Lesson Plan Components

Although the Teacher Candidate is given the opportunity to select and refine his/her own lesson plan format, there are several components that need to be included in all student teaching lesson plans. These "minimum components" are outlined below. Including these required components helps ensure that the Teacher Candidate has not missed any of the planning "basics". The criteria for assessing the adequacy of lesson planning can be found on the MIT Assessment Rubric (see Components 1c, 1e, and
4a).

  1. Clearly state what you are trying to accomplish with your lesson. In the language of the student teaching rubric this means to list your "instructional goals and key concepts". Expressing the same idea using different words, the WA state rubric asks you to list your "learning targets".
  2. Identify the Washington Essential Academic Learning Requirements most central to this lesson's outcomes (that is, that match the lesson's concepts, goals, or objectives to one or more EALRs).
  3. State the plan for pre-assessing students’ knowledge and abilities in relation to the lesson outcome.
  4. Describe the (developmentally appropriate) student learning activities to be used in this lesson to meet the stated goals, targets, etc.
  5. Specify the instructional resources needed for the student learning activities.
  6. Specify the teaching procedures that will be used to achieve the lesson's intended outcome. Note that this requires information that is in addition to the student learning activities. For example, depending on the particular lesson, it may be important to specify: what the teacher will say to introduce the lesson and/or connect it with prior learning, how long each part of the lesson will last, the planned core questions the teacher will ask, and/or the strategy for moving smoothly from one phase of the lesson to the next.
  7. Describe the formative and/or summative assessment procedures that will be used to gather feedback on student learning during and at the conclusion of the lesson.
  8. Include a post-lesson reflection, sharing your perceptions about the lesson's effectiveness and suggestions about how the lesson might be improved "the next time".