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Creating Effective Lesson Plans: A Guide for Teachers

Lesson planning is the cornerstone of effective teaching, guiding educators in orchestrating engaging and purposeful student learning experiences. This article explores the art of crafting robust lesson plans, delving into why they are essential, strategies for different career stages, and examples that cater to novice and experienced teachers.

The Importance of Lesson Plans

Beginner level:, intermediate level:, experienced level:, new teacher, experienced teacher, frequently asked questions about lesson planning.

Lesson plans serve as a compass that guides teachers in delivering organized and meaningful instruction. They ensure that essential skills, learning objectives , and curriculum components are covered. Moreover, well-structured lesson plans make it seamless for relief teachers to take over the classroom if needed, maintaining instructional continuity.

Strategies for Crafting Lesson Plans

• Clear Objectives: Set specific learning objectives that align with curriculum goals. Identify what you want students to know, understand, and be able to do by the end of the lesson.
• Structured Format: Use a consistent format with sections like objectives, materials, introduction, activities, assessment, and closure.
• Engagement Strategies : Incorporate diverse instructional strategies to engage different learning styles, such as group discussions, visual aids, or hands-on activities.
• Differentiation: Tailor activities to cater to diverse student needs . Include extension tasks for advanced learners and additional support for struggling students.
• Assessment Strategies: Integrate formative assessments throughout the lesson to gauge student understanding. This can be quizzes, discussions, or group work.
• Technology Integration: Integrate technology tools that enhance learning experiences, such as interactive simulations or digital resources.
• Real-world Application: Design activities that relate to real-life scenarios, connecting classroom learning to practical situations.
• Student-Centered Approach: Foster student agency by incorporating opportunities for self-directed exploration and inquiry-based learning.
• Reflection and Adaptation: Incorporate a section for post-lesson reflection, where you analyze what went well and identify areas for improvement in future lessons.

Lesson Plan Examples

• Objective: Introduce students to basic fractions.
• Materials: Fraction manipulatives, whiteboard, markers.
• Introduction: Engage students with a relatable scenario involving pizza slices.
• Activities: Group work using fraction manipulatives to practice adding and subtracting fractions.
• Assessment: Quick quiz at the end of the class.
• Closure: Review key concepts and provide a preview of the next lesson.
• Objective: Analyze the impact of historical events on society.
• Materials: Primary source documents, multimedia resources.
• Introduction: Pose a thought-provoking question related to historical events.
• Activities: Small group discussions analyzing primary sources and creating presentations.
• Assessment: Peer review of presentations and individual reflections.
• Closure: Facilitate a class discussion on the broader implications of historical events.

Effective lesson planning is an art that evolves with experience. It ensures that teaching is purposeful, engaging, and aligned with educational goals. By tailoring lesson plans to your career stage and employing strategies that promote student engagement and understanding, educators can create impactful learning experiences that empower their students to succeed.

• Why is lesson planning important for teachers? Lesson planning provides a roadmap for teachers to organize their instruction, ensuring that learning objectives are met, curriculum requirements are covered, and students are engaged. It also facilitates smooth classroom management and allows for effective assessment of student progress.
• What should a well-structured lesson plan include? A comprehensive lesson plan typically includes clear learning objectives, a list of materials needed, an engaging introduction, interactive activities, assessment strategies, and a meaningful closure.
• How can lesson plans benefit substitute teachers? Well-crafted lesson plans make it easier for substitute teachers to seamlessly step into your role. Clear instructions, organized activities, and outlined objectives help substitute teachers maintain the learning flow in your absence.
• How can I make my lesson plans more engaging for students? Incorporate diverse instructional strategies, interactive activities, technology tools, and real-world applications to cater to various learning styles and make lessons more engaging.
• How can I ensure that students act on the feedback I provide? Encourage student self-assessment and reflection. Set specific goals for improvement based on your feedback, and revisit those goals periodically. Provide ongoing support and praise for their progress.
• Why should I share lesson plans with parents? Sharing lesson plans with parents fosters transparency and opens channels for meaningful conversations about their child’s learning. It helps parents understand the curriculum, learning objectives, and ways they can support their child at home.
• What is reflective teaching, and why is it important? Reflective teaching involves self-assessment and critical analysis of your instructional practices. It helps you identify strengths, areas for improvement, and adapt your teaching methods to better meet students’ needs.
• How can I make my reflections on teaching meaningful and regular? Set aside dedicated time for reflection, either daily or weekly. Use a journal or digital platform to record observations, successes, challenges, and strategies. Consider seeking feedback from peers or mentors to gain different perspectives.
• How can I effectively incorporate technology into my lesson plans? Integrate technology tools that enhance learning experiences, such as interactive simulations, multimedia presentations, and online resources. Ensure that technology supports the learning objectives and engages students.
• Can I use the same lesson plan format throughout my teaching career? While your basic lesson plan structure might remain consistent, adapting and refining your approach based on your experience and changing classroom needs is essential for continuous improvement.

Remember, lesson planning is an evolving process that grows with your teaching journey. By staying open to experimentation and incorporating feedback from both students and colleagues, you can refine your lesson planning skills and provide enriching educational experiences for your students.

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30 Lesson Plan Examples for Every Grade Level and Subject

Lots of ways to prepare for top-notch learning.

Lesson planning: Most teachers either love it or hate it. Either way, it’s something every teacher has to spend at least some time doing, so it’s worth learning to do well. Whether you’re a brand-new teacher or an experienced educator looking for some new ideas, these lesson plan examples offer inspiration for every subject and every grade level.

Lesson Plan Sections

Preschool lesson plan examples, elementary school lesson plan examples, middle and high school lesson plan examples.

Many lesson plans include some or all of the following sections.

• Objective : These should be specific and measurable. Often they align with Common Core or other learning standards.
• Materials: List any items you’ll need, including worksheets or handouts, school supplies, etc.
• Activities: This is usually the longest section, where you’ll lay out what the lesson and its activities look like. Some teachers write these in great detail. Others include just an overview to help them plan.
• Assessment : How will you assess your students’ learning? This could be a formal assessment or something simple like an exit ticket.
• Differentiation : Describe how you’ll vary the level of difficulty for students at all levels, including any enrichment for early finishers.

Some people think preschool is just playtime, but pre-K teachers know better! Here are some of the ways preschool teachers plan for their lessons.

Weekly Lesson Plan

Weekly preschool lesson planning helps you plan each day and ensure you’re tackling all the most important skills.

Learn more: Pre-K Weekly Lesson Plan

Pre-K Theme Lesson Plan

If you like to plan by theme, try a template like this. It includes space for a variety of activities that fit your topic.

Learn more: Pre-K Theme Lesson Plan

Alphabet Letter Lesson Plan

If you’re focusing on a new letter of the alphabet each week, try lesson planning like this. You can see the week at a glance, including all the materials and books you’ll need.

Learn more: Alphabet Letter Lesson Plan

Centers Lesson Plan

Your centers need some planning too! Whether you change them out weekly, monthly, or as needed, use plans like these to stay prepared.

Learn more: Centers Lesson Plan

Weekly Unit Lesson Plan

Adding pops of color and a few images can make it easier to locate the lesson plan you’re looking for in a snap.

Learn more: Weekly Weather Unit Lesson Plan

Since elementary teachers tackle multiple subjects every day, their lesson plans might look like a general overview. Or they may prepare more detailed lesson plans for each topic to help them stay on track. The choice is up to you.

Weekly Overview Lesson Plan

Don’t be afraid to write out your lesson plans by hand! A side-by-side setup like this lets you see a whole week at once. We love the use of color to highlight special things like fire drills.

Learn more: Elementary Weekly Overview Lesson Plan

Unit Lesson Plan

Planning out a unit helps ensure you cover all the important topics and meet your learning objectives.

Learn more: Unit Lesson Plan

Yearlong Schedule

Planning a whole year may seem daunting, but it can show you where you’re going to need to stretch a unit and where you can circle back and review. Mrs. D from Mrs. D’s Corner has ideas on how to structure a yearlong lesson plan using Google Sheets.

Guided Math Lesson Plan

This example on adding three numbers together can be altered to fit any math lesson plan.

Learn more: Guided Math Lesson Plan

Art Lesson Plan

While these are elementary art lesson plan examples, you can easily use this style for teaching art at upper levels too.

Learn more: Art Lesson Plans

Special Education Lesson Plans

Lesson planning for special education looks different than general classroom lessons in that the lessons have to cover specific IEP goals and include lots and lots of progress monitoring. The Bender Bunch starts each lesson with independent work (read: IEP practice) and then heads into mini-lessons and group work.

Learn more: Special Education Lesson Plan

Interactive Read-Aloud Plan

Interactive read-alouds take some careful planning. The Colorful Apple explains how to choose a book, get to know it, and get ready to teach it. Once you’re in the book, sticky notes may be the best lesson-planning tool you have for marking questions and vocabulary words you want to point out to students.

Learn more: Interactive Read-Aloud Plan

Social Studies Lesson Plan

Including images of your anchor charts is a great idea! That way, you can pull one out and have it ready to go in advance.

Learn more: Social Studies Lesson Plan

5E Lesson Plan for Elementary School

The 5Es stand for Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaborate, and Evaluate. This type of lesson planning can be helpful for students as they work through each of the 5Es related to the topic you’re studying.

Learn more: 5E Lesson Plan for Elementary Math

Science Lesson Plans

If you like to plan your lessons in more detail, take a look at this elementary science lesson plan example.

Learn more: Science Lesson Plan Template

Reading Group Lesson Plan

Lots of elementary schools have differentiated reading groups. Use a template like this one to plan for each one, all on one page.

P.E. Lesson Plan

Gym teachers will love this lesson plan idea, which includes directions for playing the games.

Learn more: PE Lesson Plan

Music Class Lesson Plan

Plan out the skills and songs you’ll need for a meaningful music class with a lesson plan like this one.

Learn more: Music Class Lesson Plan

At the middle and high school levels, teachers often need more detailed plans for each class, which they may teach multiple times a day. Here are some examples to try.

Google Sheets Lesson Plans

Google Sheets (or Excel) is terrific for lesson planning! Create a new tab for each week, unit, or class.

Learn more: Google Sheets Lesson Plan

Handwritten Lesson Plan

Some people really prefer to write things out by hand, highlighting important parts and making notes as they go. You can always convert this kind of plan to a digital format later if you need to.

Learn more: Handwritten Lesson Plan

Weekly History Plan

This example shows how you can plan out a week’s worth of lessons at once, and see the entire week all in one spot. This example is for history, but you could use this for math, ELA, or social studies too.

Learn more: Weekly History Plan

Outline and Pacing Guide Lesson Plan

A pacing guide or outline works for both you and your students. Share it at the beginning of a unit to let them know what’s ahead.

Learn more: Outline and Pacing Guide

5E Lessons in Middle and High School

5E lesson plans (Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaborate, Evaluate) are great for middle and high school as well. This example is for science, but you can use the 5E structure across all lessons.

Learn more: Middle and High School 5E Lesson Plans

Sticky-Note Lesson Plan

At some point, you’ll know what students are doing each day, you’ll just need some reminders for questions to ask and key points to cover. The nice thing about using sticky notes for lesson planning is if you get ahead or behind schedule, you can move the entire sticky-note lesson to another day. ( Find more ways to use sticky notes in the classroom here .)

Learn more: Sticky Note Lesson Plan

Backwards Planning Lesson Plan

If your school uses backwards planning, you’ll be thinking about the outcome first and working back from there (rather than forward from an activity or task). Backwards planning lesson plans are intensive, but they’re also something you can use over and over, modifying them slightly for each group of students you have.

Learn more: Backwards Planning Lesson Plan

Visual Arts Lesson Plan

Detailed lesson plans take longer to prepare, but they make it easier on the day (especially if you wind up needing a sub).

Learn more: Visual Arts Lesson Plan Template

ELL or World Language Lesson Plan

Whether you’re teaching English-language learners (ELL) or a world language to English speakers, this lesson plan style is perfect.

Learn more: ELL/World Language Lesson Plan

Music Lesson Plan

Use a lesson plan like this for choir, orchestra, band, or individual music lessons.

Learn more: HS Music Lesson Plan

Blended Learning Lesson Plan

If your instruction includes both computer-based and in-person elements, this lesson plan idea might be just what you need.

Learn more: Hot Lunch Tray

One-Sentence Lesson Plan

This kind of lesson planning isn’t for everyone, but the extreme simplicity works well for some. Describe what students will learn, how they will learn it, and how they’ll demonstrate their knowledge.

Learn more: One-Sentence Lesson Plan

Need more help with lesson planning? Come ask for ideas in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook !

Plus, check out ways to make time for more creativity in your lesson plans ..

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Lesson Plan Examples: Streamline Your Teaching Strategy

Creating an effective lesson plan is a challenge many teachers face.

This article provides a curated collection of lesson plan examples and techniques to streamline your teaching process, enhance student engagement, and improve learning outcomes without increasing your workload.

You'll explore essential elements of robust lesson plans, detailed examples for math, English, and science concepts, adaptable templates like the 5E format and Universal Design plans, as well as strategies to maximize lesson plan efficiency and engagement.

Introduction to Strategic Teaching with Lesson Plan Examples

Gain insights on how to streamline your teaching strategy with well-crafted lesson plan examples, covering their definition, components, and the benefits they offer to educators in various subjects.

Decoding Lesson Plans: A Prelude to Effective Teaching

Lesson plans are essential tools for teachers that outline the structure and content for a lesson. They serve as blueprints for delivering effective instruction to students by:

• Defining learning objectives and outcomes
• Sequencing activities and content
• Outlining teaching methods, strategies, and assessments

Following lesson plan examples tailored to your needs allows you to build engaging and productive lessons without having to start from scratch. These examples showcase best practices across subjects and grade levels, helping you:

• Streamline planning with pre-made templates
• Benchmark student progress goals
• Gain inspiration on activity ideas and teaching techniques

Whether you're planning a single 40-minute period or a month-long unit, lesson plans create consistency and direction. Detailed examples demonstrate how to turn curriculum guidelines into actionable classroom experiences for enhanced student outcomes.

Essential Elements of a Robust Lesson Plan Format

An excellent lesson plan contains several key components:

Learning Objectives: Define what students should know or be able to do by the end of the lesson. Align objectives to standards and grade-level expectations.

Instructional Materials: List resources, books, videos, presentation slides, etc. needed to support learning.

Lesson Structure: Break down activities in sequence, including instructional strategies and estimated durations.

Assessments: Describe checks for understanding used during and after the lesson. Include formative and summative assessment types.

Differentiation: Account for diverse learner needs by outlining differentiated activities, resources, assignments, etc.

Following a clear format allows you to deliver organized, thoughtful instruction. Referencing lesson plan examples helps you refine this structure for impactful delivery across subjects. The examples showcase how to balance lectures, discussions, technology integrations, and hands-on work.

What is a lesson plan example?

A lesson plan example is a premade template or sample that teachers can reference to help create effective lesson plans . These examples showcase the key components of a successful lesson plan, providing guidance on structure, learning objectives, assessments, and activities.

By examining lesson plan examples, teachers can gain insight into:

• How to organize the different elements of a lesson plan
• Best practices for writing clear learning objectives
• Ideas for engaging activities and assignments
• Tips for creating assessments that measure understanding
• Approaches for differentiation and accessibility

Whether you're looking for a basic outline or a fully fleshed-out plan, lesson plan examples help take the guesswork out of planning. They provide a useful framework teachers can customize to meet their specific needs. With the help of examples, designing high-quality lesson plans becomes more efficient.

Referencing established samples allows teachers to build on proven formulas rather than starting from scratch. Lesson plan examples offer inspiration, demonstrating creative ways to impart knowledge. At the same time, they provide helpful reminders about key components that lead to student understanding.

So if you feel stuck trying to map out learning units, lesson plan examples can get your creative juices flowing. Use them as a launch pad to develop original plans tailored to your students. With the foundation they provide, planning engaging, enriching lessons is within your reach.

