You might not think of lesson planning as teaching innovation, lesson planning actually can help educators to focus their teaching style, technology use, and delivery techniques. Lesson planning is often taught in language teacher preparation programs, but have you thought about why we promote lesson planning (other than a response “you have to”)? While often required in some form in primary and secondary education, lesson planning has a place in postsecondary education as well. Lesson planning even has its place in conference presentations, educational or information workshops, and beyond!
Whether you use lesson planning on a regular basis, have let your planning practices lapse (or are just using old lesson plans again and again), are using publisher lessons without much adaptation, or are new to planning, this article highlights some ways in which you can approach or refocus yourself in this crucial practice. We will not cover detailed step-by-steps and how-tos of lesson planning here; instead, we will focus on what lesson planning can give us and ways in which we can incorporate reflective practices into the lesson planning process to help us improve our teaching techniques.
FOCUSING OUR LESSONS
Lesson planning helps an educator clarify their lesson goals, but also to keep focus in the lesson. You may have found yourself going on an unintended tangent during a lesson, forgetting to cover an essential element that might take away valuable time as you backtrack, or even run out of time in the class session. Lesson planning won’t completely eliminate all of this; it can help you keep on track toward your lesson goals.
Tips for focusing (or refocusing) on lesson planning in your daily teaching:
- Identify core and ancillary resources: By planning ahead of a lesson, you review what resources you have or might need access to. This can sometimes help you refresh yourself on a topic that you might not have checked out in a while or might be new to. Students can tell when an instructor might not be fully prepared, and planning can aid in this. Ask yourself what resources you might want to access and review prior to the lesson, be it a research article, textbook, web resources, or colleague. This will help you ensure that you have everything you need and are up-to-date on the content.
- Unruly students versus poor planning: While not always the case, when things get out of control in the classroom, this can be as a result of not preparing a lesson that engages your learners. Learner engagement requires knowing your students and what motivates them, or what keeps them interested. Lesson planning can help you identify and stack activities that are of sufficient variety that keeps your learners on their toes. A top-down lecture for three hours would not seem like much fun for you either! Mixing up moments of lecture with discussions, group work, or tactile learning can have a major impact. These things do not happen by accident, and lesson planning can help with this.
- Develop cohesion by connecting with colleagues: Where possible, connect with colleagues about your students. These could be current or prior instructors that your students had or even ones that your current students might eventually transition to. By connecting with your colleagues, you can understand the continuum of learning that students are on outside of the confines of your class. Ask a prior instructor what your students enjoyed in their class and/or what they may already know about a certain topic; if you had a prior group of students who transitioned from your class to another instructor, ask that instructor how well prepared the students were as they moved on. This can help you revisit your lessons to ensure that your students are engaged and have the skills/knowledge they need for the future. This is especially valuable if you are a seasoned educator and may be recycling lessons.
LESSON PLANS FOR ASSESSMENT IMPROVEMENT
Lesson planning can also be an important element in assessment. You might wonder how planning can lead to better assessment practices, but keeping yourself organized can also help you to keep in mind and define assessment goals. By identifying the lesson and how it will be delivered, your assessment aims and strategies come into better focus. How often does your assessment mirror what and how you cover something in class?
Tips for using lesson planning to understand and improve your assessment practices:
- Ask yourself what you want your learners to do at the end of the lesson: This seems very basic, but this practice is one of the first steps in the assessment process. Without thinking through your intended lesson or course goals, you might not be approaching the assessment phase of your teaching in an organized way. Good assessment practices require a cohesive and connected learning experience that are well organized and on a path toward specific goals from before the lesson even starts. Write down what your goals are and how you will eventually assess them. Also remember that we are constantly collecting “assessment data” through informal assessment practices just as much as those formal assessments.
- Identify how the lesson fits into your wider course/unit goals: Reflecting on the goals of a course, unit, or lesson, you keep the focus on the end goal. Whether you are thinking of course, program, or organizational goals here, this simple practice helps to both hone the content of the lesson, but also to help you identify potential formal and informal assessment practices and strategies.
