Gopal Midha

There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring. – Winston Churchill

Lesson plans are an important teaching-planning aid used by everyone academically linked to schools. The teacher uses them to decide how classroom sessions will proceed and how best to guide student learning. The principal or the headmaster refers to them to see if the teachers are planning well and are on track to cover the curriculum. Classroom observers watch the teacher in action and compare her class against her lesson plan. Visiting inspectors from examination boards consider them as proof of sound classroom practices. It seems that we cannot imagine schools without lesson plans.

But where does this idea of lesson plans come from? Who proposed it? Are all lesson plan formats alike or do teachers follow different kinds of lesson plan formats? Are they all effective? What does the commonly used Objectives-Activities-Assessment lesson plan format say about how students learn? Does using scripted/readymade lesson plans help or hinder the teacher? Finally, how can the school and the teacher improve planning for classroom sessions?

In this article, I explore these questions based on the research studies¹ I have come across and my own experience as a teacher.

Lesson plans: a brief history
Ralph Tyler was the first to propose an “effective organization of educational experiences to achieve the educational purpose of the school”². He suggested that a good lesson plan should be able to:
a) specify objectives
b) select learning activities
c) organize the learning activities, and
d) identify evaluation procedures (Doyle & Holm, 1998)³.

Although proposed in 1949, teacher-educators teach this approach in teacher preparation institutions even today (see image 1 of a specimen lesson plan from the 2006-07 Diploma in Teacher Education Source book, Maharashtra). Lesson plan formats available on the web are similar too (see image 2). Even though researchers like Bloom (1956)⁴ have contributed to this model with extended taxonomies, or like Jones, et al (2009)⁵ have proposed different sequences, most lesson plans are likely to have the following sections:
1. Learning objectives
2. Teaching and learning materials required
3. Activities for the teacher and the student
4. Assessment
5. Plenary

We may call this the Objectives-Activities-Assessment (OAA) format. Let us examine what this format assumes about the nature of teaching and learning.

The OAA model and its assumptions about learning
This model is linear. In other words, it assumes that learning can be structured in a way such that the objectives will clearly lead to designing learning activities and these activities can be assessed to see whether the objectives are met. The lesson plan format does not provide room for a more realistic and complex approach to learning. Classroom learning emerges from the dialogue and reflection between the teacher and her students. A linear lesson plan goes against this interactive and emergent nature of learning. It does not highlight the possibility of, or provide space for back-tracking, checking student misperceptions and other possible pathways.

Koeller & Thompson (1980)⁶ argue that this format “creates a split between the means (activities) and the ends (objectives) of learning.” This separation of the objectives and activities makes them seem as successive steps to learning rather than as part of a whole (John, 2006)⁷. Since the objectives and activities are written in separate unrelated rows, the teacher finds it hard to imagine how sometimes learning is “situated” and embedded within the activity and the context as proposed by Brown, Collins & Duguid (1989)⁸.

Researchers like John (2006) and Smith (1996)⁹ claim that the format is behaviourist. It breaks down learning into a set of tasks/activities/competencies, which can be observed and assessed. There are lesson plans that force the teacher to write details, such as which student will do exactly what during the session – creating a blueprint, which presumably will turn into reality in the classroom. Some lesson plans also ask the teacher to label students as “gifted and talented” or as “slow-learners” based on their display of competencies in the classroom. Such categories often link intelligence with the speed of response rather than its depth (Duckworth, 1996)¹⁰ and can have a negative impact on the students and their belief in their own competence.

The model also assumes universal impact. Irrespective of the social and cultural background of the students, it supposes that all students will learn the same thing from a given learning activity. Fosnot (1966)¹¹ describes constructivist learning as learners physically, symbolically, socially, and theoretically constructing their knowledge. Knowledge is not something handed down to them, rather the students create their own conceptual understanding of a topic. The lesson plan format often ignores this active and individualized knowledge gathering by the learner and assumes that all learners will “build” knowledge in the same way. Hence, the role of the teacher becomes more like that of a technician who is efficient at delivering the content in the lesson plan.

The format also believes that setting objectives precedes learning activities and experiences. However, there is a wide diversity in the way teachers prepare lesson plans. In my experience, some teachers prefer to begin with learning activities and then tie in the objectives while some prefer to fill up the objectives and then think of activities and so on. Whatever approach a teacher takes, John, (2006 p. 490) states that the lesson plan is often “arrived at through a variety of processes, many of which are highly personal, idiosyncratic, and embedded in the subject and classroom context of the topic being planned.”

Hence, we need to examine lesson plan formats carefully by questioning their underlying assumptions about the teacher, the student and the learning process. If these assumptions go against how students learn and how teachers think and plan, then the lesson plan might actually hinder the learning process.

