The listed outline below shows the basic idea for a lesson I picked up from my time in the Army. A lesson plan helps to organize a lot of "good ideas" into actual meaningful learning that helps students accomplish the required objectives. Most of the time we teach, we want students to walk away with the ability to apply what we are teaching.
| Subject | Date (date the plan was written) |
| Grade / Level | |
| Topic | |
| Introduction / Housekeeping notes | |
| References | |
| Possible Hazards | |
| Safety Controls | |
| Objectives | |
| Lesson / Activities | |
| Assessment | |
| Materials Needed |
More formal classes following a semester or regular school program will have main subjects such as math, English, geography, and, for those that love it, history. I am experienced more with informal or less formal instruction or classes. Parent subjects might be firefighting, patient assessment, first aid, or disaster response.
The date should reflect roughly when the plan was written, this way when we reuse the lesson plan we can see when we last updated it.
For formal education we think of 1st grade, 2nd grade, kindergarten. Less formal education we might think more along the lines of certification levels like Basic, Advanced, Awareness, Operations, Technician.
We break a subject into separate topics. For example the subject of Patient Assessment might include;
Introduction reminds us to introduce who will be the instructors/subject matter experts that students can turn to for help. Formal education often covers introductions in the first day of school, but for less formal education situations, we want the students focused on learning. So, we tell them where the toilet is, where they can get drinking water, when the next break will be, and where they can smoke (do not be one of those prudes who refuses to let your students relax with a cigarette). Also, it is good to point trash collection and how to clean up at the end of the lesson.
Formal classes often cover what reference materials will be used on the first day with "We will be using the textbook The Exhaustive History of Philosophical Thinking for the Enlightened Moron by Professor Borren Reed". For less formal education that does not use a single overpriced textbook, you should write in the references as you research the lesson. Be careful not to stuff in very single article you look at. Instead, as you add to the lesson section of your lesson plan, make sure the source gets added to the references section of your lesson plan.
Every activity in life has its risks and hazards. We want students focused on learning not trying to survive the dangers of the classroom. As per my military background, I create risk assessments for training activities and consider the activities being done, the hazards involved with those activities, and how to control those hazards. Consider the hazards section on a lesson plan as a less detail risk assessment that remind you to remind students of key hazards associated with your lesson.
Considering controlling hazards for learning activities helps to avoid injuries and familiarizes students with safety procedures they should follow when they do activities on their own. Hazard controls are more common in less formal learning where activities are often outside in and use tools and equipment.
Objectives give us the clear guidance on what to teach. Objectives come either from the designated curriculum (i.e. Oxford International Curriculum), a formalized standard (i.e. NFPA 470 HAZMAT Training Standard), or simply what you need/want students to be able to do by the end of completing the lesson. A single lesson should have 1 – 5 objectives, ideally 3 or less. It is easy to write a dozen things we want our students to do, but this will lead to unfocused learning and poor information retention. Write objectives as actions the students will either do or should be able to do by the time the lesson is complete.
Write out the lesson itself in the lesson section. If you have a long series of lecture notes maybe reference which lecture notes you will read from in this section. Briefly describe activities that students will be asked to do. Use the objectives from the above section to organize the lesson section.
Most teaching and learning have assessments, checking to see if the students learned what they are supposed to. Think about the learning objectives and what can demonstrate those learning objectives. There are whole courses and seminars and doctoral studies based around how we should and should not assess students. Regardless, pick some method of assessment; completing specific tasks, participating in class, taking a quiz or test at the end of the lesson, answering questions.
Materials needed lists out things that should be prepared before the lesson happens. We are all teaching on a budget so we often scrounge things from home or other places we can temporarily use. If materials need to be purchased do a budget with real price estimates to see how much money is needed for materials, then figure out where to get the money from. Money in hand purchase the materials before the class and test out the materials to make sure they will work. No point doing a lot of planning just for the big demonstration part of class not to work.
On the point of materials, consider materials students will need to bring for the lesson and notify them in advance so they can prepare their part of the lesson.
We are working to make this into a fillable form that you can print out or save as a PDF document for your own use. Please accept that we are still working on this.