46+ SAMPLE Student Lesson Plan

What Is a Student Lesson Plan?

A student lesson plan is every teacher’s special weapon. First, it works like any general lesson plan where the planned lessons to teach in a class and the schedule of when to introduce every lesson is laid out. However, student lesson plans are more concerned about how to ensure students learn their lessons efficiently and effectively during class. A student lesson plan houses a learning strategy plan so teachers can develop the best learning activities for students and even accumulate feedback towards student learning. So rather than just discussing the lessons according to the syllabus, teachers provide a more meaningful learning session for students with student lesson plans.

According to Elttguide.com, lesson plans contain five important components—objectives, warm-up, presentation, practice, and assessment.

Why Are Student Lesson Plans Important?

Why should you go for making a student lesson plan, you might ask? Teachers of any department from elementary, high school, college, or any level will find student lesson plans important because of these reasons:

Improves Confidence in Introducing Lessons

Before getting inside the classroom to teach, it is essential that a teacher already has enough knowledge about the lesson and how to teach it effectively to do the job well. And thanks to student lesson plans, educators are more confident to teach because the plan itself serves as a teaching project roadmap in which they know what to do ahead of time and ensure that a class starts and ends productively. Also, professors have an idea of how to interact with the students per lesson rather than just using one teaching method every single time.

Aligns Teaching Goals and Student Learning Objectives

It has already been reiterated that student lesson plans aren’t only concerned with the teacher’s goals; it also highlights the students’ learning objectives. And it is crucial for the teaching goals and student learning objectives to meet for an effective learning experience. Because even if a teacher does well in applying teaching methods and following goal statements, it will still be pointless if students can’t learn them effectively. Remember that the term “students” is plural. Thus, you will not only deal with one student’s learning ability but also the different learning abilities of the whole class.

Tracks Progress on Both Parties

A student lesson plan is also a reliable tool for tracking and evaluation purposes in the classroom. The first example is teacher evaluation. Teachers deserve to know if they have improved their professional performance per lesson or not. And measuring one’s performance is critical, especially in looking for other advanced teaching jobs. On another note, teachers can also track the learning progress of the students. If teachers see that students have improved their grades, then clearly the strategies set in the student lesson plan worked. Whether the results in the progress are good or bad, teachers can set appropriate solutions afterward.

Guides New and Substitute Teachers

Whenever an instructor gets sick or takes an emergency leave, it is often that substitute teachers are at play. And to make sure substitute educators don’t get confused on how to deal with students, they can simply refer to the instructions laid out in the student lesson plan. Also, new teachers can rely on a student lesson plan until they can master their work in the long run. Thus, treat lesson plans as a teacher’s strategic plan.

Makes Lesson Planning Easy

Student lesson plans outline a variety of details from the chronological order of lessons to discuss, teaching strategies to conduct, the number of lessons expected per day, and so much more. Rest assured, teachers who used to be unproductive or disorganized with their classes before can expect an improvement with a student lesson plan on hand. Simply use the lesson plan as a reference page for everything you need to cover, especially when a monthly, weekly, or daily lesson plan is challenging to face.

The Important Components of a Student Lesson Plan

There are five main components of a student lesson plan. These are the objectives, warm-up, presentation, practice, and assessment. And without completing these elements, you need to restructure your lesson plan as it may not work effectively. So what exactly are these components and how do they differ from each other? Here is a brief discussion on the key components of student lesson plans:

Objectives: Think about your lesson objectives or what you expect pupils should do from the first until the end of the lesson. For example, you expect students to know how to pronounce complex English words for a language classroom observation. The point is that you are not just bringing random lessons but actually lessons that can benefit the students. And with student lesson plans, you will have to measure plans that go along with the student learning objectives too.Warm-up: Open a brief refresher about the previous lesson just to check if students can still remember their old lessons. More so, these previous lessons would be related to the new lessons coming soon. It is also through the warm-up where you inspect if everybody did their homework and remind everyone about inevitable mistakes that need to be corrected. Fun activity sheets and games will be a fun warm-up activity too, especially if those are related to the new material to be discussed.Presentation: You finally talk about the new material in the presentation part of your student lesson plan. So what will be your special technique or method to introduce the new topic or lesson? Write a step-by-step process of how you present and explain it as well. Think of this part as the main business plan of your lesson. An example is when you discuss about music to students with autism. Should you introduce the new lesson by group or by individual work? Use your creativity for whatever presentation works for your students.Practice: Put the lessons into practice. There is more to discussing a lesson because how that new knowledge will be applied later on is the important part. An example is to provide exercises, quizzes, and activities where the new lessons will be applied. Then, explain the common mistakes made by students and refer to answer sheets in explaining the details. At least lessons will not just run through the mind then be gone because putting whatever was learned into practice will follow.Assessment: The final step involves evaluating or monitoring if the objectives were met or not. A tip is to create an assessment checklist as your basis in assessing whether students learned according to the main objectives or the other way around. If results are poor, then use another method to reteach and improve lessons.

