There are probably as many approaches to lesson planning as there are different teachers. And while there’s no “right way” to do it, there are some steps that we all need to take when putting together a class session. Before we explore the general approach to lesson planning though, let’s consider the benefits of being intentional about our lesson planning process.
Benefits
There are many benefits to applying the framework for intentional class planning described below. For example:
- By building a class session around class learning outcomes, it is more likely that students will leave class with the new skills or knowledge you want them to have.
- You can be more intentional about how you spend the time you have with your students – and that they have with one another.
- You can more thoughtfully link past and future content, helping students organize and integrate what they are learning.
- The class session will be better aligned with your course learning outcomes.
Process for developing a class session
STEP 1: Identify class learning outcomes
The first step in planning a class session is to determine what you want students to learn in that class session. These are called your class learning outcomes. The class learning outcomes should be related to and in support of your course learning outcomes, the goals you’ve set for the semester as a whole. Class learning outcomes can be mapped to a taxonomy of learning (e.g., Bloom’s taxonomy) and should be clear, achievable, learning-focused, measurable, and specific. For a 75 minute class session, you can likely address about three class learning outcomes.
In general, we want to avoid class learning outcomes that say “Students will know…” or “students will gain an understanding of…”. Instead, class learning outcomes should describe the new skills that students will gain or what they will be able to do at the end of the class session.
EXAMPLE: Here are a few learning outcomes that students could achieve in a class session.
- General chemistry: Balance chemical reactions so that they maintain charge neutrality.
- Introduction to theater: Explain how the people in various theatrical roles (e.g. playwright, director, actors, designers, technicians) work together to take a play from script to stage.
- US government: Describe how the republican and democratic parties have evolved since 1950.
STEP 2: Consider students’ prior knowledge
Once you have identified the class learning outcomes, the next step is to analyze students’ prior knowledge, what students already know or believe related to the class topic. This prior knowledge may come from different sources, e.g., previous class sessions, prerequisite courses, or life experiences outside the classroom. In order for students’ prior knowledge to be helpful in learning new information, the prior knowledge needs to be accurate, adequate, activated, and sufficient. In some cases, it may be useful to explicitly assess their prior knowledge with a poll, ungraded quiz, or focused listing activity. In other cases, you can simply reflect on where students will likely be and build the lesson from there.
EXAMPLE: The examples below identify prior knowledge students would need to have before moving toward the class learning outcome examples in Step 1.
- General chemistry: Identify the charge of each atom in a molecule.
- This is something that might have been covered in a previous class session. The instructor could start with a sorting activity where students sort the atoms from given molecules based on their charge.
- Introduction to theater: List the various roles that are involved in putting on a theatrical performance.
- This is also something that might have been covered in a previous class session or earlier in the same class session. The instructor could use a focused listing where students work in pairs to list all of the theatrical roles needed to put together a production. Students might also know about these roles from their own experience in theatrical performances.
- US government: Name key figures in the republican and democratic parties since 1950.
- This background knowledge may come from students’ own experiences and cultural knowledge depending on their age and background. It might also be developed in the same class by starting with an activity where research and then list key figures in each party since 1950 (e.g., US presidents, Secretaries of State, congressional leaders, etc.)
STEP 3: Determine how students get content
After identifying students’ prior knowledge, you’ll want to determine how students will get the content they need to bridge their current knowledge with the skills you hope they will build in the class session. This might happen through:
- Pre-class reading where students read relevant sections of the text or other course materials. Students then arrive at class ready to build on the reading materials and practice the skills described by the class learning outcomes. The IDEA paper “Getting Students to Read: Fourteen Tips” has great ideas for supporting students in doing the reading.
- Pre-class videos where relevant content is delivered either in a video created by the instructor specific to the class session or in another video that matches the required background knowledge. If using video content, best practice calls for keeping the videos short and aligned with class learning outcomes.
- Mini-lectures during class where you deliver the content related to the class learning outcome and follow it with an opportunity for students to engage with the content themselves. This pattern is sometimes referred to as interactive lecture.
STEP 4: Plan for student engagement
After determining how content will be delivered, the next step is to plan for how students will be able to practice the skills described by the class LOs. Bonwell and Eison defined strategies that promote active learning as “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing” (Bonwell and Eison, 1991). Active learning strategies are numerous and range from things which take very little planning time to those which must be carefully planned in advance. They also range from activities that can be done in a few minutes of class time to those that might span an entire class session. If you’re new to active learning, it will probably feel better to start small. As you get more comfortable with using active learning, you can include a variety of activities in your classes.
EXAMPLES: Here are examples of how active engagement for students might look for the class learning outcomes above.
- After a mini-lecture on balancing equations, students work in pairs to balance a series of chemical reactions such that they maintain charge neutrality.
- After watching a video about taking a play from script to stage, students work in small groups to create a graphic representation of how the work of different roles is connected.
- Based on their out-of-class reading, students generate individual lists of at least three ways that each major political party has evolved since 1950. They then form pairs to compare notes and create a longer list. Those pairs then form foursomes to compare and expand their lists.