What are the 5 major parts of a lesson plan?

A well-structured lesson plan is key to delivering an impactful learning experience. While formats may vary, most lesson plans include these 5 essential components:

Learning Objectives

Clearly defined learning objectives align teaching strategies with desired outcomes. They provide students a roadmap of skills and knowledge to be gained. Some best practices for writing objectives:

• Use active verbs like "identify", "interpret", "solve"
• Ensure they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound
• Limit to 3-5 key objectives per lesson

Instructional Materials

Align materials like slides, handouts, texts or tools to learning goals. Effective materials simplify complex ideas, spark discussion, and aid comprehension. Choose age-appropriate, engaging mediums that suit learning styles.

Teaching Strategies

Employ interactive, student-centered methods aligned to objectives like discussions, think-pair-share, gamification, stations, etc. Blend direct instruction with hands-on practice. Check for understanding frequently.

Assessment and Evaluation

Gauge mastery of skills and concepts through formative and summative assessments. Quizzes, exit tickets, Q&A sessions, projects etc. evaluate progress. Adjust instruction accordingly.

Reinforce key takeaways, tie concepts together holistically. Students summarize learnings, ask clarifying questions, or reflect on next steps. Closure activates neural pathways for retrieval and retention.

Using this lesson plan framework equips educators to deliver high-quality, goal-oriented learning experiences. With objectives guiding content and activities, optimal outcomes are within reach.

How do you write a basic lesson plan?

Writing an effective lesson plan is key to delivering an engaging and impactful learning experience. Here are the core steps to follow:

Set Clear Learning Objectives

Clearly define what students should know or be able to do by the end of the lesson. This gives focus and direction. For example, "Students will be able to identify the key events leading up to the American Revolution."

Outline Key Activities and Structure

Map out the flow of activities and lesson structure. Common components include the introduction, direct instruction, guided & independent practice, and closure.

Prepare Materials and Resources

Gather engaging materials to facilitate instruction and practice. This includes visual aids, worksheets, multimedia, etc.

Plan Assessments

Determine formative checks for understanding to gauge student learning and adjust teaching. Short knowledge checks and exit slips work well.

Allow Time for Review and Revision

Reflect on how to improve the lesson for next time. Update based on student feedback and performance data.

Following these steps allows teachers to create structured, purposeful, and engaging lesson plans. With some practice, it becomes second nature!

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What are the 5 steps in a lesson plan.

Creating an effective lesson plan is key to having a productive teaching session. Following a structured framework allows you to strategically plan out learning activities to achieve desired outcomes.

Here is an overview of the 5 key steps to develop a solid lesson plan:

Step 1: Define Learning Objectives

• Clearly outline what students should be able to know or do by the end of the lesson
• Set 1-3 focused, measurable and achievable goals

Step 2: Choose Instructional Materials

• Gather supporting resources related to learning goals
• Include textbooks, online articles, videos, props, etc.

Step 3: Structure Your Lesson

• Break down lesson plan into coherent sections
• Opening activity, instruction delivery, practice session, reflection

Step 4: Prepare Learning Activities

• Design meaningful tasks that align to objectives
• Discussion questions, worksheets, group projects, etc.

Step 5: Determine Assessment Method

• Consider how to gauge student understanding
• Short quiz, project presentation, Q&A session

Detailed Lesson Plan Examples for Enhanced Learning

Delve into comprehensive lesson plan examples across key academic subjects that are designed to foster student engagement and bolster learning outcomes.

Mastering Math: Sample Lesson Plans for Quantitative Concepts

Here are some effective sample math lesson plans that clearly explain mathematical theories and real-world applications:

Fractions lesson - Use pie charts and pizza slices to demonstrate fractions visually. Ask students to divide pizzas and label the fractions. Then have them solve word problems converting fractions. This interactive approach boosts comprehension.

Algebra lesson - Introduce algebraic expressions through a scavenger hunt. Provide cards with various terms like constants, coefficients, variables. Have students find real-world examples matching the terms. Then build on this foundation to simplify expressions.

Geometry lesson - Rather than lecturing about shapes, hand out straws and clay. Ask students to physically construct various geometric shapes collaboratively. Then have them calculate dimensions like circumference and area for deeper insights.

Navigating the Nuances of English with Lesson Plan Examples

Effective English lesson plans combine grammar, writing, and literary analysis. Some examples:

Parts of speech - Create colorful posters defining nouns, verbs, adjectives. Then have students categorize words from a story excerpt based on the parts of speech. This solidifies definitions through application.

Creative writing - Show pictures with imaginative scenarios like space travel. Ask thought-provoking questions to spark ideas. Have students outline short stories inspired by the visuals to boost creativity.

Novel study - Provide study guides with characters, plot summary and thematic analysis for assigned class novels. Use guided discussion sessions to analyze literary elements in passages. This facilitates deeper understanding of novels.

Exploring Scientific Curiosities: Science Lesson Plan Frameworks

Engaging lesson plans are crucial for science classes to encourage curiosity and analysis:

Ecosystems lesson - Have students create mini ecosystems in jars with soil, insects and plants. Then monitor the interactions for a month through observations and lab reports. This hands-on experiment reinforces concepts.

Physics lesson - Explore gravity through mini golf courses built by student teams, incorporating tubes, slopes and obstacles. Analyze effects of physics principles on ball trajectories to encourage innovative applications.

Astronomy lesson - Create online telescopes using free astronomy software Stellarium to guide students observing space objects like stars, planets and galaxies. Then have them generate reports summarizing astronomical phenomena witnessed first-hand.

Thoughtfully designed lesson plans like these examples help create engaging, enriching learning experiences across academic disciplines. They demonstrate how impactful teaching strategies can unlock student potential.

Adaptable Templates: The Backbone of Lesson Planning

Teachers know that high-quality lesson planning is crucial for effective teaching, but creating detailed plans from scratch is extremely time consuming. This is where adaptable lesson plan templates come in handy. These versatile templates provide the backbone of lesson development, allowing educators to customize materials for diverse learning objectives, subjects, and student needs. Let's explore two such highly flexible lesson plan formats.

The Versatile 5E Lesson Plan Format

The 5E instructional model offers an interactive, student-focused approach for structuring lesson plans across subjects and grade levels. This format helps students build on prior knowledge using hands-on exploration, explanation, application, and reflection exercises.

The 5 key phases of the 5E lesson plan are:

• Engage : Spark interest with an activity or question that taps into learners' existing knowledge and experiences. Eg: Brainstorming session, intriguing demonstration.
• Explore : Let students inquire further using supporting resources, allowing them to identify concepts on their own terms. Eg: Hands-on experiments, research tasks.
• Explain : Provide direct instruction to formally introduce new terms, facts, skills etc. Eg: Mini-lecture, class discussion.
• Elaborate : Apply and extend newly learned information through follow-up assignments. Eg: Additional practice problems, model building.
• Evaluate : Assess students' progress and have them reflect on their own learning. Eg: Exit slips, concept maps.

This versatile template offers endless customization options while keeping lessons focused and building on students' prior knowledge. By tying activities to the 5E components, teachers can easily develop cohesive, engaging science, math, reading or any other subject-based lesson sequence.

Inclusive Teaching with Universal Design Lesson Plans

The universal design for learning (UDL) framework removes barriers in lesson delivery, providing equal opportunities to learners with diverse needs and backgrounds. A UDL lesson plan incorporates flexible goals, methods, materials, and assessments to support this vision. Teachers can use this template to shape an inclusive curriculum that:

• Represents information in multiple formats like text, images, charts etc.
• Varies methods for student expression through projects, discussions, writing tasks etc.
• Taps into different motivations by connecting content to real-world issues.
• Adapts to individual pace and performance levels.

By integrating UDL guidelines, educators ensure lesson plans successfully reach all students regardless of learning style, language, culture, gender identity or ability. This reduces the need for individual accommodations down the line, streamlining planning in inclusive classrooms.

Whether you need to engage visual, auditory, reading/writing or kinesthetic learners, lesson plan templates like the 5E and UDL models offer customizable frameworks to develop dynamic lessons that work for your students. With the heavy lifting of curricular mapping and UDL compliance handled upfront, teachers can focus more on rich content creation and impactful delivery.

Lesson Plans for Teachers: Maximizing Efficiency and Engagement

Uncover strategic advice on employing lesson plan examples to reduce preparation time while maintaining high-quality, engaging teaching methods.

Cultivating a Repository of Sample Lesson Plans

Maintaining a personal library of lesson plan examples can be an invaluable asset for teachers looking to maximize efficiency. Rather than creating plans from scratch, educators can reference this repository as a starting point when developing curriculum.

Some key benefits of this approach include:

Saves time - Lesson planning can be extraordinarily time consuming. By leveraging pre-made plans, teachers avoid reinventing the wheel. This frees up time to focus on delivery and engagement.

Encourages idea sharing - Veteran teachers can share their plans to help novice educators. This promotes collaboration and continual improvement of resources.

Enables customization - Sample plans can be tailored to fit specific learning objectives, student needs, and classroom contexts. Teachers can easily make modifications.

Reduces stress - Having strong example plans eliminates anxiety over starting with a blank page. This is especially helpful when on tight deadlines.

When building your personal database of model lesson plan examples, focus on plans that clearly outline:

• Learning goals and objectives
• Classroom activities and structure
• Assessment strategies
• Opportunities for differentiation

Seek out plans that employ best practices around student engagement, use of technology, and evidence-based teaching methods.

By taking the time to curate a diverse mix of excellent lesson examples, educators can enter each new unit with confidence and a strategic vision.

Adaptive Strategies: Utilizing Backward Design with Existing Plans

The *backward design* process can help teachers adapt pre-made lesson plan examples to meet unique classroom objectives. This approach involves:

• Establishing desired learning outcomes
• Creating assessments to measure student mastery
• Designing engaging activities that equip learners to achieve goals

For example, a teacher might find an example plan focused on analyzing characterization in literature. However, their actual objective is to have students employ context clues.

Rather than abandoning the model plan, the educator can apply backward design:

• Outcome: Students will be able to use context clues to define unfamiliar vocabulary
• Assessment: Students will read a short story and complete a worksheet identifying context clues
• Activities: Modify existing reading activities and class discussion questions to focus on context clues

This enables easy customization of example Detailed lesson plan examples. Teachers can shape plans to current classroom needs rather than adhering strictly to a pre-made structure.

When paired with an extensive database of model plans, utilization of the backward design framework helps transform lesson planning from a burden into an efficient, focused process. Students ultimately benefit from highly-customized, goal-aligned learning experiences.

Crafting the Blueprint: Summary of Lesson Plan Crafting Techniques

Creating effective lesson plans is integral for teachers to maximize student learning. By utilizing the detailed lesson plan examples and templates covered in this article, educators can streamline their preparation process.

Key Takeaways

When crafting lesson plans, focus on:

• Defining clear objectives - What should students know or be able to do by the end of the lesson? Break down goals into measurable outcomes.
• Personalizing content - Adapt plans to suit diverse learning styles and abilities in your classroom.
• Structuring engaging activities - Design interactive components that grab student interest and reinforce comprehension.
• Optimizing pacing - Schedule appropriate timeframes for each segment to maintain momentum.
• Tracking assessment - Incorporate formative and summative testing to quantify progress.

With a research-backed framework in place, teachers can concentrate more energy on delivery, relationships, and providing individual support. Spend less time planning and more time inspiring your students' growth.

By leveraging quality lesson plan samples as a guide, educators can transform their classrooms into dynamic learning environments where students thrive.

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Guides & Templates

How to write a lesson plan in 5 simple steps: a recipe for success, craft effective lesson plans effortlessly. learn to set objectives, design activities, and use templates for engaging student learning. streamline your teaching today.

Teachers and tutors face unique challenges when addressing the needs of their students. They must engage them while maintaining rigor, challenge them while meeting their individual learning needs, and provide them with unique lessons that meet predetermined standards and objectives. It’s a tall order. 

So, how do educators write a lesson plan that does all of these things without occupying all of their time? They copy each other!

This article discusses five key steps in creating an effective lesson plan, guidelines for structuring a lesson plan, and resources and templates to help you write the most engaging activities for your students.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel whenever you write a lesson and teach effectively. You just need a reliable method and the right resources.

Before You Start: Planning for Lessons

Before writing a lesson plan, you must know your lesson's why, what, when, who, and how. What objectives are you measuring, and how will students show you what they understand? Who are the students who need to access this lesson? How are you going to deliver the lesson? And when do you anticipate the task will end?

To write a lesson that responds to these questions, you must focus on these essential curriculum components. 

• Set clear, measurable objectives
• Identify the appropriate teaching strategies
• Prepare necessary materials and resources
• Create a detailed timeline
• Include differentiated instructions
• Incorporate assessment methods

Have a rough idea of how you envision each component coming together, and list the objectives and core competencies students will demonstrate. Once you have your objective, you will build your lesson plan around it.  

Step 1: Define the Objective

You must have a clear learning objective before you even start to plan lessons. You can access standards through your State’s Department of Education, or another educational body, as a reference. Once you know what standards you want to address, you will write a learning objective for the lesson.

Some techniques to help you write a quality objective include the following:

• Make your objective SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-sensitive).
• Use action verbs like demonstrate, identify, argue, or explain.
• Make sure the objective is student-centered.
• Keep it concise (one sentence).

These examples show what a polished objective looks like.

By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to identify the main topic and two supporting details in a paragraph and share their written response with a partner. 

By the end of this lesson, the student will be able to correctly apply the order of operations to solve math problems that include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division by creating and responding to student-generated problems. 

• By the end of this lesson, the student will demonstrate their understanding of a monarch butterfly’s lifecycle by creating a diagram, or other creative representation, to illustrate each stage of a monarch’s life.

Each of these objectives is concise and follows the SMART outline. They are also broad enough to allow for differentiation. For example, a student with dysgraphia may decide to make a video or record a podcast about the lifecycle of a butterfly. 

Step 2: Design the Instructional Materials

Different components make up a comprehensive lesson plan. Once your objective is lined out, you must plan the activities and gather or create your instructional materials.

Instructional materials may include any of the following:

• Visual aids
• Handouts or shared files
• Learning technology: digital whiteboards, software, web resources
• Manipulatives 
• Supplemental reading or videos
• Supplies (utensils, glue, paint)

The learning supplies you choose will depend on the learning objective and the standards you want your students to demonstrate. Writing the objective first is essential in writing a lesson plan because it steers every following step. 

Step 3: Map the Lesson Activities

To maximize student learning and engagement, sequence your lesson’s activities so students have enough time to complete them but not so much time they become bored. Having a variety of activities throughout the lesson that call on different learning styles will help engage each student throughout the lesson. 

Pro tip: Break your lesson into four key sequences and determine the pacing or time you want to allow for each.

Generally, each lesson should include the following activities:

Opening/Bell Ringer

Get your students engaged with a brief activity to activate their brains and start thinking about what they will learn that day. A bell ringer activity could be a question that students respond to in a journal, a quick game or riddle, or a problem they solve with a partner. This activity should be short (5 minutes) and lead to the main activity of the lesson.

Instructions and Main Activity

After you wrap up your bell ringer, you will go over your lesson’s objective and give any instructions or background information for your main activity. Remember to differentiate your instruction and allow for several pathways to completion. You will also set any expectations and answer student questions. Your introduction and instructions shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.

Most of your time will be spent on the main activity of your lesson. The pacing will vary depending on the time needed to gather materials and clean up. If your lesson will take more than one day, allow enough time at the beginning and end of each session to allow for this. Your main activity should conclude with enough time to accommodate your formative assessment and lesson wrap-up.

Formative Assessment

This is where you check in with students to see what they understand from the lesson. It allows you to gauge where your students are with the material so you can determine your next course of action. Your options span a wide range of delivery methods and multimedia options. We will explain this more in the next step.

Before having students move on from a lesson, allow 2-3 minutes to reflect at the end of the task. This could be done with another journal entry or a quick survey at the end of the lesson.

