High School Lesson Plan Template | Fillable PDF | Word
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Connecting with high school students to engage them in the material can be a challenge. Using a template to plan your high school lessons can let you create more effective lessons step by step.
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Learning Objectives
Although lesson plans should always focus on learning objectives, this becomes more important with high school lessons because students and schools are under more pressure to meet common core learning objectives outlined by the state. Thus, the first priority is to consider what end-of-year objectives the lesson has to help students fulfill. To further engage students, you could also include other goals the lesson will help achieve, and connect the material to previous knowledge and other fields to show its importance.
For example, to meet state writing standards, an English lesson could include the following objectives: Identify an author’s thesis and the evidence used to support the claim. One way to contextualize this type of activity is with arguments on both sides of a topic of popular debate, such as the death penalty’s existence. This could serve to pique students’ interests. And showing how the ability to analyze an argument lets students form intelligent opinions on ANY topic (using topics they’re more likely to be interested in as examples) can pique their interest in the lesson further.
Materials and Methods
Now that you have your learning goals planned, you have to decide effective ways for students to reach them. A combination of reading, interaction, and writing might be optimum for the learning goals used in the example above. Thus, students could read the arguments prior to class as well as information about argument construction and theses. They could also be asked to answer questions in writing prior to class to reinforce the reading.
Then, class could involve questions that prompt students to recognize the thesis and supporting evidence for other arguments or for the ones in the homework. For example, “What goals of the justice system does the death penalty support?” This could help lead students to realize an author’s overarching claim as to why the death penalty is or is not in the public’s interest.
Breaking students into groups to discuss the assignment and creating a visual representation of how the arguments are constructed can also go a long way toward improving understanding.
Assessment
Finally, you should assess what the students learned from the lesson. For the lesson above, this could include a short writing assignment at the end of class in which students must read a short paragraph and identify the thesis and supporting evidence. Students’ verbal answers in class will also help show their understanding of the material.
This instructional model has been proven to be effective in engaging students and helping them retain material. Using multiple types of exercises that call on several abilities flexes students’ brains and helps them grow as learners. The assessment aspect is important as well because it helps you tailor further instruction.
Sources
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