Designing an online lesson plan requires you to consider that a virtual lesson is not the same as a face-to-face lesson. This means more work may need to be invested into lesson planning. For starters, your lesson must maintain engagement and interaction from start to finish. You need to include activities that will make learning fun and effective for your student. The objectives of a lesson plan are for the benefit of the student, always. Read through to see how you can design the best lesson plan.

What is a Lesson Plan? 

A lesson plan is a document that details the lesson intentions of a teacher. It consists of details about the lesson topic, the objectives of the lesson, the outcomes intended to be achieved by the lesson, and the activities and exercises.

In addition, you should include the resources, tools, and props to be used. Time allocation is an important factor not to be overlooked. To ensure that you cover everything intended for your lesson, make sure to allocate time to each activity.

You can design a daily, weekly, or monthly lesson plan. A lesson plan is usually in a table format. However, you can make it in point form or any infographic format you may choose. Take a look at this example.

10 Tips for Online Lesson Planning: A Basic Guide 

Understanding Your Student

Understanding the needs of your students will help you design a lesson plan that meets their needs and subsequent learning goals. You need to be aware of your student’s strengths, weaknesses, and character.

Knowing their character and personality will enable you to use a teaching method that will be effective for them. For example, some students are playful and enjoy physical activities. To help them learn, use a playful, fun, and creative method of teaching.

Understanding your student may also help you come up with activities to not only accommodate the strengths of your student but also challenge them to try something new. They may enjoy the challenge.

Remember that online teaching is not natural in the traditional sense. More effort must go into reaching out to and connecting with your student.

Set Lesson Objectives

Every lesson must have a goal. The question to ask yourself is: What do I want my student to learn? The answer to that question is your lesson objective which will inform your outcomes.

Outcomes mean that at the end of the lesson, you want your student to know ABC. A clear lesson goal will help you and your student remain on track throughout the lesson.

Once you have set your lesson objectives, the next step is to break down the objective into steps. You must take your student through orderly steps to achieve the outcome, rather than being everywhere. You should work with one idea at a time.

Plan Your Time

Allocate time estimation to every activity. Remember that you only have a limited time online and you must use it wisely. The time that your student has paid for is highly precious. Therefore, ensure that they get the outcome you set out to achieve in every lesson.

Allocating time will assist you in managing the time. It’s easy to get carried away and spend more time than is necessary on one element. With online classes, technical issues may occur at any time. For all your classes, ensure that you allocate extra time to accommodate such glitches.

Make Your Teaching Materials Available

Online teaching offers a very limited time. It is advisable to give some notes to your student so that they may also come to class prepared. This will assist the class to move quicker and more effectively because not everything will be foreign to them.

For new things, you should know which resource you are going to use and where you are going to access it. You want to make sure that you are not surfing the internet for materials during your lesson.

Should you need to access any digital tools and materials, do that before the lesson. Writing down all the resources you need in the lesson plan will help you be better prepared. To see more of what you need to do before, during, and after the lesson, see this article by the University of South Australia.

If you need to access any educational sites online during the lesson, write those sites down in the lesson plan and the exact thing you need on that page. Ensure that you have the site open already during the lesson so that when the time comes to access that site, it can be quick and easy to navigate through.

A Writing Board Is Essential

A dry-erase board can be useful to shift the eyes of your student from one visual picture to another. You can write on it as you are explaining things to your student or have pre-written things on it.

If you decide to use a writing board, make sure to write on your lesson plan the things to be written on the board and at which point in the lesson.

Make Use of Multimedia Content

As already said, a lesson must effectively benefit your student. The attention span of a human is very low, especially when they consider something to be boring. To avoid offering boring lessons, use digital content.

Instead of words only, use pictures, videos, or other graphical content. This will improve engagement and maintain your student’s attention. Make sure you specify in your lesson plan when you will be making use of media content.

Use Props

Tools are visual aids that can help your student visualize what you are teaching them. They are a great technique for effective teaching, specifically for online classes.

You can make use of things like cards, letters, clothes, and toys. Whatever you think you need as a visual aid to make teaching and learning better, put it on the list in your lesson plan.

Gather all your tools and have them near you during your lesson. When the time comes to make use of them, they should be easily accessible. Avoid being confused about what the tool is going to be used for. That’s why it’s important to have that information recorded in your lesson plan.

Invest in Interactive Activities

You may ask your student to collect a few tools before class. This way, you can ask them to demonstrate to you what they have learned after you have done your presentation.

Interactive activities help you assess if the student understands what you are teaching them. In addition, the more they engage, the more interested and attentive they are. Ensure to have this activity on the lesson plan. Otherwise, it’s easy to forget that you had this in mind.

Give Tasks

One of the most important elements of teaching is to assess your student. This is where you get to see if you scored a tick for the outcome you set out in your lesson plan.

Make sure to have class activities and exercises prepared. Depending on the strengths of your student, allocate them a short time to complete that task. The tasks must be set out in the lesson plan. You must have clear questions and answers to those questions written down.

Lesson Evaluation and Feedback

The task activity will assist you in assessing whether your methods worked or not. Your student’s level of understanding of each component in the lesson will suggest to you the kind of method your student finds easy to learn through.

That information will assist you to plan a better lesson next time. Remember, the goal is to benefit your student. You want to come up with a lesson plan that will achieve the learning outcomes at the end of the lesson.

Where Can You Find Lesson Plans Online?

Developing a lesson plan is not easy, especially if you are new to teaching. Well, you can download lesson plan templates online or surf around the internet for some ideas. Here are a few sites to check for lesson plans and lesson materials:

·       ThinkIFic

·       Education.com

·       UsingEnglish.com

·       Off2Class

·       TPT

·       Class-templates.com

Concluding Remarks

Online teaching is proving to be a very profitable business. It is becoming more and more popular. Which means it’s getting more competitive by the day. Knowing what is a lesson plan and how to prepare one will assist you to stand out.

Tutoring with Hanatutor gives you access to tips on how to be the best. You will also have access to a community of very skilled tutors whom you can learn from. In addition, there are endless leads of students looking for your services. 

Join Hanatutor today!