What is a lesson plan?

Being a teacher is hard and rewarding at the same moment. However, what if you could keep the “rewarding” part but eliminate, at least a bit, a “hard” part? Lesson plan templates are a useful tool that will save time and help deliver the information to your students in an easy and organized way without missing important details.

Have you ever seen “Dead Poets Society”? All the unorthodox teaching methods the Robin Williams character applied to help his students make their lives extraordinary have won the hearts of many young or future-to-be teachers or students.

By romanticizing a teacher’s routine, the film hides what is as necessary for a teacher as being inspirational – lesson plans and consistency. 

Every comprehensive lesson requires previous research. Improvising should be a supportive tool, not the main one, if you want to present the information in an easy-to-remember way.

A lesson plan is a detailed document prepared by a teacher to map out everything that will be going on in the classroom during a lesson, day, week, etc. Its main purpose is to help teachers and students keep track of everything they are currently working on.

Teacher lesson plan templates are ready-to-use documents that allow you to write down everything you want to present in the classroom during a certain period of time.

If a lesson plan is here to save time and ease teachers’ lives, a lesson plan template multiplies the effect, saving even more time.

However, teachers aren’t the only ones benefiting from lesson plans. Your student will be able to better keep up with the topics you’re about to cover in a lesson.

Usually, teachers print their lesson plans and distribute them among their students or convert them into PDF files and share them with students via email or any other digital way. That’s why lesson plans’ appearance is important, and that’s where templates come in handy.

Also, lesson plans are suitable for students of different kinds and ages. For example, a kindergarten lesson plan template, or you may know it as a preschool lesson plan template, will help you arrange activities and study for youngsters in a way you can grasp and keep their attention.

Why may you need a lesson plan?

First of all, you need lesson plans to keep you on track throughout the unit, academic year, or month. There is a lot to handle if you’re a teacher, and a lesson plan will make things easier to organize and structure.

If you’re a teacher, you are aware of how important it is to win your students’ respect. Without it, the chances you can teach them something will drop quickly. 

Lesson plans probably aren’t the tool to win respect and hearts. However, they are definitely tools to keep it steady or growing. Imagine you decided to rely on your improvisation skills because the topic seemed too familiar and easy. And now, you’ve got lost in front of your class. What would be your reaction? What would be the students’ reaction? 

Also, it’s crucial to understand that lesson plans are for everyone who delivers training. You don’t have to be a part of the academic community to enjoy the benefits of lesson plans and lesson plan templates. Remember that:

1. If you help your children do their homework, you may use a lesson plan to ensure they learn everything important to know about the topic.
2. If you’re a driving instructor, you’re perfectly free to use a lesson plan to create the best possible routes for your students.
3. If you need to make a short training course for your colleagues in your company to make them understand new techniques or approaches, you may use a lesson plan.
4. If you have never delivered a public speech or lesson before, you may use a free lesson plan template to organize all the information you’re about to present to feel more confident.

If a student takes a course only once (as a rule), teachers return to the same data every year. Having a prepared lesson plan saves you from having to research the topic every time you start teaching the course again. 

However, you will need to check whether the information is up-to-date. Discoveries happen constantly, so providing your students with the latest data on the topic is important.

Lesson plan templates for effective teaching and studying

Free lesson plan templates are widely known and used. There are pre-made documents for anyone, no matter their specific needs. Most of these lesson plan templates are editable, so if you can’t find the one that suits your needs, you may turn a basic template into one you need.

Google Docs lesson plan templates are probably the most popular because everyone is familiar with Google Docs. However, they offer a short list of options for editing and visual layout.

You may choose a basic editable lesson plan template for all your lessons, or you may get a specific template that suits your needs. For example, there are edTPA lesson plan templates, SIOP lesson plan templates, 5E lesson plan templates, etc. 

Also, you can choose the needed template depending on what period you plan your studying process. That is especially important for people who undertake self-study. For example, you can choose between weekly lesson plan templates or daily lesson plan templates.

How to create an effective lesson plan using the xTiles Lesson Plan Template

Creating a lesson plan is easy, but creating an effective one is a bit harder. Here is a step-by-step guide you can use with our free lesson plan template to reach the best possible results for both parties of the studying process.

Define your lesson plan scope

Will it be a plan for one lesson? Or maybe you want to prepare a lesson plan for a whole unit to save time creating many plans?

The answer will depend on your approach to teaching and the topic itself. Many teachers prefer to break down topics into smaller ones and create detailed plans for each. It helps students to focus on short-term goals.

However, some topics are very monolithic and unsuitable for splitting. In this case, you will need to prepare a plan covering the whole topic, no matter how vast it is, without missing important details and overwhelming your students.