Designing and delivering the lesson plan
Is there a link between the quality of a lesson plan and its delivery? Does a well-articulated lesson plan always lead to an effective classroom session? Since teachers are usually pressed for time, there have been well-intentioned efforts to introduce scripted¹² lesson plans to reduce the time teachers take for making lesson plans. Another unstated assumption is that such a lesson plan will give confidence and a sense of direction to the teacher. Although studies like those of Dorovolomo et al (2010)¹³ highlight that the quality of lesson plans prepared by teachers is positively linked to its quality of delivery, they do not prove whether a quality lesson plan given to teachers will be beneficial for students and classroom interactions.

Further, the same lesson plan will be carried out differently by different teachers. Hence, it will never be implemented the way it was imagined by the “expert” lesson planner. The dynamic nature of the classroom usually frustrates a linear planned pathway. Besides, a teacher might not “own” a readymade lesson plan the same way she does a lesson plan made by her.

Hence, a well-crafted lesson plan may provide some sense of direction and confidence to a teacher, however, the complexity of the classroom will make such confidence short-lived. It also undermines their planning. The scripted lesson plan instead of being a scaffold may actually become an obstacle preventing the teacher from developing her planning skills besides challenging her competence.

Lesson planning – a forgotten phase that needs more support
Lesson plans are also used to inspect and assess teaching quality within the classroom. They are mandatory under certain examination boards and are subject to audit. Hence, teachers fill up lesson plans not just as an academic requirement but also as an administrative duty and most schools have policies mandating lesson plans to be filed well in time.

However, there are few policies that support or guide the teacher in the process of lesson planning. Although schools may provide time to the teachers to plan their lessons, they do not support them actively in developing a richer understanding of the planning process and reflection after classroom sessions. Most teachers, therefore, make lesson plans, conduct their sessions and get busy with preparing the next plan – spending little time on discussion and reflection.

Consequently, novice and experienced teachers might begin to view lesson plans as more of an administrative task than something that could help guide their teaching.

What can we therefore do? – Indicative guidelines
So far, we have learnt a bit of the thinking behind lesson plans and the need for quality lesson planning. There is no “best-way” to plan, but certain guidelines may be useful. Some of them are outlined below:

• Importance of planning: Provide time and support to teachers for lesson planning. Schools need to look at the time that teachers spend on planning as at least as critical as the time teachers spend inside the classroom. The school can bring in subject experts to talk to teachers and work with them during the planning process. They could also provide access to books on the nature of subjects, how to teach them or on how such subjects are actualized outside school.
• Critical review: Discuss the lesson planning format. Teachers need to critically examine the lesson plan format they use. As a tool, the lesson plan is not merely an output of a teacher’s thinking, it shapes the way the teacher thinks and plans. Teachers could work together to modify the format and review it periodically. For instance, a section on hypotheses about what students are likely to know and how the plan builds on that could be useful. Adding a short checklist on meta-questions about the lesson plan format itself could be tried out.
• Reflective practice: Use the lesson plan to discuss what happened in the classroom. Teachers could either take turns to describe how the classroom sessions progressed compared to their plans and become aware of the decisions they took and what other instructional strategies they could have used. Using video for self-reflection on the lesson plan could support those teachers who are more comfortable analyzing their sessions on their own. Further, teachers could use the lesson plan as a useful artifact to reflect on how students learn.
• Diversity in design and delivery: The school could reduce the importance of sticking to a standard lesson plan and accept that teachers will follow different strategies in designing and delivering lesson plans. Principals and inspectors should not use the lesson plan to judge the teacher, but rather as a tool that helps teachers visualize and imagine how the classroom session will take place.
• Work with others: Borrowing from and adapting the Japanese method of lesson study¹⁴, teachers could work together to draw up detailed lesson plans, deliver them and discuss them as a group to answer research questions (the group of teacher defines their own research questions and then does lesson study to answer them).

Summarizing the answers/findings
To conclude, lesson planning, like teaching-learning, is complex and requires interacting with factors like the knowledge of the teacher, the nature of the subject, the teacher’s beliefs about the subject and its pedagogy, the socio-cultural context of the classroom and the lesson plan format. However, when lesson planning is treated sincerely and done thoughtfully, it can lead to a richness of learning within the classroom and provide intense, fulfilling and powerful learning experiences to teachers and students.

I hope this article leads to discussions on the nature of lesson plans, the quality and time spent on lesson planning and on questions like:

• Do different subjects need different kinds of lesson plan formats?
• What are the ways teachers could reflect on their lesson plans after the classroom session?
• What is the role that students and parents could play in designing a lesson plan?
• What about processes like lesson study? How can they work in schools here?

