Many problems that occur in student teaching can be traced to careless or inadequate planning.  The student teacher is therefore advised to plan thoroughly for each lesson.  Lesson planning helps the student teacher organize his/her thoughts and also enables the cooperating teacher to know the materials, strategies, and activities that the student teacher intends to use.  The University supervisor and cooperating teacher will advise the student teacher on appropriate or required formats for lessons plans.  In addition, course instructors may have particular lesson plan formats they wish the student teacher to use for particular course assignments.  Many different formats are possible and appropriate.  However, most lesson plans include, as a minimum, the following information, regardless of format: 

• Review: How is this lesson tied to previous learning?  (This may be done as part of closure rather than at the beginning for some kinds of lessons.)

 
• Lead-In: Anticipatory set, motivation, purpose, objectives: Let them know what the lesson is about, give them a reason for learning this.

 
• Strategy: Activity, investigation, procedures: this is the body of the lesson.  Record the actual questions or directions you will use in the order you will proceed, and anticipate possible student responses.  Indicate approximate time delineations.  If there are major transitions between parts of the lesson, indicate how those are to be accomplished.

 
• Materials: List those to be used.

 
• Closure: Type of closure should be indicated, and the method (e.g., whole group discussion, teacher lecture, written product by each individual student or by collaborative groups, etc.).  The teacher and/or students might state the major points of the lesson, or make connections to previous knowledge or to other areas of learning or experience, or the students might articulate something they had learned from the lesson.  The teacher might also preview subsequent learning related to the lesson, so that the students will have a sense of where they are headed.

 
• Evaluation: Means of evaluating the students' learning and level of understanding.

 
• Reflection: Reflectionis an essential part of on-going planning, as well as the most basic instrument of progress in learning to teach. Reflection is most often a solitary process, but we can also benefit from collaborative and interactive reflection with others.  Some people find keeping a reflective journal very helpful, and such a journal can yield valuable material for ones portfolio; however, we do not require written reflections except in conjunction with certain assignments carried out in the classroom as required in specific courses.  Nonetheless, after teaching each lesson, the student teacher should then reflect, alone or in conjunction with the cooperating teacher or university supervisor (or a fellow student, or . . .), on such questions as the following:

What went well?  What makes me think so?
What would I do the same the next time I teach this lesson or concept, and why?
What would I do differently, and why?
What do I think the students understood from the lesson, and what makes me think so?
With regard to the students learning, where should I/would I go from here?
What have I learned (about myself as a teacher, about teaching, about the students, about the lesson content, about planning, about assessment, about questioning and listening, about behavior management, about. . . .)? With regard to my own performance as a teacher, what do I want to focus on next in my learning process? 

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California State University Monterey Bay 
100 Campus Monterey, Seaside CA, 93955, U.S.A. 
Telephone:Call  (831) 582-3639 
Fax: 582-3585