What Is A Lesson Plan?

A lesson plan by definition is a document created by an instructor or teacher that is used to organize instructions for a lesson. It guides the instructor or teacher on what needs to be focused on, in what order it needs to be presented, and what procedure should be used in teaching the material that will yield the most effective outcome. When planning a lesson, a good checklist to use is the seven step lesson plan. The various elements used to create this lesson plan were put together from suggestions made by Madeline Hunter. It is based on the Madeline Hunter Method. Hunter’s Method was structured to be useful in generating several different lesson plans, including non-behavioral ones. Although, the seven step lesson plan and Hunter’s Method have, obviously, seven steps, all steps do not need to be present to have an effective lesson plan. It all depends on the material being covered and is done so at the discretion of the teacher. The lesson plan begins with the objectives to be covered in the lesson, Step 1. What should the student be able to understand and do after the lesson is taught? In Step 2, the standards of performance are placed; what is expected of the student and when it will be expected of them. The standards should be explained to the student, after the lesson and procedures are given in thorough detail. In Step 3, the anticipatory set is used to “hook” the students’ attention and is done so in different ways. The goal here is to focus their attention to the lesson and to organize their framework for the new ideas, information, and principles about to be introduced to them. In Step 4, comes the actual teaching of the material and is subdivided into 3 other steps. The sub-steps are to input, model, and check for understanding. Quite self explanatory, inputting is when the material is finally given to the student in a form of a lecture, film, or pictures. Modeling takes place after and is when the teacher shows the students examples of what their final work is expected to look like. And finally the teacher checks for understanding, by giving the students a chance to practice the right way of doing whatever it is they are being taught to do. In Step 5, the students partake in guided practices. The teacher uses this time to monitor the students’ skill level and understanding of the lesson, while the students are actively completing an exercise or activity. In Step 6, closure is signaled by the teacher that the lesson is coming to an end. The teacher concludes a lesson by giving the students a chance to organize their learning and by reviewing and clarifying important aspects of the lesson. Although, the lesson has officially ended in the last Step (Step 7), the students must continue with independent practice of the material that was taught so as to keep it fresh in their mind for later retrieval. This is done so by assigning homework or in-class assignments. Now, this lesson plan is most popular with behaviorist. Behaviorists are the ones that believe that the only way to truly measure learning is to be able to observe the behavior once whatever was being taught is repeated until it becomes second nature. The learning is engrained in their behavior. Another type of lesson plan is the Constructivist Lesson Plan. This lesson plan is based on the students. It builds off of what the students already know and understand. Constructivists believe that the perspective a student has of the world around them is created through different experiences and schema, and that these are what truly make-up the learning process. Although there are different constructivist design models for learning, one that caught my eye was the Learning Cycle. Much different from the Behaviorist Lesson Plan, the Constructivist Lesson Plan only has three steps. Originally used in science education, the process begins with the “discovery phase,” step 1. During this phase the student is left to “learn” of the topic independently by handling the material and generating questions and hypotheses. In Step 2, the teacher introduces the topic through “concept introduction” and helps the students focus their previous questions and hypotheses through experiments created by the students themselves. And in Step 3, the students take their new found knowledge of the concept being learned and are put to apply it in different scenarios. This step is called “concept application.” The student is left to reconsider the concepts use when dealing with similar, if not relevant cases. And like a cycle, the steps tend to repeat themselves several times throughout a lesson. And finally, the New Age approach to education can be seen through the Transpersonal Lesson Plan. I affiliate it with New Age because I see several components of New Age type mentality incorporated into this type of lesson plan, like creating a strong sense of self, learning to handle power, and meditation. Although the Transpersonal Lesson Plan can follow either the Behavioral or Constructivist design model it is strongly routed in the students’ sense of self. There are certain elements that set it apart from the other types of lesson plans. The skills emphasized in a Transpersonal Lesson Plan are learning about the self, learning about power, experiencing a connection with others and the environment, clarifying true worth, among other special skills. These skills are taught to the students in an experiential manner, and incorporate the students’ body, emotion, and intellect. Special environments also come into play when focusing on a Transpersonal Lesson Plan. These environments should lend themselves to the students’ choice or control, attention being paid to the whole person, and self-evaluations, just to name a few. In this type of setting the teacher loses the stereotypical role, and takes the new role of a mentor or facilitator. Their main goal is to understand and support their students, not to critique and judge them.