This blog is Part 3 of 3.

Here’s a link to Part 1.

And here’s a link to Part 2.

In the previous blogs, we thought about lesson structure, the purpose of lessons, and the content of lessons.

We then looked at the lesson framework, focussing on the three-part lesson: Starter, Main Activities, Plenary.

Here, I’ll share practical examples covering each element of the three-part lesson, before finishing off by looking at the role of reflection.

Starters

These are the activities through which we begin a lesson.

They should be accessible for all learners but should also contain a good level of challenge.

The aim is to facilitate success but also to push learners to think further than they might be inclined to do on their own.

Facilitating success binds learners into the lesson and fosters motivation.

An immediate sense of challenge sets the tone for the lesson as a whole.

Here are five examples of starter activities.

List It

Give learners the lesson topic and ask them to list as many things as possible connected to it.

Provide a time limit to create a sense of pace.

Challenge learners by asking them to put the things on their list into a series of groups or to pick out and justify the three most important things they write down.

If this is the answer, what might be the question?

Present learners with an answer connected to the lesson topic.

Ask them to work on their own or with a partner to come up with two or three possible questions for which this could be the right answer.

Challenge learners by asking them to explain why they think you have chosen this specific answer or by asking them to rank their questions from best to worst (and to provide justification).

A-Z

Learners work in pairs. They write the letters A-Z on a sheet of paper.

You introduce the lesson topic.

Learners then have 2-4 minutes to identify a word connected to the topic for each letter of the alphabet.

The first pair to complete their A-Z are the winners.

Challenge learners by giving a series of caveats like: at least three words must be concepts, or, at least one letter must have a phrase rather than a word attached to it.

Paired Discussion

Display a question or series of questions on the board connected to the topic and invite learners to discuss these with a partner.

Set a time limit and ask one member of each group to make a note of the points discussed.

Challenge learners by asking them to discuss the questions from someone else’s perspective or by asking them to develop their own questions.

Stimulus Image

Display a striking or unusual image on the board that connects to the topic.

Ask learners to look at the image in silence and to think about it.

Ask them to note down their thoughts and then to share these with a partner.

If appropriate, provide one or two questions that will help learners think about the image.

Challenge learners by asking them to speculate as to why the image was taken, what might have happened before and what might have happened afterwards.

In each of these examples, the activity grabs learners’ attention, gives them an opportunity to be successful, and then challenges them to think further.

Try them out and see how you get on.

(And, for more starter activities, see my free Starter Generator resource.)

Activities

Main activities vary considerably.

Think of them as vessels for content.

You decide what content you want learners to learn.

Then you choose the activities into which this will fit best.

How you make this decision depends on the topic you are teaching, the age group you are working with, and your own personal preferences.

Good activities give learners plenty of opportunity to actively engage with content.

They are challenging and allow for active practice.

Finally, they are differentiated.

This means that learners can access them and learn through them regardless of their ability levels and prior attainment.

For more on differentiation, see my Differentiation Knowledge Base, as well as the differentiation blogs in the Training to Teach Knowledge Base.

Here, we will simply say that it means doing things and planning things that allow all learners to access the learning, make progress and experience a good level of challenge.

With these thoughts in mind, here are five examples of effective activities.

Jigsawing

Divide the class into groups of five. Each group is given a different part of the topic to research.

The teacher provides suitable materials, and a time limit is set. When the time is up each group is numbered off 1-5.

That is, the first learner is number one, the second number two and so on.

New groups are formed.

All the number ones get together; all the number twos get together; and so on.

In these new groups, learners take it in turns to teach each other what they learned in their original groups.

Speed Debating

The class is divided in half.

A statement is displayed on the board.

Half the class will argue for the statement while half will argue against.

Each half is divided into smaller groups and learners are given time to prepare their arguments.

When the time is up, pairs are formed.

Each pair contains one learner who is for and one learner who is against.

Debates take place concurrently in a two-minute timeslot.

When the time is up, the learners who are for the statement stand up and find a new partner.

The debate is repeated with the new pairings.

The process is repeated as many times as the teacher feels is appropriate.

Stepped Practice

Present learners with a series of tasks or questions that allow them to practice a skill or practice applying something they have learned.

The tasks or questions should get progressively more difficult.

This is where the ‘stepped’ element comes in.

As learners work through the activity, their thinking is increasingly challenged.

Different learners will get to different points; all will have their thinking stretched.

Options

Teach learners about something connected to the topic and present a range of options through which they might respond to the material.

For example, you might spend ten minutes explaining to learners why Macbeth acted in the way he did before inviting learners to respond to this by creating an alternative interpretation, an imaginary interview with Macbeth or a piece of first-person narration from the perspective of Macbeth or another key character.

Here, the aim is to give learners choice so that they can self-select and, through doing, engage with the content at an appropriate level, while experiencing a degree of agency.

Learn – Experiment – Reflect

Teach learners about something connected to the topic and then provide them with the tools or guidance necessary to experiment with this knowledge.

For example, you might teach learners about the nature of friction before giving them a set of toy trucks and surface types that they can use to conduct relevant experiments.

When sufficient time has passed, lead learners in a reflection.

This reflection should focus on the relationship between what learners initially learned and what they discovered in their experiments.

