What can be included in a lesson plan?

The challenge for teachers, when working to tight timeframes, is to decide what should be included in a lesson plan. The level of detail will depend on your context, particularly if your team uses a template. Whatever you use, the lesson plan needs to suit your teaching style and context.

• A lesson plan needs to have sufficient detail in it so that another lecturer in your subject area could comfortably deliver the lesson.

To get the most out of a learning session time and effort needs to be put into the planning. A great place to start is with a framework. Two frameworks are suggested here: the 5 Ws and a Three-part framework. Once you've decided what to include, think about the timing of each event or episode and how the lesson will flow and be organised.

5 Ws

1. Who are the students/participants?
2. Where is the learning session to take place? – environment, resources.
3. When will it occur? – time of day, length of session.
4. Why is the session being run? – the intent and aim of the session.
5. What is the focus and content of the session?

Extra resources

For more ideas on how to plan your lessons, read the University of Michigan resource Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning.