP7 or LP8) you want to approach. – Read the Before You Start for a little more orientation – Think of how you would make your lesson plan and draft it out following the points in THE CHALLENGE – Compare yours with the one provided and look for benefits in both plans.  Also check out A Few Thoughts.

1- Read the language focus and consider the level.  If it is for a lower level, it might be the first time you are introducing the grammar point, for example, or if you think the students have already been exposed to the target language, you would dedicate your class to clarifying some points and strengthening the students’ usage.  Different interpretations would lead to very different classes being taught.

2- Read Before You Start.

3- Complete the lesson plan by addressing each of the sections

It is not necessary to find any materials to use (listenings or articles, worksheets, etc), nor write out a lot of detailed ideas, unless you feel that helps you, but try not to overdo it.  Simply sketch out how you would interpret each section.  This includes saying what kind of input and describing it a little.  (For example, listening: three people at a meeting at work arguing about the location of the coffee machine.)  Briefly describe what each task or activity will be.  (For example, LISTENING FOR GIST: Students decide which of four topics the people at the meeting are discussing.)   Provide examples and details when it will add to clarity or help define what is being said.

4- Check out the provided lesson plan and compare how it is similar and different from yours.  See what you like from both plans and if this stimulates any good ideas or helps you become more familiar with lesson planning in this style.

5- If you do a few challenges like this, maybe come up with a PPP lesson plan you would like to try out in one of your classes.

Here are the lesson plan challenges for LP5 – LP8:

Write your lesson plan following the basic procedure described above in The Challenge, steps 1 – 5.

Remember to read Before You Start before writing your lesson plan.  When you’re done, read A Few Thoughts and check out the provided plan.

View or Download lesson plan 5

Before you start

Imagine you have to teach the difference between Past Simple and Present Perfect but you don’t like how it’s presented in the student book.  You begin thinking of different alternative ways to teach that class without using the material in the book.  You come across an interesting video which is an interview of a famous celebrity you think many of your students like.  How would you develop your lesson plan from here?

NOTE:  In this challenge there is a range of levels.  Choose one (elementary, pre-intermediate or intermediate) and base your lesson plan on that perspective.

A few thoughts

If it is the first time our students have seen the Present Perfect, it is quite likely that the Past Simple would not play a big role in that class.  If they have seen it before, but maybe only briefly in the previous course last year, then your class may not use the Past Simple much, either.  If the students have had some reasonable experience with the Present Perfect before, or you feel they are all capable of handling two verb tenses (the Present Perfect and the Past Simple), then the provided lesson plan is one way you could approach it.

The Present Perfect is used for different situations and sometimes the simple or the continuous form is more appropriate or correct.  It is best not to mix the different functions unless it is a review after the students have had some exposure to the different applications beforehand.

It’s important to monitor your students to see how they are coping with the information, to give them support and clear direction, as well as ample opportunities to practice and explore before attempting the Production activity.  By being observant on how well they are dealing with the Present Perfect, you can make better decisions on what needs more work and where to challenge them further.

View or Download lesson plan 6

Your students requested a few songs to do in class and you decide that one of them could be possible to cover at that level.  Let’s imagine there are a couple good expressions in the chorus and a couple more in the rest of the song.  You feel that these expressions could be useful for the students to learn as the target language.  There are a few other words or expressions that would be helpful to learn as well, especially in understanding some important parts of the song, so these could be dealt with in the Introduction activity.  Try using the PPP model to write a lesson plan for this class.

If you want to do part of your class working with a song and later perhaps using it to stimulate a speaking activity or two, the PPP model wouldn’t normally be your first option.  The PWP model would be easier to work with in this regard, for example.  Or if you just want to approach the song as a quick activity and not go through the whole process of following a complete model, it is still recommended to have a clear objective on how the song would work to help your students in some way.

If a strong part of the class was focussed on learning and using new vocabulary that comes from the song, the PPP model becomes a more viable option.  It is still not the only way to do things, but it is one possibility.  Have a look at how one interpretation might look.