- Consider the last time you (or the prior instructor) taught the lesson: As is likely evident, reflection is an important practice for an educator. It helps us to improve our techniques, but also areas in which we have strengths. Thinking back on the last time you taught a lesson (or ask a colleague who might have taught the same course/lesson before) can help you to understand whether your activities will have an impact. If, for example, your students did not enjoy a quiz app or certain speaker or resource you used previously, you might want to avoid or adapt your practices this time around.
- Identify what is next: Before you wrap up your planning, identify what the next steps will be (i.e., what is the next lesson and how does it connect to this one?). Instructional effectiveness is not simply an accident. It requires having thought through and planned the prior step, the current step, and the next step. By focusing on where you will go next, you can develop connections from one lesson to another. Remember that we are building a cohesive novel, as opposed to disparate short stories.
LESSON PLANNING AS A PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TOOL
When we create lesson plans, we make decisions about what will be taught in the moment, but it can also be used as a tool to focus on ways in which your delivery technique can be improved. By thinking of lesson planning as a professional development tool, it reframes the whole experience from a single, time bound activity, to one that has a longer-term emphasis on you and your development as a practitioner.
Tips for making lesson plans helpful for your professional development:
- Add questions for reflection at the end of your lesson: When you create your plan, ask yourself some things that you might like to consider at the end of the lesson. These could be questions like, “How well did students engage in the lesson?” or “How did implementing XX new technology go?” or “What could I do differently if I did this again?” These types of questions will help you be more aware of certain aspects within your lesson, and then provide you with space to re-think how things went post-lesson.
- Identify the technology you will use in the lesson: By clearly identifying technology, you begin to make yourself more aware of how you use the technology and what success (or areas for improvement) you may have in the application of technology. This is especially important when you are trying out a new technology, website, or other resource for the first time. You might recognize in the planning process, for example, that you need to seek help downloading or accessing certain technology ahead of time. Ask yourself questions like, “Does this require downloading prior to use in my lesson?” or “Do the terms of service meet my organization’s technology or privacy protocols?” or “Do I really know how to use this?” or “Do I have all of the tools I need to launch this in my lesson?” Some simple questions can help you avoid lost time in the classroom if thought out ahead of time.
- Test for 404 errors prior to the lesson: A 404 error is what you find when you click on a link and then see “oops, we can’t find what you are looking for.” This has happened to all of us at some point whether personally or professionally. Sometimes the resource has moved or might be available in a new format now. We have also all been in a position where software might need updating, which means you have to wait for it to finish loading. Checking links, software, or other technology resources prior to use can help you ensure that they are in working order. This can again take valuable lesson time away from what might otherwise be a very engaging and motivating activity.
REFLECTIVE TEACHING PRACTICES
Reflection is a core part of the work that we do as educators. Make time to reflect on a lesson once it is complete by allotting 10-15 minutes after the class to make notes or simply to think about what worked and did not. The more we can build in reflection time and learn from what works and what does not work, the better we can become at our craft. Afterall, none of us is born a teacher, and we are alway learning and growing professionally. Revisiting lesson planning with a reflective lens can help you get back on track or keep on track with this crucial part of our work.
In all, lesson planning has a lot that it can offer us in our work. By building these practices into planning, you can have an even greater impact on your teaching, the learning that takes place, and your own professional development.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Whatever your planning might look like, we can all use refreshers on basic practices. Below are some resources that you can explore if you would like to learn more about or update your practices:
Book Resources
Horowitz, E. K. (2020). Becoming a language teacher (2 ed.). Castledown. (c.f. Chapter 10)
McConnell, C., Conrad, B., & Uhrmacher, P. B. (2020). Lesson Planning with Purpose: Five Approaches to Curriculum Design. Teachers College Press.
Schoenfeldt, M. K., & Salisbury, D. E. (2009). Lesson planning: A research-based model for K-12 classrooms. Pearson.
Web Resources
- Lesson Planning for Language Classrooms: https://www.edutopia.org/article/flexible-lesson-planning-world-language-classes
- ESL Lessons from ESL Library: https://esllibrary.com/courses
- Share My Lesson: https://sharemylesson.com/
- Tips and tools for increasing accessibility of lessons from UDL (Universal Design for Learning) Lesson Builder: http://lessonbuilder.cast.org/
- Planning for Project Based Learning: https://www.pblworks.org/