How to Design a Well-Structured Student Lesson Plan

After delving into the student lesson plan’s definition, importance, and key components, you are more than ready to create an exemplary student lesson plan. And you need not fret because you will still be guided in the making process. You simply need to observe these six significant steps:

  • Step 1: Use a Sample Student Lesson Plan Template

    Teachers can relax a bit thanks to premade student lesson plan templates. Without having to work from scratch, professionally made student lesson plan samples let you edit and design the plan. You may opt for all sorts of student lesson plans such as a nursing student lesson plan, college student lesson plan, science high school student plan, higher education lesson plan, etc. And since the templates are pre-formatted, you will easily be guided on the plan’s format. Your questions on how to write a lesson plan will be accommodated by using sample templates as references.

  • Step 2: Work on the Components of a Student Lesson Plan

    As mentioned before, there are five components of a student lesson plan and you add them one by one in the plan. Start with the objectives or what learners shall discover after the lesson. A tip is to write instructions in simple English or any language understood quickly by students. Also, consider if tasks were clearly determined, the instructions are attainable, and that the objectives are linked to the syllabus or program objectives. Then, set the learning activities next from how you explain a topic and how to make students engaged in the lesson. Then, a formal assessment towards student understanding comes next.

  • Step 3: Find Ways to Make Lessons Meaningful and Riveting

    You can surely win the students’ attention through compelling lessons. That means the lessons will be meaningful to students and you use a smart approach on how to sequence your lesson from planning to the end of the lesson. A tip is to not be too technical with your instructions and discussions. You can use jokes, connect with students through their emotions, and other creative ways to capture the attention of your students.

  • Step 4: Set a Feasible Timeframe

    Be sure to keep your student lesson plan easy so you won’t have to suffer while depending on it in the long run. One useful tip is to observe a realistic timeline. With a timeline chart, you can narrow down the list of lessons in the plan and divide them according to when you present them in a day, week, or month. Also, make certain adjustments to be flexible of your time in case there needs to be a change of plans on what lessons to discuss.

  • Step 5: End with a Proper Lesson Closure

    End every lesson with a lesson closure. This is where you make an executive summary about the lesson, review if everyone understood the lesson, highlight key information, and even give a preview of the next topics to discuss soon. And what matters the most is that every student is okay with moving to another lesson because maybe you end up being too fast and some students still need some help.

FAQs

How do you keep a student lesson plan effective?

Here are some tips that can help you produce effective student lesson plans:

  • Plan any lesson where the students always come first in your priorities.
  • Set an easy-to-follow structure to your plan.
  • Incorporate SMART goals into the plan.
  • Apply different classroom activities to be unexpected.
  • Accept collaborative discussions, meaning teachers will not only do the talking in class.
  • Listen to feedback.
  • Keep your student lesson plan flexible for different circumstances.

What are the nine-step processes of instruction?

Robert Gagne coined the term events of instruction, and it consists of nine steps on how to plan or sequence lessons. The steps are: gain attention, inform about the objectives, recall previous knowledge, present new content, offer guidance, practice, submit feedback, evaluate performance, and improve retention.

What is the standard lesson plan content?

A basic lesson plan’s content consists of the lesson objectives, tasks and activities, materials or equipment, references, and homework or take-home tasks.

Any teacher can depend on a student lesson plan ala personal bible. It answers questions about what lessons to introduce to students, when to discuss such lessons with them, and even how effective students would learn from these lessons. However, student lesson plans differ as teachers have their own set of strategies, teaching methods, and learning styles in the field. Although lesson plans mark the roadmap of how to deliver the best lessons in no time, it is wrong to say that there is only one right way to make a student lesson plan. So for inspiration and tips on how to build the best lesson plans possible, just download a sample student lesson plan template.