View or Download lesson plan 7

Imagine you think the same song you used for a lower level group would be fun for your advanced class.  Obviously you wouldn’t have the students do the exact same thing because their needs are different.  You think that it is time for that group of students to work on their pronunciation more.  The suggestion is to focus on teaching connected speech following the PPP model, and that is the challenge set to you.  However, if you are new to teaching, then you may not be ready for this.  If that is the case, work on a different aspect of pronunciation (ex: word stress, sentence stress, consonant clusters, difficult sounds for your students).  That would be fine as long as it is appropriate for a high level.  Also remember that you want to keep the students involved in your Presentation, not to make it only or mostly you lecturing.  How would you go about it?

There are already several examples of activities and lesson plans focussing on grammar or vocabulary in this article.  I wanted to include something that is a little different, but could still fit into our look at lesson planning using the PPP model.  In this case the language focus will be on pronunciation.  Phonology is a language system, no less so than grammar or vocabulary, so it can very easily fit into the PPP model.  Let’s imagine that our advanced students have difficulty understanding people when they speak quickly or not very carefully.  Our students could also work on their own speaking skills, particularly in the area of relaxed speech where the sounds seem to merge together.  Just like grammar and vocabulary, there are some rules to guide the language learners, you can’t teach them all at once, or expect the student to master them in just one class.  In today’s class we are going to introduce the students to 3 aspects of connected speech.  These are three frequent ways sounds are changed when English is spoken in a relaxed manner as opposed to a very careful, even formal style.

A- some sounds change  ex:  Did you → Di j ou   (the ‘d’ and the ‘y’ change to ‘j’) B- some sounds disappear  ex:   Sit down → Sidown   (the ‘t’ disappears when next to a strong ‘d’) C- some sounds join together in perhaps unexpected ways  ex: not at all → no ta tall  (consonants join vowels)

The lesson plan will deal with all three of the above changes occurring during connected speech, but if you prefer to focus on just one or two of them, then do so.  Before plotting out your lesson plan, it would be a good idea to determine what aspect of pronunciation you want to deal with, determine your objective(s), and decide what the theme for the class will be.  If we were not following the PPP model, we could be open to doing things differently, and that might be fine too.  However, it is still generally a very good idea to be clear on your objectives, no matter what model or approach you are considering.

NOTE:  There is a website that allows you to type out those symbols (and it’s good for languages other than English):   https://ipa.typeit.org/

This is another good site because it gives you many examples.  Keep in mind it’s in the British RP Pronunciation dialect. https://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/phoneticsymbolsforenglish.htm

This site is basically the same as the previous one but has the American accent in mind: https://koreatesol.org/sites/default/files/EClinic-%20Phonetic%20Symbols.pdf

This information will be repeated and placed in A Few Thoughts so it will be easy for you to copy and paste the links. As you probably already know, there isn’t only one British accent or one American accent, but it has been decided that these versions are to be used as a standard reference.

In choosing the input one would more frequently select something with a dialogue to capture ‘more natural’ patterns but pronunciation is basically an element of all forms of speaking, be they speeches or monologues, chanting, poetry reading, somebody talking to him or herself, speaking in different situations which involve different kinds of interactions and levels of formality, different accents and regional tendencies, and so on.  For fun we looked at ‘a song’; the same theoretical song which could be used for the low level class in LP6.  Of course you could use a different, more difficult song, or focus on the lyrics and/or grammar.  Some suggestions for that have already been given elsewhere in this presentation of the PPP model.

This lesson plan is a longer than the others because it is dealing with an area that many teachers feel reluctant to touch.  In my early years of teaching, I also wasn’t sure what to do with it, but now connected speech has become one of my favourite aspects of teaching.  It just takes some time to get familiar with what is involved, and some experimenting.  But it can be approached in a fun way and an interesting way.  When you first start out in your explorations, I recommend you limit them to just one or a few aspects.  Then when you feel more confident with those, add one or two more to your repertoire.

Another recommendation:  Sometimes you are teaching something new and there might be a lot of details that you feel important to include.  It depends a little too on how well you improvise, how well you remember and how nervous you get when in front of people.  If the subject matter is fairly new then you could do several things.  One thing is to go over the plan several times in your mind so you feel better prepared.  You could also have a more personalized lesson plan with a general outline telling you the major steps and an occasional prompt for something you may need reminding of.  Accompanying that general outline could be some kind of prompt or a more detailed description just for that section.  In the case of the Presentation, for example, you might want to have a separate paper with the phonemic script examples and symbols that you want to use.