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References

1. At times, I have summarized the findings of the research and not elaborated them. I do hope that this encourages teachers and other readers to go to the original research article and engage in the demanding, yet fulfilling task of developing a richer understanding of the reference.
2. Tyler, R. W. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago: University of Chicago. Also read Bobitt’s work which brought up the education objectives approach. Bobbitt, F. (1928). How to Make a Curriculum, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. As the reader might observe, these books are more than half a century old. It makes me wonder on how much they still influence current thinking and whether that is good.
3. Doyle, M. & Holm, D.T. (1998). Instructional Planning through Stories. Teacher Education Quarterly 25(3), 69-83.
4. Bloom, B. S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational objectives by a committee of college and university examiners. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain. New York: D. McKay.
5. Jones, K.A., Vermette, P.J. & Jones, J.L. (2009). An Integration of “Backwards Planning” Unit Design with the Two-Step Lesson Planning Framework. Education. 130(2). 357-360.
6. Koeller, S. & Thompson, E. (1980). Another look at Lesson Planning. Educational Leadership. 673-675.
7. John, P. D. (2006). Lesson planning and the student teacher: re-thinking the dominant model. Journal Of Curriculum Studies, 38(4), 483-498.
8. Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher. 18(1), 32-42. This remains one of the most influential and debated articles on how people learn. If there is one article that you have time to engage with, this is the one I would recommend.
9. Smith, M. K. (1996, 2000) ‘Curriculum theory and practice’ the encyclopedia of informal education, Retrieved November 12, 2011 from www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm.
10. Duckworth, E. (1996). The Having of Wonderful Ideas and other essays. NY: Teachers College Press.
11. Fosnot, Catherine. (1996). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
12. By scripted, I mean those ready-made lesson plans which detail out the objectives and learning activities and leave little room for the teacher to decide about what will be taught and how.
13. Dorovolomo, J., Phan, P. H. & Maebuta, J. (2010). Quality Lesson Planning and Quality Delivery: Do they relate? International Journal of Learning. 17(3), 447-455.
14. “What is lesson study?” (N.A.) Retrieved November 11, 2011 from http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/lessonstudy.html.

The author is an education consultant with Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He holds an MBA from IIM Lucknow and an M.Ed from the University of Massachusetts. He can be reached at gopalmidha@gmail.com.

Give us this day our daily… lesson plan!

Sayujya Sankar and Sangeeta Menon

Ms. Ruchi Arora, a mentor teacher for English at Sancta Maria International School, believes that lesson planning is essential for a class to go on smoothly. Using the information in the curriculum as her point of reference, she plans what she is going to be doing in class for the entire week. The lesson plan, while theoretical, is based heavily on the students she is working with. She notes that it is essential to understand the learner’s ability in order to prepare for his or her class. She introduces a general worksheet or questions the students orally, thereby finding out where each student stands in relation to the rest of the class with regard to a given topic. After this introductory activity, she groups the students according to their learning capability. While the introductory activity is the same for the whole class, the lessons planned based on these activities are different, so that they cater to different levels within the classroom. At the end of every week, she believes that it is necessary to evaluate what has been done in class. This gives her a clear understanding of whether and to what extent the student has managed to understand the concept. Thus, according to her, the lesson plan is fixed, while the way it is executed differs from student to student.

The lesson plan, however, is not only the information that is taken from the curriculum, but also involves research material used for the class. This material can come from anywhere. For instance, Ms. Arora uses resources as varied as the Internet, books, and ideas incorporated from prior experiences as well as her own innovative techniques.

Mrs. Ratnalekha Shetty, teacher and principal of Sancta Maria International School, believes that “Only if you plan, you deliver well.” She also says that it is necessary to break down a forty-minute class into slots of 10 or 20 minutes each, so that the student does not get bored during the session. This helps maintain the concentration level in the classroom. Finally, she also says that every lesson plan ought to have room for reflection. It is this, in fact, that will help the teacher even more than the actual planning, as knowing which ideas failed and which worked will help teachers evolve their teaching methodology. It gives a good idea about what one can take up in the lesson plans that they would create later as well.

Ms. Meghana Musunri, teacher and president of Fountainhead – The Global School, a school for kids aged six and below, notes that the lesson plan has to involve a lot of practical work because, especially for younger children, seeing indeed is believing. She states that if the child’s curiosity as to why he/she should learn is satisfied, one can go on to the next aspect – how one can learn. On a weekly basis, topics are introduced using projects and other fun methods, where not much information is provided (since children need more activities to learn a given concept). She speaks about the four different types of learners: those who learn “through speech, the audio-visual, through exploring, and other traditional methodologies (from books, etc.)”. Their schedule is divided so that all kids participate and eventually understand the given concepts.

Along with her colleague, Dr. Ranganayaki Srinivas (who helped plan the syllabus for the NCERT board), Meghana Musunri plans the lessons for the syllabus in their school. Both of them design their own material acquiring resources from various authors and using their own unique ideas and approaches. They take help from child psychiatrists who speak about how a child’s potential can be improved so that, as Meghana states, the child can “face the future without depending on others.”

