Introduction to Lesson Planning
Contents
Preparing a Lesson Using RBP VBS Guides
Course materials are an excellent starting place. However, they are only a starting place. In order to effectively teach students, you will need to take the materials and use those materials to inform your lesson design.
The first step in designing a good lesson is identifying your lesson objectives.
Learning Objectives
Learning/outcome objectives are the critical starting point from which you can build your activities and lesson plan. Well-formed objectives will help you develop activities that are focused and relevant. A good objective is important regardless of what level you are teaching. Unfortunately, our curricular materials do not always use good learning objectives and sometimes fail to give any learning objectives. Regardless, you as the teacher, should develop learning objectives for your lessons. When forming learning objectives it is good to keep the following three principles in mind.
- A good learning objective should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- In addition to the above three items, a good learning objective should involve action words.
Some curriculums include a desired student response. This is a nice inclusion, but it is not a learning objective but rather a purpose statement. In a well-planned lesson a teacher will develop several learning objectives that connect back to the purpose statement.
It is often tempting to skip over creating learning objectives or to spend too little time developing the learning objective. This is a mistake, the learning objectives are central to all the components of a lesson. Time spent on learning objectives is time well-spent.
Example
The first lesson in the 2018 RBP VBS Material covers Peter's decision to follow Jesus. The curriculum focusses on Luke 5:1-11 and provides the following "Desired Student Response:"
- Desired Student Response:
- Students will respond to Jesus' invitation to come to Him for salvation and then tell others about him.
This is an excellent purpose statement but it is not a learning objective. The statement is not specific enough and is not measurable in an objective sense.
- Some possible learning objectives:
- Students will identify a specific area of life where trusting Jesus seems hard.
- Students will determine to trust Jesus in the above identified area of life.
- Students will acknowledge that Jesus calls them to follow him.
- Students will determine to follow Jesus.
- Students will identify individuals who they should be telling about Jesus.
- Students will make a specific commitment (time/place/degree) to tell the above identified individuals about Jesus.
Introduction
The purpose of the introduction is to capture the attention of the class while also preparing the class to hear, understand, and act upon your learning objectives. Your introduction will probably not cover all of your learning objectives, but it should help you move into the main body of your lesson. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the introduction then you are thinking about it correctly, the introduction is hard and generally preparation of the introduction should be saved for after the main body of the lesson.
Main Body
Conclusion
Sample Lesson Planning Worksheet
Bible Passage
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Purpose Statement
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Learning Objectives
Introduction
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Main Body
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Conclusion
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