And of course it is often a good idea to spread out complicated elements over several classes.  Focus on one or two ideas in one class so the students get familiar with using them.  Then build onto that in the following class.  You could do a review, maybe some further practice, and then add the next element or layer.

One last point.  Much depends on your objectives.  It’s good to keep in mind what you want to achieve and how you are considering going about it.  Using the PPP or the PWP model may not be the most advantageous option for a song, but it does depend on what you intend on doing.  Feel free to approach your goals in a variety of ways and decide on those that you feel have the benefits you are looking for.

View or Download lesson plan 8

Imagine your students at an intermediate or upper intermediate level and you want to get them speaking in a richer manner, such as justifying their statements, giving examples, responding more to what other people are saying.  You think that it might be a good idea to teach them expressions that would be useful while engaging in a discussion or even an argument with someone.  And that idea evolves into deciding you want your students to have a debate.  The challenge is how can this all be translated into a strong lesson plan using the PPP model?

NOTE:  Functional language is the language used that surrounds a particular situation which involves doing some task.  For example:  ●giving directions;  ●speaking on the phone;  ●apologizing.  Frequently the target language is the use of expressions typical for those situations, but it can also involve some grammar.  In giving directions we do use some set phrases such as ‘go straight’, ‘turn left’, ‘you can’t miss it’, but we also use imperatives.  Functional language is often the theme for a chapter or part of a unit in a student book so after going through it, the students are more capable of functioning in that situation.

Remember that the PPP model is best designed for a language focus, not directly on skills development.  There is some skills work done in the Input stage where reading or listening does play a part, and speaking is encouraged throughout the lesson.  Speaking or writing is also part of the objective and the Production stage, but it is not the language focus.  Normally the language focus is grammar or vocabulary and functional language can work very nicely into this model.

Therefore, if you want your students to engage in a debate, that is fine, and if you approach it using the PPP model, you have to include some language focus.  Because engaging in a debate can be viewed as a function or a situation which often uses particular kinds of language, our target language could be one or more groups of expressions that would be useful in carrying out that speaking activity.  Just like giving directions or speaking on the phone, you could come up with some expressions that would be useful for the students to learn.  While having debates may not be situations taking place as frequently as giving directions or speaking on the phone, you could focus on expressions that could also be transferable to other useful situations like having arguments, discussions, or even exchanges of opinions in conversations.  There are two suggested areas of functional language for you to teach your students. 1- agreeing & disagreeing     (ex:  I agree with you up to a point.   You’ll have to come up with a few more examples to teach.) 2- introducing & emphasizing points   (This isn’t immediately clear to many teachers so a list is provided here.  These are ways to start the sentence you want to communicate that places some emphasis on it.  If you wish to make some changes to the list, that would be fine.)      ●It cannot be denied that… ●What I think is… ●What I don’t understand is why (people think that) … ●One thing to consider is … ●I want to point out that … ●What I want to point out is ….

Complete the lesson plan by addressing each of the sections (context, input gist task, etc – introduction is optional).  It is not necessary to find any materials to use (listenings or articles, worksheets, etc), nor write out a lot of detailed ideas (unless you want to).  Simply sketch out how you would interpret each section.  In this case, because the target language consists of two different sets of expressions, think of how you are going to approach that.  Perhaps you would prefer each has their own Presentation and sets of Practice activities, for example.

Part of the challenge is dealing with two separate themes of functional language.  That is something you will have to make decisions on.  If you prefer something simpler, choose one of the two themes and develop your lesson plan around that.  Also, the suggestion is to have a debate for the Production activity.  It is also a possibility to change that into a discussion or a conversation of some kind, but consider the challenge of preparing your students to engage in a debate.  How would you set it up and get them acquainted with its structure?

Now that you’ve done it, check yours with the version provided.  Remember that the following provided version is not the perfect standard to gauge yours by.  It is simply one version.  With the image and feel of the class you imagined , your lesson plan could be much more appropriate than the one offered here.  But do check it out after you have done yours, partly for curiosity’s sake, and partly to see if you can find some ideas that might complement yours, or stimulate other ideas for you.

