Tutors Guide to a Lesson Plan
We discussed what a lesson plan is and what you should include within it, but what is the importance of a lesson plan? When it comes to effective teaching you need a passion for your subject area, the quality of learning needs to be high and you need to make sure you have enough time to plan. Teaching is complex and includes a variety of tasks and responsibilities. However, effective planning offers a wide range of benefits and it can really help you as a teacher. So we’re going to go through the importance of lesson planning and why you should do it every time.
So how can your teaching be effective?
A student-centred approach to teaching is essential. For this session to be successful, you need to think about how learners will experience it. In planning the lesson it’ll force you to think about how and why the teaching will be effective. In addition to thinking about what exactly you want your students to learn during the time.
Benefits?
Lesson planning is an extremely important activity to do, as it provides a lot of benefits for you. By planning the lesson and resources beforehand, it helps you spend more time on actually assessing your learner’s progress. It also helps you to have some thinking time! As it enables you to reflect on how the lesson is going and to think about whether changes either small or large are necessary. This includes ensuring that the learning process is tailored to each student’s needs.
Another key benefit is that lesson plans can be saved and stored digitally, so you can make any adjustments needed and add on notes to what you think might be better for next time and how you can improve upon future lesson plans.
Lesson Plans can relieve stress
Another benefit of lesson planning is that it can relieve stress. Especially if you’re a newly qualified teacher, who relies on timing and structure. You can feel more confident about the lesson as you have planned what they’ll be learning. Any materials or resources are available. It is clear what the lesson expectations are and you have answers to any questions that may arise.
The more you can build that confidence the more relaxed you’ll feel in the end. Using technology can sometimes cause unexpected problems, so you must also be cautious.
Try something new
A great benefit of effective lesson planning is that it enables you to experiment and try new things. Such as new approaches and ideas in teaching. It’s not a bad thing to use tried and tested teaching methods and activities, especially if you’re feeling burnout. The time and effort you put into planning your lessons will deliver rich rewards for your students, as they will experience the lessons you made to perfection. However, the activities you use today, may not be considered good practice in the future. Teaching curriculums are always changing, which may be a change in content on the course of learning outcomes.
It’s also important that you dedicate some time to reflecting on your lesson plan. Asking questions such as:
- How can I improve?
- What can I add or take away from the lesson plan to help it be better?
- How has the lesson plan improved the student’s experience?
Doing this reflection can help you stay at the forefront of creative thinking and practice.
So that was the importance of lesson planning! What do you think? What makes lesson planning essential to you? Let us know in the comments. If you want more advice or guidance on anything we have discussed, please don’t hesitate to contact our team at 01205 805 155 and we would be happy to help.