Lesson planning is an incredibly important aspect of strategic teaching. Although establishing an agenda may keep your class flowing from activity to activity, what you plan to accomplish in those time segments must be clear in your mind and must facilitate the achievement of the overall goals and objectives of your course. The degree of detail in your lesson plans is directly related to your teaching style, experience with the material being taught, and comfort level in the classroom. Strategic lesson planning focuses on four elements: establishing objectives, planning learning experiences, identifying required materials, and evaluating student progress. Each of these is discussed below.

1. Establishing Objectives

Prior to each class meeting, identify the specific expectations of student performance to be attained by the end of the lesson. Writing your objectives with respect to the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy will help you identify effective classroom activities and an evaluation process that measures student success.

2. Planning Learning Experiences

Focusing as best you can on your students’ existing knowledge levels, their learning styles, their overall maturity, and related factors, the next task is to identify activities and teaching methods to match the objectives you clarified above. During your lesson planning, answer some foundational questions:

What content do you need to present, and what is its appropriate level of complexity for this course?

Does it lend itself to using an overhead camera, a PowerPoint presentation, or some other form of visual device to focus students’ attention?

How do you intend to keep the students engaged in lecture?

Would it be desirable to have students immediately apply their knowledge in a group activity?

If so, how will you structure that activity?

What is the ideal size of groups for this activity and how will you select members?

What directions do you need to provide so that students can be successful in their group work?

How will they share their group findings?

What key points do you need to make in debriefing the activity?

Do you plan to engage students in discussion?

If so, what are the key questions you want to ask?

What cognitive level of learning should they reach?

These may seem like a lot of questions – however, the best and most strategic teachers at the college level consider these each and every time they prepare their course material. Surely you are one of the ones who also wants to be among the best and most effective.

3. Identifying Required Materials

When planning your in-class learning experiences, make a list of the specific materials you will need. Are you planning to show a DVD/video? Do you have the DVD close by, or will you have to retrieve it from someplace else? Do you need to reserve it ahead of time? Is a equipment you’ll need to show it always available in your classroom, or do you need to order it? If you are planning group work, do you have all the materials you need to share with the students? Make a list of resources you need for each lesson in advance. It’s actually worthwhile to have a toolkit of materials: whiteboard markers, Post It notes, name tags, a three-hole punch, index cards, scissors, and so on. You may or may not need all in any given class period, but it promotes a security to have them already packed, just in case.

4. Evaluating Student Progress

How are you going to know if the students accomplished the objectives of the lesson? Your evaluation strategies should not only be appropriate for the objectives of the lesson but contribute to the overall evaluation process for the course. If your evaluation strategy indicates that students did not achieve the objectives of the lesson, you can review the material or try a new approach the next time the class meets. It is far better to reteach missed concepts than to continue to plow ahead without the comprehension of the students. An important adage for many professors to remember is “Less is more.” Rather than “cover” the material, we should be more concerned with students “learning” the material.

After each class, note what worked and what did not work. This kind of reflection allows you to make adjustments in your plans for the next class meeting and gives you a head start when you rethink your class for another term. Reflecting on your practice can also help you focus on problems with clarity, potential examination questions, and alternative sources of materials.

Remember, what you teach and what you assess must be correlated. Too often students complain that a test did not measure what they studied. If this is a legitimate complaint, it can be traced back to the professor’s not planning the instruction and assessment concurrently. Inevitably, students will ask you, “Is this on the test?” That question may annoy you, but you should be able to answer it honestly. Answers such as “This specific problem won’t be on the test, but I will expect you to be able to demonstrate the process used to solve the problem” or “I will not ask you to write out definitions of these terms but rather to use the terms appropriately in your explanation of related phenomena” convey to the students what is important (concepts and process) and what is not important (specific facts).

Paying strategic attention to these 4 aspects when you’re planning (PLANNING) your courses and particular class sessions take you from being ineffective with students to being effective in your teaching. And, if I may say so, it allows you to actually fulfill that part of your job that involves teaching.

Strategic professors know that staying on top of all aspects of their course planning, preparation, and implementation is critical to success and peace of mind. Pay attention to the ideas in this article and others available from Meggin McIntosh. In addition, you can learn much more about teaching and reaching the many different types of students who are in today’s college classroom by reading the book *Teaching College in an Age of Accountability* (Allyn & Bacon). The book was written by Richard Lyons & Meggin McIntosh (the author of this article).

To learn more ideas that you can use as a faculty member, be sure to check out

** http://www.TopTenProductivityTips.com and

** http://www.ArticlesforProfessors.com

(c) 2009 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!