Effective lesson planning leads to successful teaching.

Lesson planning is an essential skill every student teacher must develop. It provides structure, ensures time management, and enhances classroom engagement. Mastering it will help you become a more effective teacher. Lesson planning is more than just preparing notes for a class. It is about structuring your teaching to ensure students grasp the concepts effectively. A well-prepared lesson plan provides a roadmap for both the teacher and students.

Without proper planning, lessons may become disorganized, leading to confusion and lack of engagement. Below, we outline the essential steps for mastering lesson planning. What then is lesson plan?

In short, a lesson plan, also referred to as lesson notes, is a sketch to guide the presentation of instructional activities so that teachers can optimize classroom time and students' learning.

Here are some key features of it. Every lesson plan should contain;

• Strand and Substrand
• Content Standard and Indicators (with Performance Indicators, also known as Exemplars.)
• Core Competencies, TLRs, Keywords and Reference
• Teaching Phases (Starter, Main with Assessment and Plenary.

Before we move to how lesson plans prepared, let's dive a bit into what these features are.

1. Strands are the broad learning areas of the content. Formerly known as Topics. Example of a strand in mathematics is "Number". Another on in science is "Diversity of Matter".


2. Substrands are the sub-sections under each strand. Also formerly known as Sub-topics. Example of a substrand under the strand "Number" is "Whole Number Operation". Another one under "Diversity of Matter" is "Living and Non-living Things".


3. Content Standard refers to the predetermined level of knowledge, skills and attitudes the learner attains by a set stage in education. A content standard for the substrand "Whole Number Operations" is "Learners develop a conceptual understanding of addition and subtraction of whole numbers". Another one for "Diversity of Matter" is "Learners understand the physical features and life processess of living things and use this understanding to classify them".


4. Learning Indicators or Indicators for short, refers to the clear outcomes the learner have to exhibit in each year to meet the content standard expectation. Formerly known as Learning Objectives.


5. Performance Indicators or Exemplars narrow down and explain the learning indicators into smaller achievable units.


6. Core Competencies describes a body of skills that all teachers at all levels should seek to develop in their learners. They are acquired throughout the processes of teaching and learning.


7. Teaching and Learning Resources (TLRs) are the materials and objects use in teaching and learning. Formerly, TLMs.


8. Keywords are just the strong/new words in your lesson you think learners should understand before you use them to explain concepts.


9. Reference refers to the sources you interacted to prepare your lesson. It should be the curriculum, textbooks of learners, other books, articles, etc.


10. Starter (Phase One) sets the tone of the lesson. Activities that engage learners to make their brains ready for the lesson.


11. Main (Phase Two) is where the main lesson comes. Facilitor breaks down lesson into activities with focus on the learners. Assess student learning independently or collaboratively with problems.


12. Plenary (Phase Three) also known as Reflection, is an opportunity to reflect, recap on and consolidate the learning that has happened. They can also be used to bridge learning by introducing next lessons that link to this one.

To make things easier, the strands, substrands, content standards, indicators and core competencies have been spelt out in the curriculum for us already. So you have to get those ready. Now let's move quickly to prepare our lesson.

Step 1

Step 2

Ensure that all resources are relevant and suitable for your students’ learning levels.

Step 3

Make sure the introduction connects with students’ prior knowledge to make learning more relatable.

Step 4

Step 5

Ensure students receive feedback on their performance to help them improve.

Final Step

This is how you can prepare approved lessons for teaching. Going contrary to this might end in repreparation and a lot more stress.
If you didn't get anything well, follow up to a lecturer or a colleague, or continue with more research and learning.

Note better that, lesson plan preparation often comes with different opinions and preferences on the side of lecturers. So if you are asked to prepare your lessons in a certain way slightly different from what we learnt here, do not hesitate to do so. Our lecturers know more, though this is the basics. Just stay brilliant and powerful.

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