There was a fair amount of detail and attention given to the debate activities in the Practice and the Production stages.  Reflect a little on why they were handled differently.  Another area of reflection is to consider having ‘dress rehearsals’ as an option for a final Practice activity.  What benefits are there to doing that, and what other factors might have to be considered (such as motivation, changes to be made, repetition, etc)?  And one last piece for food for thought.  A debate is a little complicated, but sometimes we teachers present complicated ideas, such as the structure for giving presentations, doing simulations or special kinds of role-plays / theater, playing some kinds of games, going over how exams are structured and evaluated, etc.  It’s good to take on the challenge of how to communicate something that involves much structure to students.  The teacher can play with how to approach it, like breaking it up into smaller components and deal with them over several different classes, for example.  All this has to be planned for and thought through as it takes shape in our lesson plans and attempts to meet certain objectives.  Once the structure is learned, we can more easily return to it when it can serve our purpose such as providing direction for how students can work on certain elements.

D.     A FEW FINAL WORDS

Congratulations on making it this far!

If you work in a situation where you have the flexibility (and the responsibility) to create your own lesson plans and not follow any particular model, then a very strong recommendation is to consider what aspects of different models (such as the PPP or PWP) you might be able to use in your class, without the obligation to try and make everything fit into that one model.  Let your perspectives of the class (what might be effective and most beneficial) along with the objectives and what is available (materials, technology, etc) be the defining criteria of how the lesson plan shapes up.  Maybe your goal is not to reach a Production stage, for example.  You want to introduce something complex and prefer to distribute the students’ orientation to it over a succession of classes and you plan on reaching the Production stage in the third or fourth class, depending on the students’ progress.  Sometimes you may want to dedicate only one or two activities and a short time to exploring some language aspect, and don’t want to go through all the different stages.  These and other decisions should override blindly following the PPP (or any other) model.  Some models have certain advantages (and disadvantages) and others have a different mixture.  And sometimes it’s best to step out of the box and do something that you feel is appropriate, even if it isn’t formally presented and labelled as a particular kind of approach or methodology.  To put all this in a nutshell, it’s good to see how applying the model can help bring you to where you want to go, and you should feel free to modify it so it better suits the situation as you see it.  That means that the methodology and the examples are not set in stone and depending on your criteria, you could come up with a very different version that might be more effective for your situation, or the situation you imagined.

I wish you all the best in your future journeys as you explore the possibilities of lesson planning, and the delivery of those plans in the classroom.

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About the author

I have lived in a few different cultures, starting with Canada (Flin Flon, Manitoba), where I grew up, went to university (Winnipeg) and worked for many years. ...

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Featured Lesson Plans

The USS Midway Institute for Teachers has brought our expert academics together with teachers to develop high quality lesson plans revolving around our professional development programs.  The lessons are intended to be used for grades 6-12 and are designed to be highly flexible and easily modified to meet the individual needs of teachers.  Each lesson has a variety of supporting resources including primary sources, classroom activities, PowerPoint presentations, etc. We work with Midway teachers each summer to continue to expand our educational lessons and resources in our ever-growing online resource offerings.  The lessons below are highlights from our most recently developed material.

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For more lesson plans please explore our online resources.

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Kindergarten Lesson Plans: ABC BOOTCAMP, Families, Sorting And Five Senses

• Greg Smedley-Warren
• August 24, 2024
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It’s week 4 of kindergarten, and our weekly kindergarten lesson plans are ready for ABC BOOTCAMP, sorting and comparing numbers, families and the five senses, and so much more! This week is all about procedures, routines, and relationships, so we will have lots of fun while learning!

So here’s what we have planned for week 4 of kindergarten!

Kindergarten Lesson Plans

As always, you can download our weekly lesson plans by clicking on the image!

You can get our lesson plan templates here:

Kindergarten Lesson Plans For ABC BOOTCAMP

This week we’re continuing ABC BOOTCAMP! The fun, the cutting skills, and the growth that we have with ABC BOOTCAMP are what make it a must-do! This week, we’re doing S F V Z P. We’re once again following the order of our required district curriculum.

For each letter, we do a circle chart, which is explicit instruction in sounds and letters using a sounds-first approach. We do explicit handwriting instruction. We also make a hat to build phonemic awareness and vocabulary while practicing cutting skills.

For handwriting, I explicitly model how to form each letter, and students practice independently!

We also practice writing the letter during our morning message!

