LESSON PLAN
(LESS-uhn Pl-ANN)
SOLID
What is a Lesson Plan?
A lesson plan (or instructional design plan) is a tool used to outline the sequence and flow of activities as well as talking points for a training session. Beyond activities and talking points, this often includes bigger picture items as well, such as learning objectives and session materials.
Key Components of a Lesson Plan
In this 10-minute podcast, Brian share some thoughts on the key components of a lesson plan in the event you want to make your own template.
Other Common Names
Other common names for lesson plan include:
- Presenter Notes
- Facilitator Guide
- Instructional Design Plan
Key Properties
- Written narrative of a training session’s sequence and flow
- Guidance on how much time to spend on any given topic, talking point, or activity
- In addition to an outline of talking points and activities, provides big picture information that could include overall session goals, specific learning objectives, and materials to be used during the session
Key Passages from What's Your Formula?
- "A comprehensive learning program is more than just lesson plans. It’s more than just handouts and games like Jeopardy and creative ideas and bringing people to the whiteboard or the flipchart. It is more than just having the desire to keep people engaged."
- "When you are able to map out the sequence and flow of your activities—complete with talking points, instructional techniques, and detailed directions—the odds of intentionally incorporating the concepts of dialogue education increase over simply putting together your presentation by opening up PowerPoint and generating a slide deck."
- "If you’re using Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to deliver content as part of your learning design, consider using the Lesson Plan element. By crafting a message or lesson plan for your subject matter experts that abides by the principles of adult learning, you can support them and help ensure learners are exposed to meaningful learning experiences."
Learning Experiment: Ex + Lp = More Engaging SME Presentations
What’s possible when a Subject Matter Expert maps out what they want to say and how they want to engage their audience through a lesson plan, instead of immediately opening up PowerPoint when they have to put a presentation together?
Learning Experiment: Ex + Lo + Lp + Em
Subject matter experts can struggle with trying to present information in which they are experts. As training professionals, there are some things we can do to help.
CLOSELY RELATED ELEMENTS
Gamification
A game is something you play, while gamification is an intentional design strategy. Using a lesson plan (or for e-learning, a storyboard) to map out that design strategy can help you connect the dots and envision how a completely gamified program could work.
Subject Matter Experts
Keeping in mind that your subject matter expert won’t know much about dialogue education or instructional design, it will probably be up to you to develop a lesson plan for your SME to follow
Soapbox
As you’ll discover in more depth when you examine element 36, Soapbox is a tool that can help you quickly concoct your own lesson plan. The lesson plan (or facilitator guide as the Soapbox software calls it) will allow you to determine how much time to spend on which activities. The added advantage of the Soapbox format is that it connects your learning objectives with activities designed to help accomplish those objectives.
Other Sources of Information on Lesson Plans
Books on Lesson Planning
