Writing a Lesson Plan - Part 4

In this article the last elements of a lesson plan are discussed and they are vital. The development of an appropriate assignment is an extension of the classroom presentation. An assignment should start with the actual lesson elements, provide easy examples, moderate examples, and more complex tasks that challenge students to go beyond the lesson. An assignment can be an in-class assignment or a homework assignment or a combination of both.

The accommodations portion must connect with the (ELL, ESE, and Gifted) students you may have in your class. It is important that you actually have plans for these groups of students. It is not sufficient to say that you have extra materials available. Because you can not predict when you will have any particular type of student in your class, you must prepare for as many possibilities as possible. A giften student could be in your class, but not yet classified as gifted. Your school will have experts in these areas and you should go to them for added information. It is not possible to prepare for every student that may not speak English specifically because there are over 100 possible languages that students may have as their native language. You can reasonably expect that you will get one or more students that use Spanish for example as their native language. Seek help if you have a challenging category of student that you must work with in your class.

The technology segment of a lesson plan usually contains a component for the teacher and the student. It is assumed that the use of the "internet" will be part of technology and you can most likely find an internet website that is related to the lesson that is appropriate for the teacher and student. If they are different list them both. List the entire web address and describe the site. A video player, recorder, tape player, overhead projector, laptop are also aspects of technology. You can list "other" technologies, but also list websites. It is important that you do not simply say use a VCR. You must also include the video tape name and associated information. Your lesson plan must be as exact as possible.

The lesson evaluation is normally produced after the lesson has been actually presented to your class/s. Teachers, in reality, are constantly evaluating their lesson and may evaluate and change even while teaching. As the lesson is being presented, the teacher fine tunes the lesson or may completely modify the lesson as needed. A formal evaluation still needs to be completed in which what happened is described. Details about what works, what does not work, and what you would change are important. Even a lesson that fails completely, teaches you something about designing a proper lesson plan. Although it may seem like experienced teachers do little self evaluation, it is more likely that they internalize their self evaluation more than you might expect. It is important however, that you actually write down the evaluation, because this evaluation may become important to others who may use your lesson in the future.

This concludes a set of articles on the development of a lesson plan.