And, of course, we make our ABC BOOTCAMP hats! This week, we’re making a sock, a fire, a zipper, a vampire and a pumpkin!

Weekly Lesson Plans: Phonemic Awareness Bootcamp

This week we also continue Phonemic Awareness Bootcamp! Phonemic Awareness Bootcamp is all about hearing the sounds and the oral language. We start with sentences and work our day down to sounds in words, segmenting etc. This research-based resource is designed for each lesson to take about 10 minutes, and then we move to ABC BOOTCAMP, which has explicit phonics and combines sounds and letters. This week in Phonemic Awareness Bootcamp, we’re working on breaking sentences into words. We will be counting the words in sentences using our bodies and sticky notes.

Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Five Senses

This week we’re continuing our Five Senses Research Project! This is part of our required district curriculum, but we try to add our own spin to make it more fun and appropriate. We’re using our Five Senses Research project!

This week we’re reading My Five Senses by Aliki We’re doing an evidence organizer and some sensory jars!

The sensory jars are from our curriculum but the curriculum used maybe four or five pictures and they’re black and white. We love this activity so we made it way better and more engaging. We use real photographs and decide if we can use our sense for that item. Then we use describing words for that sense.

Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Families

This week our social studies unit is all about families! We’re learning about different families and sharing all about our families!

This week we’re sharing what our families like to do, where we live, how many people are in our families and talking about pets!

And we end the week making handprints! Why handprints? Because they’re unique just like us and our families! And they’re a simple and cute display for this week’s open house!

Weekly Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Sorting, Counting And Comparing

This week we’re continuing Number Bootcamp with numbers 13-17

This week our cucciulum has a five lesson “unit” on sorting. The idea is to sort objects, count how many objects are in each group and discuss which one has more or less. After doing this unit last week, I’ve decided to take the skills and standards and create a Math It Up! resource. Why? My kids struggled with aspects of this unit last year and I feel like we can teach it more effectively using more appropriate, explicit instruction and lessons. Stay tuned for the finished product and the results of our lessons!

Here’s what we have planned:

Day 1-breakfast sort. Students will pick a breakfast food from a bag and sort the foods. We will then count and compare how many of each we have. We will compare the groups and discuss how we sorted the food.

Day 2-junk sort- We will sort a bunch of objects by size, color, use, etc. We will count and compare the groups.

Day 3- Rainbow sort-we will sort objects by color. We will compare the groups. Students will then make their own rainbow sort by coloring pictures and gluing them to their rainbow!

Day 4 and Day 5 Would you rather! We will ask would you rather questions and students will sort themselves into the answers. We will count and compare each group!

Introducing Centers

This week, we are continuing to introduce and practice centers! We started with our literacy tubs, and this week, we will introduce the room and library to the students. I’ll introduce Write the Room to the students who I think are ready for it this week, and I’ll add additional students over the next few weeks. The library will be introduced to everyone.

Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Foodie Fun Friday

This week, we will be making popcorn! We use an air popper and let the popcorn spray all over the floor! I put down the paper and the popcorn flies! Kids love it! Then, we use our five senses to describe the popcorn!

Weekly Kindergarten Lesson Plans: Morning Meeting

This week our greeting will be a ball greeting. We greet one another and roll the ball to each other!

WEEKLY RESOURCES

Click below for the resources we are using in our classroom this week:

For more information, check out these posts:

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Year 4 Multiplication and Division (B) - Multiply by 100 Lesson

Subject: Mathematics

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

28 August 2024

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A fully resourced multiplication and division lesson for being able to multiply 1 and 2-digit numbers by 100 in Year 4 based on the objective from White Rose Maths.

Included in the resource is:

• A lesson PowerPoint with starter, vocabulary, modelling (with teacher notes) and guided practice
• Lesson plan
• Worksheet with answer sheet
• Scaffolded worksheet with answer sheet
• Modified worksheet for those who need additional changes to access the learning with answers
• Challenge tasks
• Support strips that can be stuck in books

Everything is included that could be needed to run the lesson successfully, with each resource carefully considered in ensuring accessibility for all as well as ensuring there are plenty of opportunities for challenge to provide depth of understanding.

Check out a free lesson in the sequence to get an idea of what is included. Using factor pairs for multiplying

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