Lesson Planning

The lesson begins by drawing the learners into the learning space. This could be done with an attention-grabbing story, contextualizing an abstract concept using an everyday example, sharing a news clip relevant to the topic, or simply reminding the learners of where the previous lesson left off. 

The learning outcomes state what you intend for your learners to know or be able to do by the end of the learning experience. They help to clarify expectations for the learners and provide guidance for you as you select content and design learning activities and assessments. This is where you start when developing a lesson plan! 

Learning activities provide opportunities for students to practice engaging with the learning content, especially the content at the heart of the learning outcomes, and may take various forms like solving problem sets, hands on experiments, writing exercises, debates, and written or oral reflections. 

Learning checks can be informal (formative) knowledge checks before, during or after a learning activity, or they can be formal (summative) assessments conducted after a learning activity to determine how well the learning objectives are achieved. 

Formative knowledge checks can be as simple as asking “Can someone tell me what we covered in yesterday’s class?” You can also stop during a lesson and see if the content is clear.  You could ask “What questions do you have about what we just covered?” and get verbal responses, or you could have learners answer anonymously via an online poll.  

These can help you understand if you might need to explain something in a different way, or if you made assumptions about learner content knowledge. Informal knowledge checks give you information about what the students already know about a topic or what they have retained from the lesson.  

Check-ins can also be a good opportunity to learn about the unique perspectives, knowledge, and experience with the lesson content that the learners have. If you and they are comfortable, they can share in class to increase learning.  

Summative assessments, or formal check-ins, may be quizzes, assignments, reports, and so on that are evaluative in nature. They are intended to indicate whether the learner has achieved the lesson’s learning outcomes.  

The lesson draws to a close by repeating the key take aways or learning outcomes. 

While the “B” in BOPPPS comes first, you should always start your lesson plan with the learning outcomes — the “O.” This will help you determine everything else. As a reminder, learning outcomes specify, in a measurable way, what the learner should know, value, or be able to do by the end of the lesson. Research on transparency shows higher grades, greater sense of belonging, and higher academic confidence (Winkelmes et al., 2016). 

Write one or more learning outcomes for your lesson in the ‘Outcomes’ section of the BOPPPS Lesson Planning Template. To determine where your outcome verbs fall in Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain, you can check out Fractus Learning.  

“By the end of this lesson, you should be able to (verb) _____  (content) _______ (criteria/context) ________.” 

Think about whether the outcomes you have crafted are attainable in the given time (e.g. a 50-minute lesson), and whether the learners have the knowledge to achieve it. For example, learners might need to be able to describe cellular metabolism before they can critique an academic article on it. 

Now that you have your learning outcome(s), you can think about how you would begin your lesson. Below are some ways that you and your learners might benefit from the Bridge. 

If you already feel inspired regarding how you would start your lesson, write it down in your BOPPPS Lesson Planning Template. If you would like some ideas, here are some other ways to Bridge: 

• Tell a story, as storytelling can humanize the topic and create community in the classroom. 
• Post a newspaper article 
• Show an audio or video clip 
• Share why learners should care about the topic by relating it to the real world; local, national, or global. 
• Repeat the key take away from the previous lesson and show how this lesson builds on what they have learned.
  

Consider what resources (e.g., projector, post-it notes, markers), if any, you’ll need to support your bridge and how much time you will devote to this introduction.  

Pre-assessment is helpful because

Through this part of the lesson, you may come to realize that you need to cover concepts that you thought were assumed knowledge. It can be very helpful for improving learning outcomes. 

If you already have an idea for your pre-assessment, write it down in that section of the BOPPPS Lesson Planning Template. Some ideas for pre-assessments are: 

• Ask learners to answer questions related to the topic (in a quiz or poll, or on paper)  
• Have them discuss what they already know about the topic (in pairs, in groups, or via a class discussion).  
• Keep in mind that some students may feel more comfortable talking in small groups and may therefore be more engaged. 
• Discussion questions are best when they are open-ended (not focused on “yes” or “no” questions). 
• You can give ideas or prompts to lead or encourage discussion. 
• State the ILOs and ask students to raise their hands if they feel they could already do them? Or have them raise their hands for numbers 1-5 representing how confident they are that they could already do them? 
• Reflect on the topic–> you can also ask them to see how their viewpoint, or knowledge changed at the end of the lesson. 

Participatory learning is an opportunity for the learners to engage with the learning outcome(s).

Do you already have an idea for an activity that would be a good way to support learners in achieving the learning outcomes for your lesson? If so, write it down in the BOPPPS Lesson Planning Template. 

When people hear the term participatory learning, most seem to think of exercises like Concept Mapping, Think-Pair-Share, Gallery Walk, Jigsaw, Forced Debate, Muddiest Point, and One-Minute Paper (you can learn about these and 295 other active learning exercises in Yee’s Interactive Techniques for F2F Classes). Griffith University (Queensland, Australia) has a fantastic searchable database of participatory learning exercises, as well. Their Active Learning Design Tool allows you to filter by class size, activity group size, preparation time, duration, learning space, year level, phase of session, learning outcome, learning focus, and assessment strategy type (i.e., formative or summative).   

If you already have a plan for your lesson’s post-assessment, write it down now in your BOPPPS Lesson Planning Template! 

Some ideas for post-assessments include: 

• Ask students to submit a ‘one-minute paper’. You can ask questions like “What is the most important thing you learned during this class?” and “What question remains unanswered?” 
• Try a quiz or Google form
  

Optional: Check out this other resource, 50 Classroom Assessment Technique.pdf, should you wish to read more. 

Summarize the main takeaway(s) from the lesson or what the learners should now know, value, or be able to do. You can repeat the intended learning outcomes here and/or 2-3 things they should now know.

Ideas: 

• Recap main points 
• Provide a clip showing application in the real world