Step 4: Determine Formative Assessment Method

Finding creative, student-centered ways for students to demonstrate their learning is vital to engagement and inclusion, so don’t breeze over this with a worksheet or written quiz. At the end of a unit, you will then have a more formal summative assessment.

Some formative assessment options include the following:

• Note Catchers
• Illustrate an Important Scene
• Think-Pair-Share
• Write a letter to…
• Teach it to the class (or a partner)
• Interactive game
• One minute essay

Deciding which formative assessment to use comes down to understanding your students and how they engage best with a subject based on their age, interest level, and learning styles. 

Pro tip: Avoid falling into the trap of using the same type of formative assessment for every lesson. While it may be easier to get into a routine and stick with it, students will be more engaged with variety. It also allows different strengths to shine through. 

Step 5: Review and Revise

Reviewing and revising a lesson plan before and after you implement it is essential. You want to ensure that it is clear enough for a substitute teacher to follow without your help. It should also explain where to access all materials and resources for future reference.

Have a colleague or instructional coach review your lesson plan and provide brief feedback to get started. You can return the favor to a colleague and improve both lesson plans. You can also ask a colleague or coach to sit in on the lesson and make observations. Note any hiccups when you deliver the lesson and revise the lesson plan based on what you learned. It may seem time-consuming now, but you can use it again and share it with other teachers, saving much time in the long run.

Lesson Plan Templates and Resources

If you are pressed for time and don’t want to write an entire lesson plan from scratch, you can use several helpful teaching websites with templates and complete lesson plans. While many of these sites require membership to access all resources, they have been vetted and used by real teachers. 

Edraw is a graphic diagramming and mind-mapping software with free templates you can download and share. This could work with helping write a lesson plan or creating visual supports and presentations for a lesson. Find their lesson plan template here . 

Teachers Pay Teachers

Teacher Pay Teachers is a one-stop shop for all things lesson planning. Resources, lesson plans, and templates are created and used by teachers, which they then share through the platform. It is an excellent resource for teachers and tutors, and you can make extra money sharing your lessons and templates with other educators.

You can find this lesson plan template here .

Study.com uses standard lesson plan formats to create templates teachers can use in their classrooms. Their templates include standards, objectives, materials, activities, and extensions. While you will need to create an account to gain access to all of their templates and resources, there is a wealth of time-saving resources available.

Teachers and tutors do not have to sacrifice all of their free time to write engaging lesson plans. With helpful resources, tips, and templates, the task is easier to complete, and you will start to build your own library of lesson plans to choose from. 

Following the five essential steps to write an engaging lesson plan and utilizing teacher-vetted resources is the best way to create lessons loved by students with a little more time and your sanity intact. 

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How to Write an Engaging Lesson Plan (Plus a Printable Lesson Plan Template)

Written by Jeanne Sager

Wondering how to write a lesson plan that will set you and your students up for success? It’s an important skill for teachers, and in many school it’s even mandatory. But sitting down to write your own lesson plan can feel a whole lot different when you’re the sole classroom teacher than it may have back in the days of student teaching. Where do you even start? How do you create a lesson plan that’s going to engage your students and drive inquiry-based instruction? Does your plan need an objective? Are there lesson plan examples that you can follow?

Hold on! Take a breath!

The Teach Starter team (they’re the ones who create the resources teachers depend on for their lesson planning!) is made up completely of teachers who have been (or currently are) in your shoes. We know what it’s like to work in districts where planning time is minimal or non-existent, and we know just how challenging it can be to find the time to create a lesson plan. That’s why we’ve put together some of our team’s best tips for writing lesson plans that allow you to work smarter, not harder!

Wondering if you should use a lesson plan template? Looking for tips to make lesson planning less cumbersome and more useful? And for that matter, are you caught up wondering how you write a lesson plan that is aligned with standards and district curriculum expectations while also engaging your students and getting them excited about the subject matter?

We’ve covered all of that! Read on for tips from our teacher team to help you create lesson plans your administrators will love. Best of all, these are plans you’ll be able to use again and again to launch your students’ learning journeys.

What Is a Lesson Plan?

What should a lesson plan include, how to write a lesson plan more easily, lesson plan examples to borrow from, how far ahead should you plan lessons, how long should it take to make a lesson plan, the bottom line.

This may seem a little obvious, but please bear with us here. Thinking about what a lesson plan actually is an important part of reframing the process. We’ve seen more than a few new teachers who are feeling stressed out about making a lesson plan, only to realize they’re overcomplicating things.

A lesson plan is essentially a road map for a particular lesson that includes what to teach, how to teach it and what learning outcomes you aim to achieve. A good plan will help you stay organized and provide a structure for your instruction for a specific class or topic.

Every lesson plan looks different, just as every teacher and lesson is different. It’s important to note that some districts may have specific requirements for lesson plans that are more or less detailed. 

With all that said,  a basic lesson plan that you can use in the classroom outlines the lesson and provides an overview of how you will teach the topic. If an administrator or another experienced teacher were to look at the lesson plan, they should be able to pick it up and move forward with teaching your students based on that plan. 

A good lesson plan might include the following:

• An objective for the lesson 
• Time requirements for each aspect of the lesson
• Specific activities that will be done
• Materials that will be used
• How the lesson will be differentiated 
• The method in which you will assess students’ progress
• Standards that the lesson will address

Determine Your Objectives

Is this lesson meant to introduce new material, or will you be reviewing concepts already introduced? Identifying your objectives up front can help the writing flow.

Use a Lesson Plan Template

Every day, millions of lessons are going on in schools across the US, and every one of those teachers has had to write a lesson plan. You do not have to reinvent the wheel! Borrow from lesson plan templates that can shape your lesson planning.

Work With Your Grade Level Team

Speaking of not reinventing the wheel … the majority of districts have more than one teacher assigned to each grade level, and you’re likely focused on the same subjects too. Turn to your grade-level team — especially any teachers with more tenure in the classroom — to see if there are lesson plan examples or elements that you can share instead of starting from scratch every time.

Consider Prior Knowledge

We talk to students about activating prior knowledge all the time, and it’s important to keep in mind as you write a lesson plan. Consider what you’ve already taught and how to take students to the next step, building on their learning.

Print a rainbow teacher planner to keep your classroom on track!

Break Things Down by Time

There may be days when you find yourself looking at your blank lesson plan template with the teacher’s version of writer’s block. You’re far from alone!

In times like these, think about how much time you’ve allotted for the lesson, and reverse engineer your lesson. Let’s say your lesson hook will take you 10 minutes, and you’re planning to have students work in pairs for 10 minutes and so on … you’ve already got 20 minutes of the lesson plan complete!

Think About How Your Students Learn

Crafting a lesson plan that can be differentiated to reach every student means considering all the ways the individuals in your class learn best. Are they auditory, visual, or kinesthetic learners? Can you pair students off or create small groups, or do you have students who do best while working on their own? Also, keep students’ IEPs in mind while writing your lesson plan.

Use Teacher-Created Resources

We promise this isn’t cheating! Our teacher team has created thousands of resources — including interactive activities, unit and lesson plans, educational games and more — that can be accessed with a single subscription .

Knowing you already have resources that are aligned with the curriculum can save you significant time as you lesson plan.

Create a Lesson Ideas Parking Lot

You may have one day of the week set aside for lesson planning, but if you’re anything like us, your ideas for lessons come at the most random moments. Don’t lose those ideas; park them!

You can jot your ideas down on sticky notes that you stick to a corkboard, add them to a notes app on your phone or even record voice memos to yourself. Whatever the method is that works best for you, use these parked ideas when it’s time to plan your lessons!

Go Macro Before You Go Micro

Do you have a lot of ideas but struggle with planning individual lessons? It may be helpful to start with a broad look at the topic and skills you need to address.

From there, you can list the resources you plan to use, any activities you want to include and so on. Once you have everything listed, start pulling the pieces together to form individual lessons.

Start With a Unit Plan and Work Backward

It’s an ambitious undertaking, but you may consider creating an entire unit plan. This is similar to the lesson planning strategy above, as you can look at the big picture before breaking it down into chunks.

Sometimes, things just do not go as planned. The lesson you thought would be a hit left students scratching their heads, and you need to revisit the material to help your learners move forward. Don’t look at this as a failure of your lesson plan but a good learning opportunity for you about how your students learn and how you can adapt your planning to meet them where they are.

In addition to the template above that maps out a lesson plan for you, we realize it can be helpful to look at some examples of what teachers include in their lesson plans. So we asked teachers to share their plans!

Here are some examples that stood out for us. Feel free to explore the whole list and choose elements that are right for you.

Example One

• Learning objective
• Whole group work
• Formative assessment
• Small group work
• Independent work

Need simple formative assessments? Check out our teacher team’s favorite exit tickets !

Example Two

• Do now activity
• Activities built in to gain skills toward their main task
• Main task including success criteria

Example Three

• Prior learning
• Materials and resources
• Procedures and activities

How far ahead you should plan your lessons will depend on a few factors, including the requirements in your district and your personal planning style. Lesson plans can be designed to cover just one day’s lessons or even a week’s lessons. You may also decide that your lesson plan should cover an entire unit or a specific content area.

What kind of lesson plan you’re writing will likewise dictate how far in advance it needs to be drafted. After all, you can’t create a weekly lesson plan when half the week has already gone by!

While there is no hard and fast rule regarding how long it should take to make a lesson plan, it’s important to know that most teachers get faster as they become more familiar with the process. If there is a textbook or other adopted curricular materials to work from, that can help make lesson planning go faster. Then again, if there’s no clear sequence or pacing guide, remember to give yourself grace if lesson planning takes longer than you’d hoped it would

Something to keep in mind — when you sit down to write a lesson plan, you don’t need to write a book! An effective weekly lesson plan can easily be just one page or maybe two, split into different sections. You might also keep your curriculum map in your lesson plan binder so you can refer back, but your lesson plan doesn’t need to repeat that information. That’s what the map is there for!

The goal is to create a road map for yourself that’s concise and easy to refer to as needed. Remember — if you have to stop to peek at your lesson plan at any point, you won’t have time to read a novel — you’ll want that information to jump right out at you.

Writing a lesson plan may seem daunting at first, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. Until then, don’t be afraid to use a lesson plan template to help get things started.

See our favorite lesson plan templates and more teacher tools created by expert teachers !

Banner image via shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

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• Creating Lesson Plans

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

Last Updated: April 7, 2024 Fact Checked

Constructing a Lesson Plan

Adjusting your lesson plans efficiently, presenting the lesson, sample lesson plans, 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 3,847,303 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

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• ↑ 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/

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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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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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How To Write A Lesson Plan in 6 Easy Steps

Written by Victoria Hegwood

• Teaching Strategies

• 6 Steps to building an effective lesson plan
• Step 1: Identify your learning objectives
• Step 2: Work with your grade level team
• Step 3: Design your learning activities & content
• Step 4: Determine how you will assess knowledge
• Step 5: Adapt & modify according to students’ needs
• Step 6: Review & edit
• The importance of a high-quality lesson plan
• Frequently asked questions

Everybody knows that just about everything in life goes better when you have a plan. And, of course, the classroom is no exception. 

An effective lesson plan is a fundamental aspect of successful teaching, enhancing the learning experience for students of all levels.

While there are many methods to use when making a lesson plan, this article will outline six straightforward steps for developing engaging and purposeful lesson plans. If you’re looking to promote student learning and equip your students with the best tools to succeed, read on!

These six steps provide a foundation for building a great lesson plan. As you get more familiar with the six steps, you may find that you tweak them to better serve your students. But here are the fundamentals to start with.

The first step in any lesson plan is to identify the end goal. You will want to identify clear and measurable learning objectives so that your learning plan is very focused. 

Clear objectives state exactly what you want your students to achieve by the end of the lesson.

After identifying these objectives, you should double-check that they are both aligned with curriculum standards and appropriate for the students' grade level. 

Finally, you should make sure that there are ways to make achieving the objectives fun and engaging. 

The next step in building a good lesson plan is to collaborate with your grade level team to ensure that everyone is on the same page with their teaching strategies , materials, and assessment methods.

By collaborating with other teachers, everyone can share insights on effective teaching practices and exchange ideas to improve the overall educational experience for students.

You may even discover ways to coordinate your lesson plans with colleagues and lessen the workload for everyone. And by sharing worksheets or other materials, students across different classrooms will receive the same educational experience. 

The third step is to develop a well-structured outline for your lesson that encompasses an introduction, instruction, practice and assessment components .

You should also make sure to organize the content in a way that makes the most sense to students. It should be easy to follow and be presented in a clear way.

Next comes choosing an engaging and relevant learning activity . Ideally, this activity will cater to various learning styles and capture your students’ interest. By keeping them engaged in the lesson, this activity will create a better learning experience.

While we most often think of tests as the way that we assess students’ knowledge, there are lots of other options for assessing learning. Depending on your learning objectives and teaching styles, you may use quizzes, discussions, or projects as assessment tools. 

It should be clearly specified when and how these assessments will be administered. You could choose to do it during the lesson or at the end of the lesson.

It is incredibly important to ensure that your assessments not only focus on rote memorization but also deeper comprehension and critical thinking skills.

Tip: Consider using game-based platforms like Prodigy Math to deliver assessments that help take the anxiety out of testing in your students.

While it’s important to spend time before a lesson prepping and preparing, it’s just as important to be flexible and willing to adjust on the fly. While teaching your lesson, you should continuously monitor students' understanding and engagement during the lesson. 

If you notice that they don’t seem to be getting a concept, spend a little more time on it. If they all seem to be bored with an activity quicker than you thought they would be, just move on to the next thing. 

Have a plan to differentiate your instruction to accommodate the different learning styles and abilities in your classroom. 

The best lesson plan will have adaptations to maximize each students’ learning experience. Consider the various teaching styles, like game-based learning , that may hold your students’ interest while teaching them effectively.

Even if you thought that you made the best lesson plan possible, there are likely some points that you will see could be improved at the end of the school day. 

Take time after teaching a lesson to reflect on what worked well and what didn’t go as great. Make notes and tweaks while everything is fresh in your mind. 

If you teach the same grade each year, store the lesson plan (and its improvements) away for the next year. Or share it and what you learned with your fellow teachers for feedback and collaboration. 

The value of a high-quality lesson plan can’t be overstated. 

High-quality lesson plans ensure that the key components of what you want your students to learn are emphasized. By focusing your efforts, students will make measurable progress in their understanding of the material.

Effective lesson plans also offer engaging activities and strategies that capture students' attention and maintain their focus throughout the lesson. The last thing you want is students thinking about lunch or their after-school activities during the math lesson!

Additionally, well-planned lessons prevent wasted time in the classroom. With a clear structure, teachers can maximize class time and cover more content in the limited time that they get with students. 

Particularly in high school, where the subject matter becomes more complex, a high-quality lesson plan is even more important. It ensures that students receive a well-rounded education and the opportunity to grasp the main points of each lesson, supporting their overall academic success.

Lesson Plan FAQs

Can i use lesson plan templates to build my lesson plans.

Yes, lesson plan templates can be a great tool to structure your lessons effectively. Templates provide a framework for organizing your weekly lesson objectives, activities, and time frame.

Templates help maintain consistency. If you plan to be gone for some reason, a template can make it easier for substitute teachers to follow the plan. 

You can also personalize templates to suit your learners' needs and tailor the lesson to their prior knowledge and abilities.

Here are some free lesson plan templates to get you started!

How can I adapt my lesson plan to accommodate different learning styles and abilities?

You should consider employing various teaching strategies to address diverse learning styles, such as visual aids, worksheets, and hands-on activities. Not every student learns the same way, so we shouldn’t teach every student the same way.

If you aren’t sure where your students are at or how the lesson may need to be tweaked for them, consider giving a formative assessment . This could be a quiz and discussion that gauges student understanding and lets you know how to adjust your teaching approach.

What are the 5 parts of a lesson plan?

