The Perfect Lesson Plan (but not really) – A sample to help you plan your own lessons

Versão em português – LESSON PLAN SAMPLE 1_português

Is there such a thing as the perfect lesson plan? I challenge you to think about that. Have you ever delivered a lesson that felt like you rocked big time?

The way I see it, there are no perfect lesson plans. Some might feel perfect to you or some of your students – but not all of them (lessons and students). That doesn’t mean we can’t strive for “perfection” (or at least excellence) as a goal. Obviously, given the lack of time and resources as well as students’ varying degrees of motivation, interests, and needs, most of the time we need simply get the job done as effectively as we can. That’s exactly why I offer here a template that might be at least very good or better than that

I designed this lesson plan (click here to get it) about a generic topic that can be understood by everyone, and applied by science, biology, geography, methodology, physics, chemistry, and writing teachers. Basically, any teacher can profit from this template and adapt according to their students’ topics and needs. I must say it was fun – and a lot of hard work – trying to plan a lesson about the Scientific Method. Yes, that’s right! That’s what the lesson is about.

Even if science is something you have no interest in, you should take a look and see how each section of my lesson plan flows into the next. I’ve tried to use as much from neuroscience as I could, and I’m happy with the result. Can’t remember the tips I gave you about neuroscience? Check about my first and second posts about it!

In this lesson plan, you’ll find the three stages of the PPP framework, different patterns of interaction, active retrieval and revision, brain breaks, Task-based learning (pre-task, while-task, and post-task), and suggestions for homework. It is not my intention to go through these terms right now as I want you to analyze the lesson plan regardless if you’re an experienced or a novice teacher. In future posts, I’ll go back to this lesson plan and analyze each section individually, as well as get into detail about this terminology.

What I do want you to do is to answer these questions and give me some feedback. If you do so, become a follower of my blog, and share my lesson plan, I’ll offer to plan one of your lessons for free! How about that? I’ll select the 3 first followers who leave a comment here. Also, if you are an ESL/EFL teacher, check out my American English File extra activities post.

LESSON PLAN ASSESSMENT

1) What grade (1-great, 2-good, 3-needs improvement) would you give my lesson plan?

2) What are some of the best parts of this lesson, and some of the parts you would change?

3) Can you see yourself adapting this lesson plan to use it with your students?

4) Is the lesson plan something your students might enjoy?

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

You might want to access my latest lesson plan published by National Geographic Learning’ website. Just click on the link below the picture