Once you have a unit plan, you should have an idea of which learning activities will be best suited for the time you have with your students.
A lesson plan is a document that outlines the activities you and your students will do during one class session.
Although many approaches to lesson planning stipulate that you must have a learning outcome for each class session, and that your lesson should include the introduction, content, practice and evaluation activities, this is not always possible in practice. It’s simply not realistic to assume you can move through all phases of instruction in a single class session. Instead, we suggest looking at class time as it relates to all the learning activities around a specific topic. Many lesson planning templates appear more like our CTL Unit Planning Template. This is why we recommend first planning the entire unit before planning individual lessons.
If you haven’t already done so, we recommend you plan the unit before you plan any individual class sessions. A unit plan will make planning class time much easier.
We recommend using the CTL Lesson Planning Template to plan your lessons. Your lesson plan can be as detailed as you need it to be.
Follow these steps to plan your class session.
Resources & Further Reading
- Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. John Wiley & Sons.Collaborative Learning Techniques
- Harrington, C., & Zakrajsek, T. (2017). Dynamic lecturing: Research-based strategies to enhance lecture effectiveness. Stylus Publishing, LLC.
Notes
- Sousa, D. A. (2016). How the brain learns. Corwin Press.
- Lenz P.H., McCallister J.W., Luks A.M., Tao T.L., Fessler H.E. Practical Strategies for Effective Lectures.
Sample Lesson Plan