The Thinking Process of Planning a Quality Lesson

written by by Wei (Willa) Bian, associate professor, Slippery Rock University

"If you fail to plan, plan to fail."

The Lesson plan is one of the most important steps for teachers in order to provide a quality education experience to their students. At the beginning of each semester, many student teachers are heading to schools to practice what they have learned in the field. For those novice teachers, developing a good lesson plan is crucial to a successful lesson. As a new teacher, you may wonder where to begin, and what you should do to plan your lesson.

Figure 1 is a flow chart that shows the thinking process when planning a lesson. It may not cover every element that is necessary for a thorough lesson plan, but we hope this chart will serve as a map to guide you when planning a quality lesson.

Figure 1: The Flow Chart of Thinking Process for a Quality Lesson in Physical Education

Plan for what you are going to teach

There are two major things you need to consider when starting to plan a lesson: What you teach, and how to teach it.

The First part is 'what you are going to teach,' which is more related to your content knowledge. Under this category, you need to first set up lesson objectives in the following educational domains: Psychomotor (P), cognitive (C) and affective (A).

Psychomotor domain refers to movement patterns, sport skills, or fitness components that your students need to develop. This part usually serves as the lesson focus, since the key to physical education is body movement. You must clearly know the movement skills or fitness components that you expect your students to learn or to review in your lesson. Write down at least one or two lesson objectives in the psychomotor domain.

For example, if you want your students to learn how to throw a beanbag, you need to set up goals for the throwing action. The goal must be more specific to 1) the type of throwing: underhand or overhand, 2) the condition: throwing without the approach or throwing with the approach, and lastly 3) the expected outcome: throwing to a target for accuracy, or the throwing action that demonstrates the correct throwing technique.

Cognitive domain is related to knowledge and intellectual skills that students need to acquire. When you plan a lesson, you also need to plan what kind of knowledge you expect your students to acquire during the lesson. It may include critical cues for an execution of a sport skill, the information of health benefits involving physical activity participation, or the movement concepts when performing fundamental skills.

To write lesson objectives in the cognitive domain, you can review the Bloom's taxonomy of education objectives to ensure whether your students are demonstrating different levels of understanding. For example, if you want your students to demonstrate the basic knowledge of an overhand throw, you can write the lesson plan objective as "at the end of the lesson, students will be able to recall three critical elements of an overhand throw with 100 percent accuracy."

Affective domain: Now, it's time to set up lesson objectives for the affective domain, which is used to promote student positive behaviors and attitudes toward physical education and physical activity participation. You need to set up clear class rules to reinforce a respectful and safe learning environment. Prepare a wall poster and write 3-5 short positive class rules for your students to follow. An example of an objective for the affective domain could be, "Students will be able to follow class rules and show respect to other students for the entire class period."

Match lesson plan objectives to standards: Lesson plan objectives should align with standards developed by the department of education of your state and NASPE. You need to be familiar with those standards so you can match your lesson plan objectives to the state standard.

Assessment serves to measure, during and at the end of the lesson, whether lesson plan objectives have been met and students have learned from the lesson. Plan at least one assessment method that you can use in your lesson. You can develop a checklist, or rating scale, with a few selected elements to guide your observations. You also can plan a handout, with a few simple questions for your students to complete at the end of the lesson. This type of paper/pencil assessment enables you to document student learning, and provides evidence of your teaching effectiveness.

Plan how to teach the lesson

Lesson plan goals serve as "the destination" for the lesson. Once you know where to go, the next step is to select the means to get there. Now it's time for you to plan how to teach the lesson.

Flow of the lesson: A typical physical education lesson usually consists of four parts: a) a warm up or instant activity b) introduction of the lesson or anticipatory, c) lesson focus, and d) closure. Usually your cooperating teacher or school mentor has a routine activity for their students at the beginning of the class. You may follow the routine, or ask them if you can plan your own activity.

Plan a brief introduction to tell students the lesson focus and lesson objectives. Draft a short story that ties to students' previous learning experiences and interests. Plan progressive and developmentally appropriate learning activities for each lesson part. Remember, students will enjoy the lesson more, and learn better, if you provide varyious learning tasks and have enough practicing time to perform the task. Plan a review activity for lesson closure that allows you to summarize the lesson and prepare students for returning to the classroom.

Teaching styles: There are different teaching styles based on whether the learning experience is more teacher-controlled or student-centered. Choose one or two teaching styles for your lesson. If you want your students to do what you tell them, you can choose the command teaching style. If you want your students to practice skills at different stations, you can choose practice teaching style. If you want your students to explore the possibilities of movement or ways to handle a beanbag, you can choose an exploratory teaching style.

Demonstration with explanation: Showing is better than telling. Good demonstration provides students a clear picture of what you expect them to learn and to practice. In your lesson plan, plan who (teacher or student) will do the demonstration. Clearly write key points you want to share with your students during the demonstration. Please remember to keep the explanation short and simple.

Plan one or two specific questions for after the demonstration, in order to check for understanding. Instead of asking "are there any questions?," plan questions where students must respond with a very short answer. For example, after you explained the rules for a tag game, ask students, "which foot do you need to step forward with when throwing the beanbag?" Students will answer, "opposite foot."

Organization: Whether students are practicing a motor skill or playing a game, they should follow some type of instructional formation. You need to decide whether students should perform tasks in scattered individual formations or work with a partner. Depending on class size, decide the number of the teams you would like to set up for a game play. Try to group students in relatively smaller numbers to promote maximum participation. Plan and select efficient methods to form groups, and move students around to ensure smooth transitions. Draw instructional diagrams to show the position of the teacher, the formation of the students, and the direction of the movement.

Adaptation and extensions: Plan two or three adaptations that make learning tasks easier for students with special needs or who have a hard time performing a task. On the other hand, you should plan a few extensions that make learning tasks more challenging to students who are more skilled. Those changes can include modifying the size of the target, the quality of the playing balls, the distance between partners, and the number of the groups, etc. Don't forget! Do your best to get to know your students. Developmentally appropriate learning tasks will meet the needs of students with various mental and physical needs.

Equipments and teaching materials: In your lesson plan, list all equipment you will need for your lesson. Develop an equipment set-up plan for each part of the lesson, including where to place the equipment, how the equipment will be distributed and returned, and what to say to students about proper equipment handling. A complete equipment set-up plan will greatly reduce chaos during transitions and enhance safe learning.

Time allocation: Once you know the duration of the lesson, estimate how many minutes you would like to spend for each part of it. For a 40 minutes lesson, you may allocate 5-10 minutes for the introduction and warm up routine, 25-30 minutes for lesson focus, and 3-5 minutes for the closure. For the lesson focus part, decide how much time you would like to spend on each learning task. Remember to give students ample time to practice the skill (at least 3-5 minutes per task) and don't spend too much time explaining the task. Provide skill-related feedback, in addition to the instruction, while students are practicing the skill or performing the learning tasks.

References: I strongly suggest using all kinds of resources when planning lessons. Textbooks, internet resources, and research journal articles will enrich your knowledge and provide ideas for your lessons. Always ask your cooperating teacher or school mentor for their input. They know the students wel, which will help make your lesson plans more developmentally appropriate and maximize student learning.

Good luck and have a very successful semester.

additional resource: Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains: The Three Types of Learning

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