A lesson plan typically consists of an introduction, instruction, guided practice, independent practice and a conclusion .

Letting these 5 parts guide your structure ensures that essential content is covered while maintaining a balanced flow of activities throughout the class time.

How should I measure my student’s academic success?

Student learning can be measured through formative assessments , which occur during the lesson, and summative assessments , which evaluate learning at the end of the lesson or unit.

These assessments can take various forms, such as quizzes, handouts, and assignments. Whatever method you choose will help you gauge student understanding and guide your instruction.

How can I make my lesson plans more interactive and student-centered?

The ability to craft a fantastic lesson plan is essential for every teacher, but it can take time and practice to hone this skill. However, armed with the knowledge and steps from this article, you’ll be creating engaging and effective lesson plans in no time. Keep the end goal and your students in mind and your lesson plans will be amazing!

If you’re looking to add more engaging activities to your lesson plan, Prodigy is a great option. Prodigy works on math and English skills that are right on par with curriculum and grade standards – all while being lots of fun. 

The intuitive algorithms adjust the content to meet your students exactly where they are and give them extra practice in areas where they need it. It’s easy to see how each student is performing through the teacher dashboard and its reports.

And best of all, teachers and schools get access to Prodigy at no cost!

See how it works below!

Make learning fun, adaptive and insightful

There's no cost to you or your students and Prodigy is fully aligned with state standards for grades 1-8 math and grades 1-6 English.

Other Lesson Plan Resources

See our other lesson plan resources below:

• 1st Grade Lesson Plan: “More” and “Less”
• 2nd Grade Lesson Plan: Number Patterns and Skip Counting
• 3rd Grade Lesson Plan: Borrowing in Subtractio n
• 4th Grade Lesson Plan: Calculating Perimeter, Area, and Volume
• 5th Grade Lesson Plan: Mental Multiplication
• 6th Grade Lesson Plan: All About Quadrilaterals
• 7th Grade Lesson Plan: Angle Hunt and Classroom Design
• 8th Grade Lesson Plan: Understanding Sampling Techniques
• English Lesson Plans
• Reading Lesson Plans

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How to develop an effective lesson plan

Developing an effective lesson plan is a fundamental skill for teachers, serving as a compass guiding the teaching journey. In education, where structure meets creativity, a well-thought-out lesson plan is the key to unlocking meaningful learning experiences. This blog explores the art and science of creating lesson plans that transcend the ordinary, offering a roadmap for teachers to navigate the complexities of the classroom. From setting clear objectives to incorporating engaging activities and fostering adaptability, we delve into the essential elements that make lesson planning an art form. As we journey through the process, we'll uncover strategies for resource management, time allocation, and aligning assessments with instructional goals. Join us in exploring pedagogical craftsmanship, where the blueprint for effective teaching unfolds, providing educators with the tools to inspire and empower their students. Whether you're a seasoned educator or just starting your teaching adventure, this blog is your guide to mastering the intricacies of crafting lesson plans that resonate with learners and elevate the teaching experience. Want to find the easiest way to create a lesson plan for any lesson in your curriculum? Click here and start using g BrightClass.

1. Lesson Title

The lesson title serves as a concise overview of the topic or concept. It should be clear and engaging and indicate the lesson's content. A well-crafted title captures students' attention and provides a framework for the lesson's purpose.

2. Learning Objectives

Clearly defined learning objectives articulate what students are expected to know, understand, or be able to do by the end of the lesson. These objectives should employ measurable verbs, such as "analyse," "evaluate," or "solve," ensuring that educators can assess students' mastery of the material. Well-formulated learning objectives guide instructional design and help focus on the essential aspects of the lesson.

3. Materials

Listing necessary materials is crucial for effective lesson implementation. This includes textbooks, handouts, technology tools, and other activity resources. Materials should align with the learning objectives, support diverse learning styles, and cater to the overall engagement of students. Adequate preparation of materials ensures a smooth lesson flow and minimizes disruptions.

4. Introduction

Developing an effective lesson plan hinges on a well-structured introduction that sets the tone for the entire session. The initial 5-10 minutes are critical in engaging students and establishing clear learning objectives.

Engagement:

To captivate students from the outset, employ diverse engagement strategies. Real-world examples, thought-provoking questions, or interactive demonstrations immediately connect the lesson and students' everyday experiences. By tapping into their curiosity and sparking interest, educators lay the groundwork for an attentive and receptive learning environment.

Objectives:

Clearly articulating learning objectives is essential for providing students with a roadmap for the lesson. These objectives should be succinct, specific, and measurable, conveying precisely what students are expected to achieve. By transparently communicating the lesson's goals, educators provide a sense of purpose, enabling students to understand the relevance of the content. This clarity focuses students' attention and facilitates self-assessment as they progress through the lesson.

5. Main Activities

Developing the main activities segment of an effective lesson plan requires meticulous planning and a commitment to diverse instructional strategies.

Detailed Procedures:

Within the 30-40 minute timeframe, provide a detailed, step-by-step breakdown of the main activities. This involves clear instructions for each lesson segment, ensuring seamless transitions between activities. Educators facilitate understanding and maintain a structured learning environment by breaking down complex concepts into manageable chunks.

Varied Activities:

To cater to students' diverse learning styles, incorporate various teaching methods. Utilize hands-on activities, group work, class discussions, and technology-based tools. This variety caters to different preferences and ensures the lesson remains dynamic and engaging. Educators enhance comprehension and retention by appealing to multiple senses and learning modalities.

Differentiation:

Recognizing and accommodating diverse learning needs is paramount. Differentiation involves supporting struggling learners and offering extension activities for those who grasp concepts quickly. Scaffolding, additional resources, and targeted interventions create an inclusive environment where students can succeed at their own pace. This proactive approach acknowledges the individuality of learners and promotes an equitable learning experience.

6. Closure:

Developing an effective closure for a lesson plan is vital in consolidating learning and ensuring that students leave with a clear understanding of the key concepts.

In the final 5-10 minutes, a concise review of the key points and concepts reinforces the learning objectives. By summarizing the main ideas, educators help solidify the information in students' minds. This reflective process aids in connecting the dots between various components of the lesson, promoting a holistic understanding.

Assessment:

To gauge student comprehension, incorporate a brief assessment during the closure phase. Exit tickets, quick quizzes, or informal questioning provide valuable insights into whether the learning objectives have been met. This immediate feedback informs educators and students about the effectiveness of the lesson, allowing for adjustments in future instruction.

Assigning relevant homework that aligns with the lesson's content ensures continuity beyond the classroom. Reading is a valuable reinforcement tool, allowing students to practice and apply newly acquired knowledge. Carefully crafted homework assignments should be manageable, purposeful, and directly linked to the learning objectives, extending the learning experience beyond the classroom walls.

Wrapping Up

Effective lesson plans are a nuanced blend of pedagogical artistry and strategic planning. This blog has illuminated the crucial elements essential for creating impactful lessons. The lesson title acts as a beacon, offering clarity and purpose, while precise learning objectives serve as a guiding roadmap for educators and students. Materials thoughtfully chosen and aligned with objectives are pivotal in facilitating engagement. The structured introduction engages students and communicates goals transparently, setting the stage for learning. The main activities segment emphasises meticulous planning, varied instructional strategies, and differentiation to meet diverse learning needs. This approach ensures an inclusive learning environment. The closure phase solidifies key concepts, assesses understanding, and extends learning through purposeful homework assignments. By implementing these strategies, educators navigate the complexities of the classroom, fostering an environment where meaningful learning experiences inspire and empower both teachers and students. This blog serves as a concise yet comprehensive guide for educators, regardless of their experience level, in creating lesson plans that make a lasting impact.

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Teaching Methods and Strategies: The Complete Guide

You’ve completed your coursework. Student teaching has ended. You’ve donned the cap and gown, crossed the stage, smiled with your diploma and went home to fill out application after application.

Suddenly you are standing in what will be your classroom for the next year and after the excitement of decorating it wears off and you begin lesson planning, you start to notice all of your lessons are executed the same way, just with different material. But that is what you know and what you’ve been taught, so you go with it.

After a while, your students are bored, and so are you. There must be something wrong because this isn’t what you envisioned teaching to be like. There is.

Figuring out the best ways you can deliver information to students can sometimes be even harder than what students go through in discovering how they learn best. The reason is because every single teacher needs a variety of different teaching methods in their theoretical teaching bag to pull from depending on the lesson, the students, and things as seemingly minute as the time the class is and the subject.

Using these different teaching methods, which are rooted in theory of different teaching styles, will not only help teachers reach their full potential, but more importantly engage, motivate and reach the students in their classes, whether in person or online.

Teaching Methods

Teaching methods, or methodology, is a narrower topic because it’s founded in theories and educational psychology. If you have a degree in teaching, you most likely have heard of names like Skinner, Vygotsky , Gardner, Piaget , and Bloom . If their names don’t ring a bell, you should definitely recognize their theories that have become teaching methods. The following are the most common teaching theories.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism is the theory that every learner is essentially a “clean slate” to start off and shaped by emotions. People react to stimuli, reactions as well as positive and negative reinforcement, the site states.

Learning Theories names the most popular theorists who ascribed to this theory were Ivan Pavlov, who many people may know with his experiments with dogs. He performed an experiment with dogs that when he rang a bell, the dogs responded to the stimuli; then he applied the idea to humans.

Other popular educational theorists who were part of behaviorism was B.F. Skinner and Albert Bandura .

Social Cognitive Theory

Social Cognitive Theory is typically spoken about at the early childhood level because it has to do with critical thinking with the biggest concept being the idea of play, according to Edwin Peel writing for Encyclopedia Britannica . Though Bandura and Lev Vygotsky also contributed to cognitive theory, according to Dr. Norman Herr with California State University , the most popular and first theorist of cognitivism is Piaget.

There are four stages to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development that he created in 1918. Each stage correlates with a child’s development from infancy to their teenage years.

The first stage is called the Sensorimotor Stage which occurs from birth to 18 months. The reason this is considered cognitive development is because the brain is literally growing through exploration, like squeaking horns, discovering themselves in mirrors or spinning things that click on their floor mats or walkers; creating habits like sleeping with a certain blanket; having reflexes like rubbing their eyes when tired or thumb sucking; and beginning to decipher vocal tones.

The second stage, or the Preoperational Stage, occurs from ages 2 to 7 when toddlers begin to understand and correlate symbols around them, ask a lot of questions, and start forming sentences and conversations, but they haven’t developed perspective yet so empathy does not quite exist yet, the website states. This is the stage when children tend to blurt out honest statements, usually embarrassing their parents, because they don’t understand censoring themselves either.

From ages 7 to 11, children are beginning to problem solve, can have conversations about things they are interested in, are more aware of logic and develop empathy during the Concrete Operational Stage.

The final stage, called the Formal Operational Stage, though by definition ends at age 16, can continue beyond. It involves deeper thinking and abstract thoughts as well as questioning not only what things are but why the way they are is popular, the site states. Many times people entering new stages of their lives like high school, college, or even marriage go through elements of Piaget’s theory, which is why the strategies that come from this method are applicable across all levels of education.

The Multiple Intelligences Theory

The Multiple Intelligences Theory states that people don’t need to be smart in every single discipline to be considered intelligent on paper tests, but that people excel in various disciplines, making them exceptional.

Created in 1983, the former principal in the Scranton School District in Scranton, PA, created eight different intelligences, though since then two others have been debated of whether to be added but have not yet officially, according to the site.

The original eight are musical, spatial, linguistic, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic and most people have a predominant intelligence followed by others. For those who are musically-inclined either via instruments, vocals, has perfect pitch, can read sheet music or can easily create music has Musical Intelligence.

Being able to see something and rearrange it or imagine it differently is Spatial Intelligence, while being talented with language, writing or avid readers have Linguistic Intelligence. Kinesthetic Intelligence refers to understanding how the body works either anatomically or athletically and Naturalistic Intelligence is having an understanding of nature and elements of the ecosystem.

The final intelligences have to do with personal interactions. Intrapersonal Intelligence is a matter of knowing oneself, one’s limits, and their inner selves while Interpersonal Intelligence is knowing how to handle a variety of other people without conflict or knowing how to resolve it, the site states. There is still an elementary school in Scranton, PA named after their once-principal.

Constructivism

Constructivism is another theory created by Piaget which is used as a foundation for many other educational theories and strategies because constructivism is focused on how people learn. Piaget states in this theory that people learn from their experiences. They learn best through active learning , connect it to their prior knowledge and then digest this information their own way. This theory has created the ideas of student-centered learning in education versus teacher-centered learning.

Universal Design for Learning

The final method is the Universal Design for Learning which has redefined the educational community since its inception in the mid-1980s by David H. Rose. This theory focuses on how teachers need to design their curriculum for their students. This theory really gained traction in the United States in 2004 when it was presented at an international conference and he explained that this theory is based on neuroscience and how the brain processes information, perform tasks and get excited about education.

The theory, known as UDL, advocates for presenting information in multiple ways to enable a variety of learners to understand the information; presenting multiple assessments for students to show what they have learned; and learn and utilize a student’s own interests to motivate them to learn, the site states. This theory also discussed incorporating technology in the classroom and ways to educate students in the digital age.

Teaching Styles

From each of the educational theories, teachers extract and develop a plethora of different teaching styles, or strategies. Instructors must have a large and varied arsenal of strategies to use weekly and even daily in order to build rapport, keep students engaged and even keep instructors from getting bored with their own material. These can be applicable to all teaching levels, but adaptations must be made based on the student’s age and level of development.

Differentiated instruction is one of the most popular teaching strategies, which means that teachers adjust the curriculum for a lesson, unit or even entire term in a way that engages all learners in various ways, according to Chapter 2 of the book Instructional Process and Concepts in Theory and Practice by Celal Akdeniz . This means changing one’s teaching styles constantly to fit not only the material but more importantly, the students based on their learning styles.

Learning styles are the ways in which students learn best. The most popular types are visual, audio, kinesthetic and read/write , though others include global as another type of learner, according to Akdeniz . For some, they may seem self-explanatory. Visual learners learn best by watching the instruction or a demonstration; audio learners need to hear a lesson; kinesthetic learners learn by doing, or are hands-on learners; read/write learners to best by reading textbooks and writing notes; and global learners need material to be applied to their real lives, according to The Library of Congress .

There are many activities available to instructors that enable their students to find out what kind of learner they are. Typically students have a main style with a close runner-up, which enables them to learn best a certain way but they can also learn material in an additional way.

When an instructor knows their students and what types of learners are in their classroom, instructors are able to then differentiate their instruction and assignments to those learning types, according to Akdeniz and The Library of Congress. Learn more about different learning styles.

When teaching new material to any type of learner, is it important to utilize a strategy called scaffolding . Scaffolding is based on a student’s prior knowledge and building a lesson, unit or course from the most foundational pieces and with each step make the information more complicated, according to an article by Jerry Webster .

To scaffold well, a teacher must take a personal interest in their students to learn not only what their prior knowledge is but their strengths as well. This will enable an instructor to base new information around their strengths and use positive reinforcement when mistakes are made with the new material.

There is an unfortunate concept in teaching called “teach to the middle” where instructors target their lessons to the average ability of the students in their classroom, leaving slower students frustrated and confused, and above average students frustrated and bored. This often results in the lower- and higher-level students scoring poorly and a teacher with no idea why.

The remedy for this is a strategy called blended learning where differentiated instruction is occurring simultaneously in the classroom to target all learners, according to author and educator Juliana Finegan . In order to be successful at blended learning, teachers once again need to know their students, how they learn and their strengths and weaknesses, according to Finegan.

Blended learning can include combining several learning styles into one lesson like lecturing from a PowerPoint – not reading the information on the slides — that includes cartoons and music associations while the students have the print-outs. The lecture can include real-life examples and stories of what the instructor encountered and what the students may encounter. That example incorporates four learning styles and misses kinesthetic, but the activity afterwards can be solely kinesthetic.

