Quick lesson planning and evaluation
December 10, 2012 8 Comments
I found this link to a 5-minute lesson plan via @TeacherToolkit on Twitter. I’ve put it into a quick blog as it was popular with Twitter followers. (Social media is a great source of continuing professional development and sharing.) You can click on the picture to enlarge it.
Sample 5-minute lesson plan template
The elements are:
Circle – The BIG picture?
Square – Objectives
Star – Engagement?
Cloud – ‘Stickability’,
Hexagons – AfL and Differentiation
Rectangles – Learning Episodes, each with the options of ‘Teacher Led or Student Led’
This example is for a Year 7 activity but it can be adapted easily for adult education. It’s especially useful that it includes a section on AfL (Assessment for Learning), which incorporates peer assessment in this example.
AfL with positive, relevant and ongoing feedback is vital for students’ progress and it’s important that each student understands their own progress and development throughout all stages of any adult education course.
There are many free resources like this available from the Times Educational Supplement at http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resources/. They tend to focus on school teaching but some resources can be modified for use in adult education. Ian McDaid has produced a complementary 5-minute lesson evaluation at http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/5-Minute-Lesson-Evaluation-6306169. He kindly tweeted,”Please share it if you like it, and leave a review. I’d love to see some completed examples if it worked.”
Mary Hunter wrote a guest blog here in October on Robert Gagne, Jerome Bruner and Howard Gardner, including some of the theory of assessment. Would anyone like to share any practical resources on lesson planning or assessment for adult learning – or to share the methods that they use?
About Ann Walker
Lifelong Learning Matters 
Reblogged this on Gogwit's Blog and commented:
An interesting resource, thanks for sharing.
That’s an interesting graphic organizer indeed. I wonder about the “5 minute” aspect of it (I’ve heard it told that an hour of classroom time takes about 8 hours of prep), but definitely a good way to offer structure to lesson planning thoughts. Here is a link to a lesson plan format I like to use: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0By6nhY12Tfy_NC1DeDZGTks3c3c.
Interestingly, the format I use and the “5 minute” graphic organizer seem to have a lot of the same features. One may appeal more to right brained thinkers, others to left brained thinkers?
Thanks for sharing the 5 minute format. I specifically like the intentional call-out for “stickability” and for AfL!
Thanks Brian. Your clarification is important. The ‘5 minute’ aspect is the recording of the plan rather than the thinking or researching time involved in preparation.
Unfortunately the link to the google document isn’t working just now. I’ll try it again later.
Thanks again for your useful comment.
Oops. Sorry for the bad link. That’s what I get when I try to reply to a blog post and quickly upload something to Google Drive just before bed. Here’s a link to a post I wrote a while back and inside this link there is a “lesson plan” hyperlink. Sorry to make you jump through hoops in order to take a peek at a plain old lesson plan format – it’s the quickest way I know to steer you to another possible lesson planning tool. http://trainlikeachampion.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/the-parable-of-the-part-time-trainer-part-1/
Thanks Brian. It’s interesting to have comments from outside the UK and to share ideas.
The link worked this time and I’ve read some of your blogs.
I think it’s helpful to remember that planning should focus on students and their learning rather than on teachers and their teaching. The ‘5-minute’ plan can steer people away from the ‘death by Powerpoint’ syndrome and help to make sure that there’s differentiation, stickability and assessment.
Of course, good teachers are learners too and will have different ways of preparing their work so it’s good to compare alternatives.
Thanks again.
Couldn’t agree more with the idea that, in the end, a learning event (class, training, etc.) is about the learner, not about the teacher.
I’m fascinated as to how others approach education, especially adult learning outside the US. Glad I came across your post!
Good to connect between countries and to learn about other people’s ideas and practice. Thanks again.
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