Plotting a lesson plan can vary from teacher to teacher. Some teachers like to keep it fairly broad-based for flexibility while others like to plan down to the minutest detail. Kavita Safi, a senior High School teacher of English at Chaitanya Vidyalaya School in Hyderabad, maintains that lesson plans are extremely important. It is not just an “onerous and tedious pedagogic requisite” that a teacher is compelled to fulfill. On the other hand, she takes this task very seriously. Planning for each of her classes is rigorous work which she does with meticulous care. She begins by charting out the syllabus for the classes that she handles for the entire academic year, followed by a term-wise distribution of her work based on the number of periods that she is allotted with each class. Then, she breaks this down further into fortnightly capsules, finally ending up with a daily plan of the work that she intends to cover each day, fitting it into the overall scheme of her lesson plan.

According to Ms. Safi, lesson plans are absolutely vital in preparing a teacher for her class. They not only help in structuring and organizing her work at a macro level but also allow her to keep tabs on it at the micro level. It enables her to set a steady pace with her work ensuring sufficient time for all that she wishes to get done and invests her with the confidence of knowing exactly where she is with her work at any given point of time. She can keep track of whether she is falling behind or is ahead of schedule. More significantly, a lesson plan “adds to the effectiveness of each lesson.” Following a structure ensures that the teacher can make the best creative and productive use of the time at her/his disposal and can provide the satisfaction of progress well made in the class.

Ms. Safi states emphatically that nothing can be done without organizing oneself. “A lesson plan is like a having a remote in your hands,” she says. “ It gives you that degree of control. There are so many variables in each class. But the plan allows you to know when to pause, when to go on, when to rewind or fast-forward.” Although teaching for her is largely “instinctive and subjective”, a knowledge and formal study of lesson plans that a course in Education provides is desirable as there are tried and tested underlying concepts that a teacher ought to internalize. They delineate the basic rules and framework that the teacher can then customize to his/her specifications.

Drawing up a lesson plan need not be a repetitive exercise year after year even if the teacher takes the same class in successive academic years. As long as the syllabus remains the same, a good lesson plan can, therefore, be used repeatedly without much change. Even if Ms. Safi does not like to deviate too much from her lesson plan, she is not rigid about it and does “juggle it around” if there is need. She revamps an existing lesson plan in her lower classes (seven and eight) depending on what she gets to learn and ascertain of her students’ interests and abilities even midway during an academic year. In the case of higher classes (nine and ten) she avers there is little scope of experimenting with the plan each successive year. However, her class determines the order of the lessons in her plan which she reworks based on the general working style and capacity of the students in that class.

Ms. Santhi Sathiapalan, a secondary school teacher of Biotechnology at Vidya Mandir, Chennai, concurs that lesson plans are both necessary and important. However, if the syllabus remains constant year after year, it need not be prepared anew. No doubt her school requires an annual/yearly lesson plan to be submitted at the commencement of each new academic year. Ms. Sathiapalan then checks to see where her plan from the previous year can be improved. If a topic had not gone well in that particular year in her classes, she would then try to adjust it by approaching it differently and introduce it in the plan for the upcoming year. She says, “We must learn from our mistakes.” While she may not “jot down” a daily plan for her class, she does have a mental plan in place before she enters the class.

In schools where there is more than one section to a class and more than one teacher handling the same subject in different sections as in her school, Ms. Sathiapalan feels a common lesson plan would serve the purpose. The teachers could jointly refer to that plan and co-ordinate their efforts accordingly. Only their individual styles of teaching might differ. But the topics covered and the duration would remain the same. This would ensure uniformity amongst the different sections and not cause anxiety to the students or parents. Ms. Sathiapalan adds that if two teachers were splitting a text into two halves to be taken up by them for the same class, it would be a good idea to plan their lessons in such a way that each teacher take up that part of the text which is their strength. That way they would support and complement each other.

Lesson plans bring a certain clarity to a teacher’s work against which she can conduct a process of self-evaluation, gauging her own output and the response of the students vis a vis the objective initially outlined by her for each lesson. Also it serves as a record of what each teacher had proposed to do in class and what was actually achieved and therefore, is also a reference point for other teachers who might wish to consult the plans of their colleagues to formulate their own. While there are plenty of sources now available for a teacher to research from and prepare a creative and interesting lesson plan for a whole range of topics, a good lesson plan must ultimately reflect each teacher’s own individual style of teaching and her understanding of the capabilities of her class.

Sayujya Sankar teaches English at Sancta Maria International School, Serilingampally. She has completed her Masters in English from the University of Hyderabad. She can be reached at dewdrops.dreamz@gmail.com.

Sangeeta Menon has been a high school English teacher and is someone who is passionately involved in the process of education in the country. She can be reached at sangmenon@yahoo.com.