A huge component of blended learning is technology. Technology enables students to set their own pace and access the resources they want and need based on their level of understanding, according to The Library of Congress . It can be used three different ways in education which include face-to-face, synchronously or asynchronously . Technology used with the student in the classroom where the teacher can answer questions while being in the student’s physical presence is known as face-to-face.

Synchronous learning is when students are learning information online and have a teacher live with them online at the same time, but through a live chat or video conferencing program, like Skype, or Zoom, according to The Library of Congress.

Finally, asynchronous learning is when students take a course or element of a course online, like a test or assignment, as it fits into their own schedule, but a teacher is not online with them at the time they are completing or submitting the work. Teachers are still accessible through asynchronous learning but typically via email or a scheduled chat meeting, states the Library of Congress.

The final strategy to be discussed actually incorporates a few teaching strategies, so it’s almost like blended teaching. It starts with a concept that has numerous labels such as student-centered learning, learner-centered pedagogy, and teacher-as-tutor but all mean that an instructor revolves lessons around the students and ensures that students take a participatory role in the learning process, known as active learning, according to the Learning Portal .

In this model, a teacher is just a facilitator, meaning that they have created the lesson as well as the structure for learning, but the students themselves become the teachers or create their own knowledge, the Learning Portal says. As this is occurring, the instructor is circulating the room working as a one-on-one resource, tutor or guide, according to author Sara Sanchez Alonso from Yale’s Center for Teaching and Learning. For this to work well and instructors be successful one-on-one and planning these lessons, it’s essential that they have taken the time to know their students’ history and prior knowledge, otherwise it can end up to be an exercise in futility, Alonso said.

Some activities teachers can use are by putting students in groups and assigning each student a role within the group, creating reading buddies or literature circles, making games out of the material with individual white boards, create different stations within the classroom for different skill levels or interest in a lesson or find ways to get students to get up out of their seats and moving, offers Fortheteachers.org .

There are so many different methodologies and strategies that go into becoming an effective instructor. A consistent theme throughout all of these is for a teacher to take the time to know their students because they care, not because they have to. When an instructor knows the stories behind the students, they are able to design lessons that are more fun, more meaningful, and more effective because they were designed with the students’ best interests in mind.

There are plenty of pre-made lessons, activities and tests available online and from textbook publishers that any teacher could use. But you need to decide if you want to be the original teacher who makes a significant impact on your students, or a pre-made teacher a student needs to get through.

Read Also: – Blended Learning Guide – Collaborative Learning Guide – Flipped Classroom Guide – Game Based Learning Guide – Gamification in Education Guide – Holistic Education Guide – Maker Education Guide – Personalized Learning Guide – Place-Based Education Guide – Project-Based Learning Guide – Scaffolding in Education Guide – Social-Emotional Learning Guide

Similar Posts:

• Discover Your Learning Style – Comprehensive Guide on Different Learning Styles
• 35 of the BEST Educational Apps for Teachers (Updated 2024)
• 20 Huge Benefits of Using Technology in the Classroom

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Home » Lesson Plans » How To Write A Lesson Plan From Scratch

How To Write A Lesson Plan From Scratch

Ask any student, and they’ll claim teachers have it easy. From their point of view, your job is to walk into a classroom, talk about a bunch of indecipherable things that seem to bring you a lot of joy, and grade their papers. It’s the students who are left to do all the heavy lifting by doing homework and sitting exams. 

Little do they know about the hard work and thought you invest in your classes. Every time you go into a classroom, you need to have a clear idea of what you’re going to teach and how you will spend class time efficiently and keep all their wandering minds engaged . 

Every teacher will agree that the foundation of every good class is a well-crafted lesson plan . But writing one is not a walk in the park and is a skill that cannot be mastered overnight. If you still compare writing each lesson plan to climbing Mount Everest, we’ve got the tips for you.

We’ll break down the basics of how to write a lesson plan that will help you keep your classes organized and your students interested, engaged, and (hopefully) more appreciative of all the work you put in their classes.

Source: @pp99 via Twenty20

Tips for Writing Lesson Plans Suited to Your Class’ Needs

When writing a lesson plan, the first step is to think about your students. While lesson plans guide teachers through a lesson, good lesson plans are always focused on students and not the teacher. Make sure that your plan supports the lesson objective you’ve set out to achieve and that it is adapted to your students’ age, interests, and learning styles.

How you plan your lessons hinges on various factors—most of all, the grade and the subject you’re teaching . A kindergarten lesson plan won’t be the same as a lesson plan for second grade . Preschool lesson plans or plans for 1st graders focus on fun and engaging activities you use to transfer knowledge. In contrast, high school lesson plans focus on direct instruction and assessment methods.

To make the lesson planning process easier, you can always use a lesson plan template . It will contain all important sections and allow you to prepare your lessons more quickly and efficiently. If you’re planning in advance or preparing a more complex lesson that requires several classes, you can also use a weekly lesson plan template .

How To Write a Lesson Plan

The complexity and structure of your lesson plan will depend on the variables unique to your class, the subject matter, or the template you use. Still, certain steps in the process of developing a lesson plan stay the same as you always need to:

• Define a lesson plan objective
• List the necessary materials
• Decide on assessment methods

Lesson Plan Objectives

Before you get into the nit and grit of your lesson plan, you need to have a clear idea of why you’re teaching that particular lesson in the first place. A lesson plan objective outlines in one sentence your expectations about what the students will be able to do or repeat after the lesson is over—not what you’re going to do during the lesson.

When writing an objective, you can rely on the S.M.A.R.T. formula. It helps you keep your lesson objective:

Use concise language and avoid vague verbs, such as learn, understand, or enjoy . Go for the measurable verbs instead—e.g., define, recite, explain, or calculate . Your objective should be specific enough to allow you to determine whether a student has achieved the goal or not.

An example of a well-written objective would be: After the lesson about the local government, the students should be able to identify specific components of local government and write four to six sentences using local government facts and appropriate vocabulary.

Lesson Materials

Once you settle on an objective, it’s time to figure out what you’re going to need to achieve it.

The Materials section of your lesson plan is essentially a list of all items you’ll need during the class. Try to think about every single detail to make sure you can achieve the objective you’ve planned.

Some common materials you can use include:

• Game pieces
• PowerPoint presentations

Assessment Methods

How are you going to establish whether a student has achieved the lesson plan objective? How are they going to demonstrate what they’ve learned? You need to determine the assessment method in advance and choose the one that will allow your students to showcase their new knowledge or skill.

Remember, a traditional test is not always the optimal solution. Assessment methods can also be:

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

What To Do in the Classroom—Planning Your Time

Once you cover the basics of your lesson, it’s time to plan how you’re going to spend the allocated class time and go into detail about learning activities. 

Here’s one way you can organize your class:

• 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)

How you carry out these steps will depend on your group, topic, and your teaching methods, but you should try to plan every step thoroughly and come up with a timeline for your class. 

This schedule is not something you should live and die by. Despite your planning, classes take unexpected turns, but you should come prepared even for that scenario. For example, you can plan backup activities in case you finish the lesson ahead of schedule.

You should also allow for some leeway in your timeline because not all students learn at the same pace, and you have to make sure all students cross that finish line.

Source: @hhammer87 via Twenty20

Learning Activities

The activities you choose for a particular lesson depend on a variety of factors, including your teaching style, your students’ age, the subject, and the topic of the lesson. You should opt for activities that are fun and stimulating and that help students awaken their creativity or engage their critical thinking skills. Still, no matter how fun you want your class to be, don’t lose sight of your lesson goals and choose the activities that can help you achieve them.

Check out the table below for a few examples of fun activities you can use in different classes:

Source: @SBphoto via Twenty20

Lesson Plans—Online Resources

Writing a lesson plan can be tedious and take hours to complete. It can also be extremely stressful if it’s a Sunday night and you’re staring at a blank sheet of paper. One way out of that situation is to find and download ready-made lesson plans from the internet.

Still, the issue is that free lesson plans often don’t meet the necessary quality standards—they have vague objectives, don’t list out materials, or include lackluster activities.

Paid lesson plans can do the trick as they usually bring more quality, but you can only see a small preview before you take your credit card out. Before you can see the whole lesson plan and gauge whether the plan is suitable for your class, you will have to pay up. With so many lesson plans posted online, sifting through the chaff can take as much time as writing a lesson plan yourself.

Another problem is that most websites charge per downloaded item, and you can end up spending hundreds of dollars on potentially unusable resources every school year. The only way to get your hands on high-quality lesson plans and other teaching materials quickly without breaking the bank is to find a subscription-based platform where you can browse and download as much as you want for a reasonable fixed price.

Get Access to the Best Lesson Plans on Teach Simple

Finding an online lesson plan can save you from writing one yourself, but only if you can find a top-quality plan fast. Having dozens of browser tabs open and filling your hard drive with unusable materials will get you nowhere.

Teach Simple provides lesson plans and other materials made for teachers by other experienced educators. Our contributors are teachers with years of experience who know exactly what can make or break your class.

Our platform is completely subscription-based, meaning that we won’t charge you for each piece of content you download. You can subscribe for free using our 30-day trial and download as many lesson plans as you want at no cost during this period. Once the trial ends, you can choose to continue to enjoy all the advantages Teach Simple has to offer.

What Teach Simple Brings to the Table

With Teach Simple, you’ll no longer have to scour the internet looking for materials you can use for your lesson. Our platform offers:

• High-quality resources —Every material we post is created and reviewed by teachers to ensure we meet the high standards we’ve set for ourselves and the official curriculum guidelines
• Unlimited downloads —As a member, you’ll be able to enjoy the full range of our resource library. You can download everything that catches your eye without additional costs
• A sense of community —Teach Simple is dedicated to helping out teachers on both sides of the equation. That’s why we give 50% of our revenue to our contributing educators, who go above and beyond for every resource they create
• Resource diversity —You can use Teach Simple for all your teaching needs. Our lesson plans cover all levels ( early learning , elementary school , middle school , and above) and subjects ( math , science , ESL lessons , and more). Aside from lesson plans, you can download other materials such as games , e-books , audiobooks , full curriculums , flash cards , and anything else that will help your students have more fun and learn faster
• Special resources —Teach Simple goes beyond traditional academic subjects and includes resources that focus on social-emotional learning , speech therapy , and different social and life skills

Sign up for Teach Simple today , and you’ll never have to worry about being unprepared for your lesson— enrich your classes with a variety of materials your students will love .

Teach Simple’s Lesson Plans—Examples

Here are a few examples of high-quality lesson plans and other resources that await you on our platform:

• Reacting vs. Responding
• Lindbergh’s Flight Across the Atlantic: History—Hands On
• Causes of World War II: The Beginning
• Sea Robbers and Buried Treasure
• Project Geos: A Brave New World Gr. 4–7
• Passport Series: Asia
• World P o litical Leaders Gr. 5 – 8
• Origins of the American Government
• Unsinkable Sub: The Ready-Made Lessons for Last-Minute Days
• Group Project Student Role Sheets: Everything You Need for Successful Group Research Projects
• 3rd Grade Standards for Literacy: Part 4
• Myths From Around the World Gr. 4 – 6
• Hands-On Halloween: Melvis Monster Gr. 1 – 2
• Earth Day: A Micro-Learning Deck
• Prehistoric Art

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[2023] What Is Your Teaching Methodology? A Comprehensive Guide

• August 4, 2023
• Instructional Coaching

Quick Answer: Your teaching methodology refers to the strategies and techniques you use to deliver instruction and facilitate learning in the classroom. It encompasses your approach to lesson planning, classroom management, assessment, and student engagement. The most effective teaching methodologies are those that are student-centered, promote critical thinking, and cater to diverse learning styles. Developing a well-rounded teaching methodology is essential for creating a positive and productive learning environment for your students.

Table of Contents

• Quick Answer

Quick Tips and Facts

Definitions.

• Direct Instruction
• Inquiry-Based Learning
• Cooperative Learning
• Differentiated Instruction
• Project-Based Learning
• Flipped Classroom

The Role of Teaching Methodologies in Society

The role of institutions in shaping teaching methodologies, factors of educational success, education studies, history of teaching methodologies, what is your teaching methodology examples, what is your teaching methodology answer, which teaching methodology is best, what is your learning methodology, how do teaching methodologies impact student learning outcomes, recommended links, reference links.

• Your teaching methodology plays a crucial role in student learning and engagement.
• Effective teaching methodologies are student-centered and promote critical thinking.
• It is important to adapt your teaching methodology to cater to diverse learning styles.
• Incorporating various teaching methodologies can enhance student understanding and retention.
• Continuous professional development can help you stay updated with the latest teaching methodologies.

Teaching Methodology: The strategies and techniques used by educators to deliver instruction and facilitate learning in the classroom.

Pedagogy: The theory and practice of teaching, including the principles, methods, and techniques used to educate students.

Andragogy: The theory and practice of teaching adult learners, focusing on self-directed learning and problem-solving.

Types of Teaching Methodologies

1. Direct Instruction

Direct instruction is a teacher-centered approach that involves explicit teaching of knowledge and skills. It typically includes lectures, demonstrations, and guided practice. This methodology is effective for introducing new concepts and building foundational knowledge.

• Provides clear and structured instruction.
• Allows for efficient delivery of content.
• Suitable for large class sizes.
• May not cater to individual learning styles.
• Limited opportunities for student engagement.
• Relies heavily on teacher-led activities.

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2. Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-based learning encourages students to explore and discover knowledge through questioning, investigation, and problem-solving. It promotes critical thinking, collaboration, and independent learning.

• Fosters curiosity and a love for learning.
• Develops critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Encourages student engagement and ownership of learning.
• Requires careful planning and facilitation.
• May take longer to cover content.
• Students may need guidance in developing effective inquiry skills.

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3. Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning involves students working together in small groups to achieve shared learning goals. It promotes collaboration, communication, and the development of social skills.

• Encourages teamwork and cooperation.
• Enhances communication and social skills.
• Provides opportunities for peer learning and support.
• Requires effective group management strategies.
• Individual accountability may be a challenge.
• May require additional time for group work.

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4. Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction involves tailoring instruction to meet the diverse needs of students. It recognizes that learners have different learning styles, abilities, and interests, and aims to provide targeted support and challenge.

• Addresses individual student needs and learning styles.
• Promotes inclusivity and equity in the classroom.
• Enhances student engagement and motivation.
• Requires careful planning and preparation.
• May require additional resources and materials.
• Assessing and tracking individual progress can be challenging.

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5. Project-Based Learning

Project-based learning involves students working on extended projects that require them to apply knowledge and skills to real-world problems or challenges. It promotes collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

• Engages students in authentic and meaningful learning experiences.
• Encourages creativity and innovation.
• Requires careful planning and scaffolding.
• May require additional time for project completion.
• Assessing individual contributions can be challenging.

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6. Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom model involves students learning new content independently outside of class through videos or readings, and using class time for collaborative activities, discussions, and application of knowledge.

• Allows for personalized and self-paced learning.
• Maximizes class time for active learning and application.
• Facilitates student-centered and inquiry-based approaches.
• Requires access to technology and resources outside of class.
• May require additional planning and preparation.
• Students may need guidance in navigating self-directed learning.

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Teaching methodologies play a crucial role in shaping the future of society by equipping students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to succeed. They contribute to the development of critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration skills, which are essential for individuals to thrive in an ever-changing world.

Effective teaching methodologies also foster a love for learning, promote social and emotional development, and help students become responsible and engaged citizens. By incorporating student-centered approaches, teaching methodologies empower learners to take ownership of their education and become lifelong learners.

Educational institutions, such as schools and universities, play a significant role in shaping teaching methodologies. They establish guidelines, curricula, and assessment frameworks that influence teaching practices. Institutions also provide professional development opportunities for educators to enhance their teaching skills and stay updated with current research and best practices.

It is important for institutions to create a supportive and collaborative environment that encourages innovation and experimentation with teaching methodologies. By embracing diverse teaching approaches, institutions can cater to the unique needs of their students and promote inclusive and effective education.