STEP 5: Identify how to monitor learning
The last structural piece to be added to the lesson plan are the strategies by which you will monitor student learning (i.e., the formative assessments). Formative assessment allows you, as the instructor, to gather feedback about what students are learning during instruction so that you can modify as needed. In some cases, formative assessment will reassure us that students have achieved the class learning outcomes and that we can move on. In other cases, we will see that additional instruction is needed or that we need to spend more time debriefing a particular activity. This might be a place for you or the students to ask more questions. Formative assessment can be quite informal; for example, if you’re circulating through the room as students are completing an activity, you will likely have a sense of how well they are able to complete it. Alternatively, you might get a sense for how an activity has gone during the reporting period. Formative assessments can also be more formal, for example by using a clicker poll, minute paper, muddiest point, one-sentence summary, or other classroom assessment technique.
EXAMPLES: Here are examples of how we might monitor student learning for the class learning outcomes above. These formative assessments would follow the activities described in the previous section.
- Students complete a short clicker quiz where they are shown a chemical reaction with one coefficient missing and they choose the right number that will maintain charge neutrality in the reaction.
- Students are randomly assigned one of the roles and they write a one-sentence summary about that role and their interaction with others.
- Students return to their individual and now-expanded list of changes, highlight those that are most important, and submit their list for the instructor’s review.
STEP 6: Create a timeline for yourself
The final step is to put all of these pieces together into something resembling a timeline. While this might feel restrictive, it is useful to think about how much time each part of the class will take so that you aren’t too rushed at the end. In terms of the timeline:
- Use the first five minutes of class strategically, perhaps by opening with a question, reactivating prior learning, or asking students what they learned in the previous session.
- Intersperse lecture with active learning breaks.
- Plan questions ahead of time which span different levels of thinking; these can be added into your lesson plan so that you have them ready when the time comes.
- Use the last five minutes of class strategically; for example, try using a minute paper, asking students to make connections between the day’s material and contexts outside of the classroom, or supporting students’ metacognition.
- Finally, build in some extra or flexible time so that you can adjust as needed based on students’ needs.
Conclusion
Although following this process might feel overwhelming at first, with practice it becomes a more natural way to approach lesson planning. By following the steps outlined above, there’s a good chance that students will leave class with the new skills or knowledge you want them to have.
Answers to questions you may have
Q: I’m more of a ‘wing it’ kind of person and like to see where the students want to go on a given day. Isn’t a plan like this too restrictive?
A: Although following all of the steps might feel like too much work, it is important to begin with the learning outcomes. Without determining ahead of time what we hope students will learn and be able to do as a result of our time together, we can’t support their learning as well. So instead of “I will lecture on topic X” or “We will talk about the readings”, we need to be more specific.
Q: A timeline? What if I want to adjust how long I spend on an activity based on how my students are reacting?
A: Some instructors will benefit from a more detailed plan than others, so do what works for you. The timeline doesn’t need to be minute by minute, but if we don’t consider how long things might take, we don’t know how much to plan for in a given class session. If you are a new instructor, this will be harder to do since you might not know how long things will take. As you gain more experience, you’ll develop a better sense of how long something will take and can plan accordingly.
Q: What if the learning activities don’t go well?
A: When learning activities go well, it is sometimes because the activity itself might need to be modified. Other times though, it’s the implementation and facilitation of the activity that might need to be improved. For example, perhaps the activity would have benefitted from more clear instructions (or both written and spoken instructions). Maybe students needed an opportunity to ask questions about the activity before it began. It might have been the timing of the activity – either too much or too little time may have been allotted. Perhaps the activity worked well, but the debrief afterward needs to be revised so that the activity has the intended impact.
Q: There are a lot of steps to planning a class in this way. Do I need to do it for every class session?
A: In the end, yes, it would be wonderful if you applied this framework to each class session. With time though, the steps above become a natural part of your process so that they don’t each feel like such a big task. The most essential steps to use most often though are steps 1 (identify class learning outcomes) and 2 (consider students’ prior knowledge).
Q: I am new to active learning and formative assessment. Where do I begin?
A: A great place to start is by having a consultation with a CTL staff member who can help you identify your goals and choose learning strategies that will fit well with your course. Apart from that, it makes sense to start small if you are new to these practices. For example, try using a think-pair-share where you pose a question to students, allow them time to think on their own, encourage them to share with a partner (or two), then solicit a few responses from students. A focused listing, matching, or sorting activity is also a good learning activity to incorporate. For formative assessment, a muddiest point (what about today’s class is still most unclear?) or minute paper (using any prompt of your choosing) can be easily conducted at the end of class using students’ own paper, index cards, or a google form.
Q: I have a lot of content to cover in my class. How can I do that without using all of the class time for lecturing?
A: If your goal is student learning – as compared to content delivery – then incorporating active learning is a great approach (see Freeman et al.). Although it’s true that you can’t lecture for the same amount of time while adding active learning, it is likely the case that students aren’t learning as much from the lectures as you would like them to. Instead, consider that students might learn more, albeit about fewer topics, when active learning is incorporated. And because there are many ways for content delivery to occur, class time can instead be focused on engaging students with the content and one another.