Each of these activities can be adapted to work with a variety of different topics, subjects and age-groups.

This illustrates the initial point that good activities are vessels into which different content can be placed.

Never be afraid to modify, adapt or change an activity.

They are not sacrosanct.

Just tools we use to engage learners and drive learning.

Plenaries

Plenaries come at the end of the lesson.

Ideally, they should be between five and fifteen minutes in length.

This is determined by the overall length of the lesson.

A two-hour lesson may warrant a fifteen-minute plenary. A thirty-five-minute lesson will not.

The aim here is to help learners reinforce their learning by revisiting it.

This can include reflecting on it, using it and questioning it.

Here are some example plenaries to illustrate the point:

• Identify three things you know now that you didn’t know at the start of the lesson.
• How would you explain your learning today to someone who knew nothing about the topic?
• Use your learning from today’s lesson to answer these questions about the topic.

In each case, we are directing learners to think about their learning and to use it in some way.

The active engagement this causes helps reinforce the learning in learners’ minds.

It also gives you a chance to check the learning that has been done and to intervene if any misconceptions have developed.

You can use the information you elicit through the plenary to inform future planning.

If, for example, the plenary reveals learners are struggling to accurately apply a particular idea, then you can plan to revisit this at the start of the following lesson.

Plenaries tend to fall into two general categories.

On the one hand, they ask learners to reflect on their learning (as in examples one and two above).

On the other hand, they ask learners to use their learning (as in examples two and three – two, of course, straddles both categories).

The type of plenary you choose to use will depend on your learners and what you want from the end of your lesson.

The best advice is to play around with a range of examples and see what works for you.

(For plenty of read-made, no planning plenaries, see my free Plenaries on a Plate and Plenary Producer resources.)

So, there we have it, a guide to lesson planning.

We identify our purpose, use this as the basis of our decision-making, select our content and then choose a starter activity, one, two or three main activities and a plenary.

Having done this, we clarify our objectives and outcomes and then … we’re done.

Well, not quite.

The Habit of Reflection

The final element of high-quality lesson planning comes after we have taught our lesson.

It is reflection.

Critical reflection (as opposed to uncritical reflection in which all lessons are simply brilliant!) involves sitting down and thinking honestly about what happened, how this relates to what we anticipated, and what we think we can learn from the experience.

In my experience, trainee teachers find it easier to focus on the problems encountered while teaching a lesson.

But remember, honest reflection means giving a realistic account of everything that happened – good, bad and indifferent.

Failing to do this will limit the efficacy of your reflection.

This, in turn, will slow your progress and make it harder to achieve your goals.

A useful exercise is to take a set of questions and select three or four of these at random.

The questions you choose then direct your reflection.

This way, you do not have to worry about your own objectivity – the process of random selection does the work for you.

Here are twelve numbered questions you can use as the basis of this exercise:

1. What went well in the lesson and why?
2. If you could alter one thing about the lesson, what would it be and why?
3. How much progress do you feel learners made? How could they have made more?
4. What will you use again? Will you adapt or develop it at all?
5. Did the lesson develop as you expected? Why?
6. How successful do you feel your activities were? What learning did they give rise to?
7. How did different groups of learners respond to the lesson? What can you learn from this?
8. Which part of the lesson went closest to plan, and which was the furthest off? Why do you think this was?
9. What did you do during the lesson? What did the learners do?
10. How did your activity choices influence the flow of the lesson and the classroom atmosphere?
11. What problems did you encounter and why do you think they arose?
12. What advice would you give yourself based on the lesson? Be specific and constructive.

Reflection needn’t be a lengthy process.

Regularity is more important than length.

The key is to get into a routine of reviewing your lessons critically, on a regular basis.

This ensures you keep making improvements, speeding up your development.

The results will quickly become apparent. Even if they are only incremental at first, the important thing is that they will be there for you to see.

I’ll finish with a set of questions, as well as three activities, that will help you to continue thinking about lessons and lesson planning.

Questions

• What lessons, if any, do you remember from school? Why do you remember them? And, if you don’t remember any, is this necessarily a bad thing?
• To what extent should a teacher be prepared to change their lesson plan in response to their learners? If they do decide to make changes, how can they be sure the intended learning still takes place?
• Earlier, I suggested the perfect lesson is an illusion. Do you agree? Is it ever possible to plan a perfect lesson?
• Why might it be useful to think through a lesson plan from the perspective of a learner – or from the perspective of a series of different learners?
• Can all learning be anticipated by the teacher, or does some happen by accident? What are the consequences of this for lesson planning?

Activities

• Observe two or three colleagues. Ask them to provide you with a lesson plan or, at the least, a rough sketch of what they plan to do with their class. Examine how the lesson they teach compares with their plan.
• Find another trainee who has some time available then sit down and plan a lesson together. Talk about the process as you go. Ask each other questions, including about why certain decision have been made. Don’t be afraid to challenge each other or suggest alternatives. At the end of the exercise, reflect on what you have learned.
• Set up a focus group of learners and invite them to plan a lesson or a series of lessons with you. Give them a sense of the lesson framework and then invite them to talk you through what they think would be a good approach and why. This will help you gain an insight into learners’ perspectives on teaching and learning.