Several factors contribute to educational success, and teaching methodologies are a crucial component. Here are some key factors that influence student learning outcomes:

• Effective Instruction : Well-planned and engaging instruction that aligns with learning objectives and incorporates research-based teaching strategies.
• Teacher-Student Relationship : Positive and supportive relationships between teachers and students that foster trust, motivation, and a sense of belonging.
• Classroom Environment : A safe, inclusive, and well-managed classroom environment that promotes active engagement and collaboration.
• Student Engagement : Active participation and involvement in learning activities that stimulate curiosity and promote deep understanding.
• Assessment and Feedback : Regular and meaningful assessment practices that provide feedback to students and inform instructional decisions.
• Parental Involvement : Collaborative partnerships between teachers, parents, and families that support student learning and well-being.

By considering these factors and implementing effective teaching methodologies, educators can create an optimal learning environment that maximizes student success.

Education studies encompass research and scholarly work on various aspects of teaching and learning. They explore the effectiveness of different teaching methodologies, the impact of educational policies, and the factors that influence student achievement.

Education studies provide valuable insights into the best practices and strategies for effective teaching. Educators can benefit from staying informed about current research in the field to continuously improve their teaching methodologies and enhance student learning outcomes.

Teaching methodologies have evolved over time in response to changing educational philosophies, societal needs, and advancements in technology. Here is a brief overview of the history of teaching methodologies:

• Traditional Methods : In the early years of formal education, teaching was often based on rote memorization and direct instruction.
• Progressive Education : In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, progressive educators like John Dewey advocated for student-centered approaches that focused on hands-on learning and real-world experiences.
• Behaviorism : In the mid-20th century, behaviorism influenced teaching methodologies, emphasizing the use of rewards and punishments to shape student behavior.
• Cognitive Revolution : In the 1960s and 1970s, cognitive psychology led to a shift towards constructivist approaches that emphasized active learning, problem-solving, and critical thinking.
• 21st Century Approaches : In recent years, teaching methodologies have embraced technology-enhanced learning, personalized instruction, and the integration of 21st-century skills.

Today, educators draw from a diverse range of teaching methodologies to meet the needs of their students and create engaging and effective learning experiences.

Teaching methodologies can vary based on the subject, grade level, and individual teaching style. Here are some examples of teaching methodologies:

• Direct Instruction : Lectures, demonstrations, and guided practice.
• Inquiry-Based Learning : Questioning, investigation, and problem-solving.
• Cooperative Learning : Group work and collaboration.
• Differentiated Instruction : Tailoring instruction to meet individual student needs.
• Project-Based Learning : Extended projects that apply knowledge to real-world problems.
• Flipped Classroom : Independent learning outside of class and collaborative activities in class.

As educators, our teaching methodology is a combination of various approaches that cater to the diverse learning needs of our students. We believe in creating a student-centered learning environment that promotes critical thinking, collaboration, and active engagement. Our methodology includes elements of inquiry-based learning, cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction to foster a love for learning and empower students to become lifelong learners.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best teaching methodology depends on various factors such as the subject, grade level, and individual student needs. However, effective teaching methodologies are those that are student-centered, promote critical thinking, and cater to diverse learning styles. It is important for educators to adapt their teaching methodologies based on the specific needs of their students and the learning outcomes they aim to achieve.

Our learning methodology is centered around active engagement, critical thinking, and collaboration. We believe in providing students with opportunities to explore, question, and discover knowledge through hands-on activities, discussions, and problem-solving. Our methodology encourages students to take ownership of their learning, develop 21st-century skills, and become lifelong learners.

Teaching methodologies have a significant impact on student learning outcomes. Effective teaching methodologies promote student engagement, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, which are essential for deep understanding and knowledge retention. By catering to diverse learning styles and providing opportunities for active learning, teaching methodologies enhance student motivation, confidence, and overall academic achievement.

Developing a well-rounded teaching methodology is essential for creating a positive and productive learning environment for your students. By incorporating student-centered approaches, promoting critical thinking, and catering to diverse learning styles, you can enhance student engagement, foster a love for learning, and empower students to succeed academically and beyond. Remember to continuously explore and adapt your teaching methodologies to meet the evolving needs of your students and stay updated with the latest research and best practices.

• Shop Assessment Techniques on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Classroom Management on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Critical Thinking on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Differentiated Instruction on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Early Childhood Education on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Instructional Coaching on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Instructional Methods in Education on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Lesson Planning on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Professional Development on Teacher Strategies™
• Shop Student Engagement on Teacher Strategies™
• https://www.edutopia.org/
• https://www.teachthought.com/
• https://www.learning-theories.com/
• https://www.researchgate.net/

Marti is a seasoned educator and strategist with a passion for fostering inclusive learning environments and empowering students through tailored educational experiences. With her roots as a university tutor—a position she landed during her undergraduate years—Marti has always been driven by the joy of facilitating others' learning journeys.

Holding a Bachelor's degree in Communication alongside a degree in Social Work, she has mastered the art of empathetic communication, enabling her to connect with students on a profound level. Marti’s unique educational background allows her to incorporate holistic approaches into her teaching, addressing not just the academic, but also the emotional and social needs of her students.

Throughout her career, Marti has developed and implemented innovative teaching strategies that cater to diverse learning styles, believing firmly that education should be accessible and engaging for all. Her work on the Teacher Strategies site encapsulates her extensive experience and dedication to education, offering readers insights into effective teaching methods, classroom management techniques, and strategies for fostering inclusive and supportive learning environments.

As an advocate for lifelong learning, Marti continuously seeks to expand her knowledge and skills, ensuring her teaching methods are both evidence-based and cutting edge. Whether through her blog articles on Teacher Strategies or her direct engagement with students, Marti remains committed to enhancing educational outcomes and inspiring the next generation of learners and educators alike.

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Blog Education 27+ Easy-to-Edit Lesson Plan Examples [+ Writing Tips]

27+ Easy-to-Edit Lesson Plan Examples [+ Writing Tips]

Written by: Alice Corner Dec 07, 2023

Lesson plans are the best way to deliver an effective and engaging lesson. Lesson plans also help keep you on track to ensure that your learners hit their goals and targets, in line with your course curriculum.

But sometimes in the high-pressure world of education, it can be difficult to find the time to create inspiring lesson plans on your own. This is the time to enlist the help of a lesson plan maker and lesson plan templates .

I’ve gathered together 28 of the best lesson plan examples for all grade levels that you can use to ensure your lessons are insightful and inspiring.

Click to jump ahead :

What is a lesson plan?

• What are lesson plan sections

How to write a lesson plan?

English lesson plan examples, history lesson plan examples, middle school lesson plan examples, kindergarten lesson plan examples, high school lesson plan examples, preschool lesson plan examples, math lesson plan examples, elementary lesson plan examples, art lesson plan examples.

• Science lesson plan examples

Simple lesson plan examples

Elearning lesson plan examples.

• Simple lesson plan format

How to present the lesson plan

A lesson plan is a document that outlines the content of your lesson step-by-step. It’s a list of tasks that your students will undertake, to help guide your teaching.

Lesson plans are usually printed or saved as PDFs for teachers to use. You can make your own with a lesson plan template .

What are lesson plan sections?

Lesson plans primarily include a schedule of activities that you will deliver in the lesson. Some lesson plans also include additional sections for more thorough planning.

A general format of a lesson plan can be like this :

• Lesson activities
• Lesson materials
• Lesson objectives
• Lesson goals
• Lesson feedback

1. Objectives: know your destination

When writing a lesson plan, start by outlining the learning objectives—what you want your students to take from the session and work backward. Having clear and specific goals helps you plan activities for a successful lesson.

2. Welcome to the hook: make ’em want to learn

Start with an engaging “hook” to capture your students’ attention and make them eager to learn more. This could be a thought-provoking question, an interesting fact, or a surprising tidbit.

Apply a top-down method: plan on a course level the lessons you’re going to include and then go deeper and think about the activities you would like to include in each lesson.

3. Step-by-step: outlining the activities

Now that your students are hooked, it’s time to get down to business. Work on exercises or projects you would like your students to take on. These should serve two important purposes: allowing your students to apply the knowledge they learn in class and allowing you, the teacher, to assess students’ understanding of the materials.

This might include direct instruction (i.e., when you teach the material), guided practice (working together as a class), independent practice (students work on their own) and group activities.  Think about the best way to engage students and make sure you include a variety of these activities besides just tests or exams, like quizzes, group discussions, group projects and so on.

Example: If your objective is teaching persuasive writing, your steps might look like this:

• Explanation of persuasive writing techniques and purpose
• Guided practice: analyzing persuasive texts as a class
• Independent practice: having students create a persuasive argument on a given topic
• Group activity: Debating the different arguments in teams

Remember the old adage: “Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.” 

4. Check for understanding: keep ’em on track

It’s not uncommon for students to zone out (we’ve all been there), so it’s crucial to regularly check if they’re on track. This means asking questions throughout the lesson and encouraging your students to reflect on the material.

Once you’ve got all these noted down, you can start arranging all the lessons and activities in a meaningful and logical order as well. This applies to the activities within a single lesson too. Answer these questions:

• How much time do you have for the whole lesson?
• What do you plan to start and end the lesson with?
• How much time do you have for each activity?
• If you still have time after all the activities are done, what are you planning to do?
• If you run out of time, what activities are you planning to drop?

As you plan your lesson, keep in mind that not all students learn at the same pace and in the same way. Tailor your activities and materials to accommodate different learning styles, skill levels and interests. This could mean offering choice in assignments, providing extra support for struggling learners, or challenging high-achievers with extended tasks.

Creating an English lesson plan is the best way to keep track of all the learning strands and activities that are needed for learning success.

Imagination, drama, romance and tragedy. English lessons have it all. But they can also be complicated to teach, with many moving parts to any one lesson. 

Like you’ll see in the English lesson plan examples below, creating engaging activities to a strict time schedule is perfectly possible with enough planning.

Use your lesson plan to schedule each activity by the minute

Any teacher will know the feeling of reaching the end of your material with 10 minutes left in the lesson.

Avoid running short (or running over!) in your lessons by planning down to the minute. The English lesson plan example below measures out timings for each activity so you finish perfectly on time. 

You can use a timer on your interactive whiteboard , or get students to time themselves. Scheduling is a great skill to incorporate into any lesson plan.

Creating a history lesson plan is essential for a successful session no matter if you’re teaching the near past or the ancient history.

Using common teaching resources such as timeline infographics , or imaginative play and learning are exciting ways to make your History lesson plans exciting.

Prepare for history lessons with a history timeline infographic

Teaching history effectively and engagingly relies on the teacher’s ability to bring the past back to life. For some students, mentally visualizing history can be difficult. A timeline infographic is a great way to teach historical events.

When planning your history lesson, make sure you have all of your timelines sorted. You can either prepare your history timelines in advance or get the students to create their own history timeline as part of the lesson activity.

Venngage has a whole range of timeline infographic templates that are easy to customize. 

Want to learn more about how to create a timeline infographic ? Check out the video below:

Use themes and historical events to enrich your lesson planning

When planning your history lessons, look for topical themes or historical events that you can anchor your lesson plan around.

In the lesson plan example below, the teacher is using Black History Month as an anchor point for their students’ learning.

Teaching the historical significance of Black History Month and engaging students in related learning activities throughout February is a great way to contextualize current affairs. There are plenty of resources online to help create your Black History Month lesson plans.

Related Reading: Looking for other global holidays and events to theme your lessons on? Check this Ultimate List of Holidays .

When creating middle school lesson plans, like in the templates and examples below, it’s important to focus on success and simplicity.

Middle school is a time for make or break for many learners. Skills that they learn in middle school carry them through life and it can be a huge weight to carry. But teaching middle school can also be incredibly rewarding. Here are some tips to help you create an effective middle school lesson plan:

Make note of what success looks like in your lesson plan

In teaching, quite often the end goal is not for the students to just arrive at the correct answer, but to understand the process of getting there. Having this mentality in your mind whilst lesson planning is an excellent way to ensure your students are learning effectively and that you are maximizing your teaching impact.

Add a section to your lesson plans as to what success looks like for you and your students like in the Middle School lesson plan template: 

Color code your lesson plan for ease of use

Colors can be a great differentiator in content and color-coding your lesson plans is a great way to make information pop. In this lesson plan example, each day has a different color which makes planning and evaluating much easier.

Related Reading: What Disney Villains Can Tell Us About Color Psychology

Creating a kindergarten lesson plan involves similar principles to those used for preschoolers but with a bit more structure and focus on foundational academic skills.

We all know that meme “teaching kindergarten is like using a blender without a lid”. Staying organized is super important and having thorough easy-to-follow kindergarten lesson plans is one way to make sure your teaching stays on track. 

Use themes to help plan your Kindergarten lessons

Help your kindergarteners embrace learning by using themes to plan their education. Themes are a great way to work through lots of different learning activities under one thematic umbrella.

This kindergarten lesson plan example uses St Patrick’s Day as its thematic anchor and bases Math, Art, Science and more off of one common theme. 

Make your lesson plans easy to skim

We’ve all been in a spot when our mind goes blank and we need to quickly refer back to our lesson plan. Especially if you’re interviewing or teaching in front of others.

By making your lesson plans easy to skim, you can quickly regain your train of thought and continue conducting a successful lesson.

In the sample lesson plan below the teacher has used simple blocks, checklists and icons to help ensure their lesson plan is easy to understand at a glance.

Creating a high school lesson plan involves a more structured approach, as students at this level are typically engaged in more advanced academic subjects.

Ensuring that your High School lesson plans account for success and reinforcing skills is one way to deliver the best education for your learners.

Include indicators of skill in your high school lesson plans

In high school, lesson plans tend to be more advanced. In the high school lesson plan example below, the teacher has included a section for indicators of skill. 

Indicators of skill are a great way to measure your students’ understanding of a topic and can be used to help inform your planning and teaching. Add two or three skill indicators into your lesson plans to ensure you know how to identify which students may need additional support from you in teaching.

You can also scroll back to the Math lesson plans section for more ideas on high school lesson plan templates.

Remember how I mentioned you should include timelines in your lesson plan? Well, for a high school lesson plan, you can include a timeline template like this one to make sure your students understand all the dates required for their school project:

Creating a preschool lesson plan involves careful consideration of the developmental needs and interests of young children. Shaping young minds is a rewarding experience, but it can sometimes feel like juggling too many balls at once.

With so many different essential key skills to teach, using a thorough Preschool lesson plan is important for making sure that your learners progress stays on track.

Break your Preschool lesson plans into learning sections

Preschool curriculums can be complex, covering multiple areas of crucial childhood development.

Help visualize each of these areas in their own right by creating a preschool lesson plan that takes a broad overview.

By breaking your lesson plan into learning sections, like this Preschool lesson plan example, you can get a glance at all elements of your students learning at once.

Get an overview of your week with a weekly lesson plan

A weekly lesson plan works great for preschool education planning, as it helps you identify and build lessons around common themes or goals. In the lesson plan template below, weeks have been broken down into different areas of focus.

Use icons in your Preschool lesson plan

Using icons is a great way to communicate visually. Icons are easy to understand, especially when you’re skimming a document. 

Take this lesson plan template for example, not only do the icons help communicate the lesson themes, they also make the lesson plan example super engaging and fun.

Using icons can also be a great way to help students who struggle with non-visual learning. For more ways to improve your lesson accessibility, check out this guide to creating a Color Blind Friendly Palette .

Creating a math lesson plan involves careful planning and consideration of various elements to ensure effective teaching and learning. Check out these lesson plan ideas for math tutors for writing the best math lesson plan, as well as some templates you can edit.

Use pops of color in your lesson plans

Just because your lesson plan tackles a complex subject doesn’t mean it has to be boring. In this lesson plan example a mint green color has been used to help break up the design. You could color code different subjects or units if you have multiple classes to teach.

Break your lesson plan into sections to make it easy to follow

Being properly prepared for any eventuality in your lesson starts with good planning. By using sections, like in the lesson plan example below, you can cover all of your bases. 

When lesson planning, consider the following:

• Lesson discussion questions
• Activity options for multiple group sizes
• Lesson notes or feedback

In this math lesson plan activity, the teacher has thought through all of the needs of their class.

Think outside the box when lesson planning

When lesson planning, the world, or at least the internet, is your Oyster. Instead of just teaching vocabulary, use scavenger hunts, word searches, or story activities. 

Try picking a new activity and building your lesson around that. In the lesson activity example below, Merriam-Webster has a dictionary scavenger hunt that will keep students engaged and entertained throughout your English lesson.

Highlight your lesson objectives at the top of your lesson plan

Your learning objectives should guide your lesson planning, not the other way around.

In this sample lesson plan that focuses on analyzing a film for an English class, the learning objectives are housed within the same section as the lesson plan overview, right on the first page:

If you want to learn how to write an actional learning objective , check out this post on learning objective examples .

When creating Elementary school lesson plans, you need to make sure that you’re keeping a good overview of many different subjects at once. 

Having a clear, easy to understand Elementary lesson plan, like in the examples below, is really important for making sure that all your learning objectives are being met.

Break your elementary lesson plans into day and subject sections

Elementary students will often be studying various topics and subjects at once and keeping an overview of this can be difficult. By creating a weekly lesson plan you can make sure that your students stay on track. 

In this lesson plan template, subjects and activity have been split across the days, with simple summaries of each section within the lesson plan. 

Include notes sections in your lesson plans

Planning a lesson is important, but reflecting on a lesson is essential. Adding notes sections to your lesson plans, like in this weekly lesson plan example, is a great way to remind yourself to evaluate as you go.

Evaluating yourself and your lessons can be a daunting task. Applying various evaluation strategies, such as a SWOT Analysis , is an easy way to give your evaluations focus.

When creating art lesson plans, use bright colors, patterns, icons and graphics to create a truly engaging visual art lesson plan, like in the examples below.

Art lessons lend themselves to creative and visual learning , so your Art lesson plans should be creative and visual as well.

Incorporate learning examples in your art lesson plans

Art lesson plans can be one of the most fun to create. Art as a visual medium lends itself to an exciting and decorative lesson plan. 

In the art lesson plan example below, the teacher has inserted visual examples to use during the lesson directly into their lesson plan. Collecting all of this information in one place means that you can quickly refer back to your lesson plan mid teaching. 

Be creative with your art lesson plan design

If you’re creating an art course, you’re probably a creative person. Why not let that creativity shine in your lesson plan templates?

Fun illustrations and patterns have been used in the lesson plan sample below to create a visually appealing lesson plan design.

When picking colors for your lesson plan design, some schools will need to be aware of color connotations. Certain colors should be avoided due to gang or rivalry associations. Some schools will also want to ensure that all materials produced fit within your school colors.

Use colors and patterns in your art lesson plan designs

As well as colors, patterns can be used, like in this art lesson plan example, to create interest in your lesson plan design. 

Picking a patterned but simple background is an easy way to add depth to any lesson plan design.

Science l esson plan examples

Planning a science lesson can mean anything from experiments to monitoring or diagramming and labelling.

Following a template, like in the science lesson plan examples below, can help make sure that your science lessons run smoothly.

Provide a space for reflection in your science lesson plan

Whilst a lesson plan is a place to schedule your activities, it can also be a great document to refer back to when planning future sessions. Adding a reflection section in your science lesson plan can be a great way to add notes about what worked and what didn’t within your lesson, for future reference. 

Break projects down into sections of deliverables

If you’re conducting a difficult lesson, such as a hands-on science project, it can be handy to help yourself and your students by outlining expectations. A checklist can be a great way to make your science lesson plan as effective as possible.

In this lesson plan example, the deliverables have been broken into easy-to-follow checklists.

Use illustrations to bring your lesson plan templates to life

Your lesson plans should inspire you, not bore you! Using illustrations is a great way to bring your lesson plans to life. 

In this sample lesson plan, the teacher has used colorful and playful illustrations to reflect the content of the lessons.

Creating simple lesson plans involves breaking down the content into manageable components and incorporating straightforward activities.

Sometimes simple is best—especially when it comes to lesson planning. When you’re panicked mid-teaching, having a simple and straightforward lesson plan that you can take a quick glance at it can be invaluable. 

Keep your lesson plan simple for stressful situations

When performing under pressure, staying simple is usually the best option. Using a clean and modern lesson plan design is one way to ensure that you can stay focused on what matters: teaching. 

Simple doesn’t have to mean boring, though. Using good design principles and following one or two graphic design trends means that your simple lesson plan template can still look smart.

Use an icon to help differentiate different subject lesson plans

Icons are an easy way to differentiate your lesson plans by subject or topic. In the lesson plan example below, a large book icon has been used at the top of the page so that you can quickly see that this is an English lesson plan.

You could use an icon for each subject you teach, or use icons to tell a story . You could even replace the icon with a photo of your lesson materials!

Use an action plan approach in your lesson planning

In the simple lesson plan example, the tasks in the lesson plan have been labeled as an “action plan” . By keeping the lesson plan design simple, the focus is really on the content of the lesson plan.

Creating an action plan when teaching your lessons is a great mindset for creating engaging lessons and proactive teaching.

When creating eLearning , distance learning, remote learning, digital learning lesson plans—basically, anything outside the usual classroom setup—always be ready for its own set of unique challenges.

Engaging learners from behind a screen, or creating lessons that can exist outside of a traditional classroom environment can be difficult. But proper eLearning lesson plans can help you navigate non-traditional learning environments.

Break your eLearning lesson plan into activities or subjects

With so many people shifting to remote or digital learning keeping track of all of your separate subjects can be difficult. Creating an eLearning lesson plan that is broken into smaller chunks, with space for each topic, is an easy way to keep learning on track.

In this eLearning lesson plan example subjects are color coded and broken into small blocks.

For more examples of eLearning lesson plans, check out this post on course design templates .

Looking for more eLearning resources?

• 7 Ways to use eLearning Infographics
• Digital Learning Communication Resources  
• What is an Infographic?
• 10 Types of Visual Aids for Learning

Use a daily schedule when learning remotely

Learning remotely can be a big change for both teachers and students. One way to keep your learning on track is with an easy-to-follow daily schedule. Using a daily schedule as a lesson plan, like in the example below, is one way to maintain a routine during difficult times.

As well as scheduling within your lesson plan, you can also create a calendar to help keep your students on track.

Allow time for creativity and fun in your lesson plans

One of the biggest benefits of eLearning, Remote Learning and Digital Learning is that you can stray from the confines of a traditional classroom. 

Giving students the opportunity to explore topics creatively can be one way to engage your learners in difficult times. Every student will have a different learning style and by scheduling structured creative learning activities you can ensure that your entire class has the opportunity to thrive.

Simple lesson plan format you can use

Though there are a several lesson plan types and no one format can be used for all lessons, the basic lesson format is always a good starting point.

This format covers the basics of teaching – say a little bit, do a little bit . The important part here is to provide input in a way that enables learners to see the structure and sequence.

You should format it this way:

• Lesson purpose: What you want students to learn or know about?
• Input : Specific information you want students to know.
• Activity : Used to get students to manipulate information from input.

Informing students on what they’ll be learning or doing keeps them more engaged and on track. So, it’s always a good idea to 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.

By doing this, you help students not only retain knowledge better but understand the rationale behind in-class activities.

To sum up: Use a lesson plan template to write an actionable and easy-to-follow lesson plan

Writing a lesson plan from scratch can be difficult, which is why Venngage has created tons of lesson plan templates you can edit easily. You can also draw inspiration from the different lesson plan examples in this post to customize your lesson plan template.

Simply create a Venngage account, pick the template you want and begin editing. It’s free to get started.

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The Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) Method of Teaching

When teaching English, you must prepare and plan to create a beneficial and constructive learning experience for your students.

Engage-Study-Activate (ESA) is the most effective teaching methodology.  Teachers who use ESA can productively organize their lessons.  Through ESA, students are focused and highly motivated to learn. 

First coined by Jeremy Harmer in his book “How to teach English”, ESA is a method of structuring your lessons in three elements. The different stages of ESA can be flexible and used to keep students engaged at all times.

The Engage Phase – Warming Up

It is essential to always start a lesson with the engage phase. It is here where students start starting and thinking in English. Before learning new content, students need to prepare for learning English. Games, showing pictures, discussions, listening to music, brainstorming vocabulary and storytelling are some excellent activities to engage and immerse students in the class.

It is paramount that all students participate and interact with the class during the engage phase.  Teachers should focus on facilitating engagement and making sure that every student has at least spoken once before moving on. 

Once the engage phase has finished, students should be thoroughly warmed up and eager to begin the next part of the lesson.

The Study Phase – Learning New Things

This phase is mainly the board work of the lesson. It is here where students will learn or review English language topics. Teachers can use textbooks, study materials, videos and drilling exercises to help students learn and use the English language accurately. Other activities include gap fill quizzes, matching exercises and word order arrangement.

After students learn the topic of the lesson, the teacher then checks their understanding. As a teacher,  you must never ask the question   “do you understand?”  as students are naturally inclined to answer yes despite not fully understanding.

Instead, ask a question about what’s been taught and see how they respond. If the student answers the question about the topic correctly, then they will have understood. In cases where students don’t understand, the teacher will go over the text again and ask more questions.

The Activate Phase – Using English Practically

The final aspect of an ESL lesson is the activate phase, where students use what they have learned in activities such as role-plays, dialogues, debates and surveys.

The purpose of the activate phase is to apply the topics learned in the study phase in a realistic situation. By doing this, students will begin to use the English language. As with the engage phase, it is vital that every student participates and speaks during the activities.

During this stage, teachers help students with their pronunciation, rhythm and fluency. Teachers can do this through elicitation and demonstration. Teachers must conduct the activate phase at the end of the lesson as the way students perform will be an indicator of how much they understood during the study phase. If there are gaps in the students’ learning at this stage, then teachers will need to focus more on improving the study phase.

Different Types of ESA Lessons

Straight-arrow esa lesson.

The most common application of the ESA method, teachers simply start with the engage phase and end with the activate phase.

An example lesson plan of a Straight-Arrow ESA lesson

Boomerang ESA Lesson

The structure of a Boomerang lesson is Engage-Activate-Study-Activate (EASA).

Unlike a Straight-Arrow lesson, a Boomerang lesson dives straight into the activate phase of the lesson before the study phase, then finishing by reactivating the students.

During the initial activate phase, students will most likely be unable to use the language correctly. They will make mistakes with grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, which will reveal gaps in the students’ knowledge. Once the students have learned the new topic, they will then do the activity again, filling in any gaps they may have had at the beginning of the lesson.

An example boomerang lesso n

Engage: Discussion of different jobs and occupations.

Activate: Role-play as different types of people e.g lawyer, police officer, firefighter, etc.

Study : Use boardwork and worksheets to enhance students’ vocabulary and understanding of different jobs.

Activate: Repeat the role-play. This time, students will have more vocabulary to use and thus make the activity more fun and exciting.

The objective of a Boomerang lesson is accuracy of the English language and consistently improving through good practice.

Patchwork ESA Lesson

A patchwork ESA lesson always begins with the engage phase and finishes with the activate phase. However, what happens between these phases can be arranged by the teacher as they see fit.

An example structure of a patchwork lesson can be E-A-S-A-E-S-A.

The patchwork lesson is flexible and can be used to target specific areas of student learning. If students need to increase their understanding of a topic, then a study phase will be conducted. To make a lesson more interesting, a teacher can initiate the activate stage or use the engage stage to introduce new topics. Anything is possible.

The ESA methodology is the most organized and time-efficient way of conducting a lesson. It will allow students to learn in an engaging, exciting, productive and fun way.

The engage phase sparks the initial interest in the topic, the study phase is the absorption of new knowledge, and the activate phase puts everything into practice.

This methodology can help you as an ESL teacher to structure your lessons to fit your style of teaching and educational needs of your students. It is by far the best method of teaching English.

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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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Planning a Lesson

Whether delivering a lecture, leading a tutorial, facilitating a discussion, or something else, planning a lesson is a key step to teaching clearly and confidently. There are three main points to consider when planning a lesson:

• Goals: What would you like the students to learn?
• Learning activities: How will you guide students through the learning process?
• Time management: How will you structure the class time?

This teaching tip discusses these three important aspects of lesson planning and the use of templates to help organize and document your lesson plans. According to the University of Toronto (n.d.) Lesson Plan Checklist, “Writing detailed lesson plans is an important stage on the continuum of learning to teach.” In other words, the detail and intensity with which you approach planning a lesson will change over the course of your career, but doing it intentionally at the start will set you, and your students, up for success.

What are your objectives for the lesson? Perhaps you want to introduce or review specific content. One way to narrow your goals is to focus on concepts that are particularly important, complex, or difficult to understand. Alternatively, you may want the students to acquire new skills, for example, in solving certain problems. If you are clear about your goals for the session, it is easier to make planning decisions about what teaching and learning activities will be useful and how much class time should be allocated to each activity.

Other questions to consider when planning a lesson include:

• How will I link the information and learning from one class to the next?
• How does this lesson link across course units?
• How does this lesson connect with other courses?

Teaching and learning activities

Once you know what you would like the students to learn, you can select activities that will help them acquire the desired knowledge and skills. Activities can include lecturing, discussions, question and answer sessions, brainstorming, quizzes, etc. Activities can take place face to face or online; ideally online activities should be well integrated into the face-to-face aspects of the course and vice-versa.

For more information on activities and strategies for use in the classroom, see our related teaching tips :

• Lecturing Effectively
• Nine Alternatives to Lecturing
• Activities for Large Classes
• Active Learning Activities
• Implementing Group Work in the Classroom
• Question Strategies
• Facilitating Effective Discussions

Time management

Time management is one of the most challenging aspects of lesson planning because it requires that instructors keep track of both in-class and out-of-class time requirements to reach an approximate student workload of 10 hours per week for each course.

When planning use of class time, it is important that the goals are addressed within the available time in a manner that promotes student engagement. In-class activities and topic transitions are excellent ways to provide a change of pace in a lecture. However, it can be difficult to estimate the amount of time required for certain activities. Many of us think we can do a lot more than we can within the time we have, and if you’re going to do any type of in-class group work or discussions, they will often take about 50% more time than your initial estimate. Also consider that the more time you spend on a topic area, the more important the students perceive it to be, and the more they will cover it in preparation for a test or exam.

One way to improve your time management skills is to keep careful track of your in-class timing the first few times you teach a course so that you can make informed adjustments from term to term. Also, consider asking a cross-section of your students about the time needed to complete out-of-class work.

Lesson planning templates allow you to quickly make note of your goals, ideas for activities, and time requirements associated with these plans. As a result, they are often a helpful way to organize your thoughts. Furthermore, these written lesson plans are an easy way to document lectures and tutorial plans for review when planning assignments and examinations and for future revision and reuse.

When planning your own teaching events, feel free to come up with your own template. There’s no one right way to do this. Some people require more information than others. Some like charts, some like paragraphs. The only essential aspect is that the template allows you to quickly jot down enough information that will be useful to you when assessing your teaching, planning assignments, tests and examinations, or designing a future lecture on the same subject.

Sample template

Use the template below to describe pre-class, in-class, post-class, and online student work. Indicate the time estimated for each activity, the topics or concepts being covered, activities for students to learn these concepts (e.g., course readings, brainstorming, lectures, small group discussions, assignments, tests, etc.), resources needed (e.g., audio-visual equipment, handouts, etc.), and the ungraded feedback and graded assessment methods that you will use to evaluate students’ grasp of the key concepts (e.g., questions in class, future test questions, etc.).

Course learning goals related to this lesson: ________________________ Lesson date(s): _________________________

Other templates

• Lesson plan template A  [PDF] 
• Lesson plan template C  [PDF], (Georgian College, Centre for Teaching and Learning)
• Lesson plan template D  [PDF], (Education Development Centre, Carleton University)

If you would like support applying these tips to your own teaching, CTE staff members are here to help.  View the  CTE Support  page to find the most relevant staff member to contact. 

William & Mary School of Education. (2023, Jan. 28) The importance of lesson planning for student success .

University of Toronto OISE | Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. (n.d.) Lesson plan checklist . Retrieved May 25, 2023, from

CTE teaching tips

• Bloom’s Taxonomy Learning Activities and Assessments
• Course Design: Questions to Consider
• Course Design: Planning a Flipped Class

Other resources

• Instructional Skills Workshop
• The Lesson Planning Tool
• Biggs, J., Tang, C., and Kennedy, G. (2022). Teaching for Quality Learning at University , fifth edition. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2006).  Understanding by Design , second edition Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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• Assessment and feedback
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• Course Design
• Course Implementation
• Inclusive Teaching and Learning
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The Complete List of Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods: Not as Simple as ABC

Teaching methods [teacher-centered], teaching methods [student-centered], what about blended learning and udl, teaching methods: a to z, for the love of teaching.

Whether you’re a longtime educator, preparing to start your first teaching job or mapping out your dream of a career in the classroom, the topic of teaching methods is one that means many different things to different people.

Your individual approaches and strategies to imparting knowledge to your students and inspiring them to learn are probably built on your academic education as well as your instincts and intuition.

Whether you come by your preferred teaching methods organically or by actively studying educational theory and pedagogy, it can be helpful to have a comprehensive working knowledge of the various teaching methods at your disposal.

[Download] Get the Complete List of Teaching Methods PDF Now >>

The teacher-centered approach vs. the student-centered approach. High-tech vs. low-tech approaches to learning. Flipped classrooms, differentiated instruction, inquiry-based learning, personalized learning and more.

Not only are there dozens of teaching methods to explore, it is also important to have a sense for how they often overlap or interrelate. One extremely helpful look at this question is offered by the teacher-focused education website Teach.com.

“Teaching theories can be organized into four categories based on two major parameters: a teacher-centered approach versus a student-centered approach, and high-tech material use versus low-tech material use,” according to the informative Teach.com article , which breaks down a variety of influential teaching methods as follows:

Teacher-Centered Approach to Learning Teachers serve as instructor/authority figures who deliver knowledge to their students through lectures and direct instruction, and aim to measure the results through testing and assessment. This method is sometimes referred to as “sage on the stage.”

Student-Centered Approach to Learning Teachers still serve as an authority figure, but may function more as a facilitator or “guide on the side,” as students assume a much more active role in the learning process. In this method, students learn from and are continually assessed on such activities as group projects, student portfolios and class participation.

High-Tech Approach to Learning From devices like laptops and tablets to using the internet to connect students with information and people from around the world, technology plays an ever-greater role in many of today’s classrooms. In the high-tech approach to learning, teachers utilize many different types of technology to aid students in their classroom learning.

Low-Tech Approach to Learning Technology obviously comes with pros and cons, and many teachers believe that a low-tech approach better enables them to tailor the educational experience to different types of learners. Additionally, while computer skills are undeniably necessary today, this must be balanced against potential downsides; for example, some would argue that over-reliance on spell check and autocorrect features can inhibit rather than strengthen student spelling and writing skills.

Diving further into the overlap between different types of teaching methods, here is a closer look at three teacher-centered methods of instruction and five popular student-centered approaches.

Direct Instruction (Low Tech) Under the direct instruction model — sometimes described as the “traditional” approach to teaching — teachers convey knowledge to their students primarily through lectures and scripted lesson plans, without factoring in student preferences or opportunities for hands-on or other types of learning. This method is also customarily low-tech since it relies on texts and workbooks rather than computers or mobile devices.

Flipped Classrooms (High Tech) What if students did the “classroom” portion of their learning at home and their “homework” in the classroom? That’s an oversimplified description of the flipped classroom approach, in which students watch or read their lessons on computers at home and then complete assignments and do problem-solving exercises in class.

Kinesthetic Learning (Low Tech) In the kinesthetic learning model, students perform hands-on physical activities rather than listening to lectures or watching demonstrations. Kinesthetic learning, which values movement and creativity over technological skills, is most commonly used to augment traditional types of instruction — the theory being that requiring students to do, make or create something exercises different learning muscles.

Differentiated Instruction (Low Tech) Inspired by the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), enacted to ensure equal access to public education for all children, differentiated instruction is the practice of developing an understanding of how each student learns best, and then tailoring instruction to meet students’ individual needs.

In some instances, this means Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with special needs, but today teachers use differentiated instruction to connect with all types of learners by offering options on how students access content, the types of activities they do to master a concept, how student learning is assessed and even how the classroom is set up.

Inquiry-Based Learning (High Tech) Rather than function as a sole authority figure, in inquiry-based learning teachers offer support and guidance as students work on projects that depend on them taking on a more active and participatory role in their own learning. Different students might participate in different projects, developing their own questions and then conducting research — often using online resources — and then demonstrate the results of their work through self-made videos, web pages or formal presentations.

Expeditionary Learning (Low Tech) Expeditionary learning is based on the idea that there is considerable educational value in getting students out of the classroom and into the real world. Examples include trips to City Hall or Washington, D.C., to learn about the workings of government, or out into nature to engage in specific study related to the environment. Technology can be used to augment such expeditions, but the primary focus is on getting out into the community for real-world learning experiences.

Personalized Learning (High Tech) In personalized learning, teachers encourage students to follow personalized, self-directed learning plans that are inspired by their specific interests and skills. Since assessment is also tailored to the individual, students can advance at their own pace, moving forward or spending extra time as needed. Teachers offer some traditional instruction as well as online material, while also continually reviewing student progress and meeting with students to make any needed changes to their learning plans.

Game-Based Learning (High Tech) Students love games, and considerable progress has been made in the field of game-based learning, which requires students to be problem solvers as they work on quests to accomplish a specific goal. For students, this approach blends targeted learning objectives with the fun of earning points or badges, much like they would in a video game. For teachers, planning this type of activity requires additional time and effort, so many rely on software like Classcraft or 3DGameLab to help students maximize the educational value they receive from within the gamified learning environment.

Blended Learning Blended learning  is another strategy for teachers looking to introduce flexibility into their classroom. This method relies heavily on technology, with part of the instruction taking place online and part in the classroom via a more traditional approach, often leveraging elements of the flipped classroom approach detailed above. At the heart of blended learning is a philosophy of taking the time to understand each student’s learning style and develop strategies to teach to every learner, by building flexibility and choice into your curriculum.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) UDL incorporates both student-centered learning and the “multiple intelligences theory,” which holds that different learners are wired to learn most effectively in different ways (examples of these “intelligences” include visual-spatial, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, musical, etc.). In practice, this could mean that some students might be working on a writing project while others would be more engaged if they created a play or a movie. UDL emphasizes the idea of teaching to every student, special needs students included, in the general education classroom, creating community and building knowledge through multiple means.

In addition to the many philosophical and pedagogical approaches to teaching, classroom educators today employ diverse and sometimes highly creative methods involving specific strategies, prompts and tools that require little explanation. These include:

• Appointments with students
• Art-based projects
• Audio tutorials
• Author’s chair
• Book reports
• Bulletin boards
• Brainstorming
• Case studies
• Chalkboard instruction
• Class projects
• Classroom discussion
• Classroom video diary
• Collaborative learning spaces
• Creating murals and montages
• Current events quizzes
• Designated quiet space
• Discussion groups
• DIY activities
• Dramatization (plays, skits, etc.)
• Educational games
• Educational podcasts
• Essays (Descriptive)
• Essays (Expository)
• Essays (Narrative)
• Essays (Persuasive)
• Exhibits and displays
• Explore different cultures
• Field trips
• Flash cards
• Flexible seating
• Gamified learning plans
• Genius hour
• Group discussion
• Guest speakers
• Hands-on activities
• Individual projects
• Interviewing
• Laboratory experiments
• Learning contracts
• Learning stations
• Literature circles
• Making posters
• Mock conventions
• Motivational posters
• Music from other countries/cultures
• Oral reports
• Panel discussions
• Peer partner learning
• Photography
• Problem solving activities
• Reading aloud
• Readers’ theater
• Reflective discussion
• Research projects
• Rewards & recognition
• Role playing
• School newspapers
• Science fairs
• Sister city programs
• Spelling bees
• Storytelling
• Student podcasts
• Student portfolios
• Student presentations
• Student-conceived projects
• Supplemental reading assignments
• Team-building exercises
• Term papers
• Textbook assignments
• Think-tac-toe
• Time capsules
• Use of community or local resources
• Video creation
• Video lessons
• Vocabulary lists

So, is the teacher the center of the educational universe or the student? Does strong reliance on the wonders of technology offer a more productive educational experience or is a more traditional, lower-tech approach the best way to help students thrive?

Questions such as these are food for thought for educators everywhere, in part because they inspire ongoing reflection on how to make a meaningful difference in the lives of one’s students.

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Communicative Language Teaching Lesson Plan Ideas

Keeping a class engaged and interested is always a challenge.

This was especially true when it came time for speaking practice and classroom conversations—the students were nervous, shy and reluctant to utter sentences. It was a struggle to even get words out.

That was until I read about Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which prioritizes competent communication in the target language over rule-based grammar or translation to the native language.

Want to learn more about how CLT works to liven up your classroom?

Then keep on reading. I’ve got activities and a great CLT lesson plan just waiting for you to use in your next class.

What Is Communicative Language Teaching?

Effective communicative language teaching activities, information gap activities, nonsense paragraphs, handy sample communicative language teaching lesson plan, 1. lesson introduction, 2. activity: interviews, 3. interview notes.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

CLT developed in the late 1960s, due in part to frustration with existing teaching approaches, which some felt were too focused on the structures and rules of language. They felt that language education should focus instead on the function of language: namely communication.

Many scholars across the U.K. and the U.S. started to study and propose new methods for teaching “communicative competence.”   One significant development was the Council of Europe’s support of this new approach to language teaching.

Today, different educators may view or use CLT differently , but in essence, CLT puts the highest priority on students’ ability to effectively communicate in the target language. So, as with the substitute teacher above, the idea is to get students talking, sharing ideas and engaging authentically with the target language, not just mastering grammar rules.

Before we explore our sample lesson plan , we will take a look at some of the different types of activities you can incorporate into your own CLT lessons.

The substitute teacher mentioned above used an information gap activity to get the students talking. The person with the problem had to gather information to find out why people could not help them. This is a common type of activity to get students talking, because that is the point of communication—to exchange information.

The task does not have to be free form, nor does it have to be structured exactly like the substitute teacher’s activity above. Essentially, to create one of these activities, you just need to give students an objective that can only be completed by communicating with one another.

Classic versions of this activity involve giving pairs of students texts or pictures that are each missing different details, so they can work together to fill in all the—you guessed it—information gaps.

“Spot the difference” activities with pictures are also a common information gap activity, particularly with beginner students. For more advanced students, you can create an information scavenger hunt, with a list of questions that Group A needs to solve by talking with Group B. Here are some example scavenger hunt questions to get you started:

• “What are some locations that Group B students have traveled to?”
• “How many Group B students have pets?”
• “What are some things that Group B students have in common?

Games are another activity that are fantastic for getting students talking. As you likely already realize, there are tons of games out there either designed specifically for the classroom or that can be adapted to your curriculum . Here are some factors to keep in mind when choosing a game that will promote communication in your classroom:

• Required input:  Does this game require input from multiple people (think team word games like Taboo), or just one person at a time? Typically the former works best for traditional classrooms, but there are some cases where the latter might be helpful, like if you are working with a small class of adult students.
• Communication prompts:  This one is actually pretty common sense. You want games that prompt open-ended communication, not yes or no answers. If there is a game that involves both (such as 20 Questions) just make sure you are the one doing the yes/no-ing.
• Adaptability: Especially if you are working with younger students, it is important to choose games that are adaptable to a wide range of experiences and learning styles. For example, trivia games (unless they are very basic) typically will not work well because students can only participate if they have the right base of knowledge to draw from.

One of the difficulties of communicative language teaching is that, by de-prioritizing grammar rules, it can be difficult to teach the nuances of grammar. This can be especially problematic for students who will eventually need to be able to write correctly in the target language. Nonsense paragraphs can help overcome this roadblock.

Whereas the above activities encourage target language communication, this activity reverse engineers communication, so to speak. Students are given a paragraph made up largely of nonsense words—their task is to identify what parts of speech those nonsense words represent.

This type of activity is flexible but works better for early-intermediate students and up, who already have a base knowledge in target language vocabulary and grammar. I’ve even seen it used in English classes for native English speaking students. You may find it useful to highlight the nonsense words so your students can concentrate on the task at hand.

You can certainly make up your own nonsense text, but a popular one among educators that is already written for you is Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky.” Here is the famous poem in English , and there are delightful translations into dozens of languages available here .

Here’s how you could structure this activity:

• Provide students with the nonsense paragraphs and then split them into pairs or groups.
• Ask them to identify all the words that represent objects, all the verbs that represent some kind of action and all the descriptor words. 
• After they have done this, you can ask them to re-write the nonsense paragraph, replacing the nonsense words with real target language words, and see how often they are able to use the right parts of speech.

Ultimately, the idea is to use communication as a vehicle for teaching grammar constructions, rather than teaching grammar rules in isolation.

Interviews are versatile and effective for getting ESL students to communicate with one another. This lesson culminates in English interviews that students will conduct in pairs.

The lesson plan below is designed for a beginner classroom that is learning how to form questions in the target language. However, this lesson can be adapted to serve as a vehicle for a wide range of other topics and objectives.

For example:

• Working with adult students new to the country? Focus specifically on job interview questions.
• Working with advanced French literature students? Have them formulate/answer questions that demonstrate their knowledge of a book your class just finished.
• Working with intermediate students? Require that they the use, say, the subjunctive a certain number of times in their interviews.

Asking/answering questions

• Students can formulate questions in the target language.
• Students can understand basic question constructions in the target language and respond appropriately.

Write a basic question on the board, and then pose the question to two or more students. When a student answers with correct grammar, indicate as such and write the response on the board. Repeat with a range of question-answer constructions. Here are some sample questions/answers to get you started:

• “What time is it?” “It is 8 a.m.”
• “How old are you?” “I am 14.”
• “What is the weather like today?” “It is sunny.”

Next, say that you can tell the class your birthday if someone will ask it. When a student is able to correctly formulate the question “When is your birthday?” write it on the board. Continue prompting questions about yourself (“What is your middle name?” “Where were you born?” etc.) from students like this a few more times.

Now it is time to present the interview task to students. Explain that they just had a successful interview with you, and next they are going to interview one another. Ask students to take out a piece of paper and divide them into pairs.

• Student pairs will now take turns asking each other interview questions about their lives. They can borrow some questions from the lesson introduction, but they should also come up with several of their own. Depending on your class size and the time you have available, you can rotate students to new interview partners at regular intervals.
• While conducting their interviews, students should write down the answers that they learn from their interviewees. They do not necessarily have to write down their own questions at this stage, since they will be coming up with those largely on the fly.
• Throughout the interview activity, walk around your classroom and listen to how your students are doing. If you hear a question or response delivered incorrectly, step in and ask the student if they would like to try rephrasing or if the other student can identify the mistake.

After the interview activity, leave some time for students to complete their notes on the interviews.

They should take out a new piece of paper and use their notes to reconstruct the questions that they had asked, and the responses they received. (They should write all answers correctly to the best of their ability, rather than transcribing exactly what their interviewee said.)

These completed notes should then be handed in for assessment.

You want to make sure your students know good grammar, but it is also important to realize that they need to use what they learn in context if they are going to speak outside of the classroom. Give this ability to your students and you will have smooth sailing throughout the duration of the course.

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