Don’t forget about the bureaucracy

Since your lesson plan is for organizing and structuring sake, don’t forget about formalities like date, the full name of the topic, which unit and lesson number it is, etc. 

In the xTiles Lesson Plan Template, we put this data in the header of the future document, so it will be easy to find for you and your students whenever you need them, and it will be hard to skip when you start creating your plan.

Determine key learning objectives

Now, you need to identify the main objectives of your lesson. Here are three basic questions to answer to find the lesson objectives.

1. What can my students learn during this lesson?
2. What do I want them to know by the end of the lesson?
3. How can they apply the knowledge they got during the lesson?

Concentrate on the benefits your students will get from attending your lesson and distract from the topic. This part of your plan is mainly about your students.

Plan the lesson structure

Try to divide your lesson into a couple of blocks, so the information won’t come as an unstoppable current. You may also plan some kind of small talk or share interesting facts regarding your topic between the blocks to eliminate tension.

If you lack organization, or there’s always not enough time, you may add time slots for each block to remind yourself to move faster or not be distracted by other topics or questions.

Create a section for notes and/or feedback

An empty space for notes is an important part of a lesson. Your students will take their notes and write down questions they need answers to, ideas, insightful information, etc., during the lesson.

Don’t forget about assignments

How to sum up everything you’ve just learned and discussed? Continue working on the topic at home, finding additional information independently.

Assignments and homework are inevitable parts of learning, understanding, and remembering what was learned.

Add resources and materials

Your lesson doesn’t have to be all work and no fun. 

You may add links to all the interesting materials regarding the lesson topic. We suggest adding videos to help your students mix different studying activities while working on their assignments.

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KWL chart template

Learning has never been easy. New methodologies appear all the time, and except for dealing with new information you need to memorize, you also have to figure out how they work and how they may help. That’s why reliable shortcuts are so important for easier, quicker, and stress-free learning. 

The template we offer to turn your usual learning and memorizing into an enjoyable experience is KWL Chart. Its name is an acronym that stands for “Know”, “Want to Know”, and “Learned”. Even this information is enough to understand how it works. However, we would like to provide you with more details, so you will get the maximum benefit from using the KWL Chart.

What is the KWL Chart? In general, it’s a tool for organizing your learning process. It allows you to divide what you already know from what you need to learn and summarize what you learned after the lesson is over. 

Let’s take a closer look at how KWL Chart works, how to use it successfully, and how the xTiles KWL Chart template can ease your learning as much as possible. 

Why and when do I need a KWL Chart?

At the end of the day, after you’ve attended a few lessons, your head is normally overfull with mixed information. What you heard in the first lesson somehow became a part of what you read during the third. Putting things in their places is much harder if you have nothing to rely on. Doing it with no tools is quite a challenge. However, getting acknowledged with some tools that might or might not help you in the future is quite a challenge too. Unfortunately, you won’t get far without a settled organization system for your learning process. That’s where a KWL Chart comes in handy.

Except for organizing and dividing your learning materials, KWL Chart templates help you find possible gaps and understand where you’re standing right now, what you have learned, and what you need to improve.

Thanks to its simple and flexible structure, KWL Chart can be applied to any lesson or topic. You don’t have to switch between different methodologies for every lesson. A KWL Chart will help you with math and literature, chemistry and social studies, etc. One system to rule them all.

When the semester or year is over, and your exams are closer and closer, your KWL Chart documents will help you track your progress and check what exactly still needs to be learned and what you need to go over. This way, you don’t waste your time checking everything. You only focus on what is relevant at the moment.

KWL Chart templates will help you establish communication with your students if you’re a teacher. It will work as a statistic to show you what is harder to understand and memorize, so you can devote more time and what is easier to grasp so you won’t waste your time on it. It also will help you polish the information you give to your students. 

Teachers may use KWL Charts for group or individual learning. You present your students with ready-to-go templates to help them get new information quickly and understand what pitfalls there are for them. That is especially useful for young teachers or those who start to work with a new class or group. 

A KWL Chart template may be a part of interactive learning or a way to distract and relax a bit from a usual course. 

How to use a KWL Chart?

To start using a KWL Chart, you need to create a table with three columns – K, W, and L. We have already done it for you in our template. Now, let’s fill each column with the relevant information so that you will have a representative and helpful document and not useless gibberish at the end. 

Our pre-filled example of the KWL Chart will help you grasp the concept if this is something you have never used before.

Column “K” – Know

In this column, you need to write down everything you already know about the subject. However, if the topic is something entirely new to you, don’t worry. You probably have some associations. Note them because they are an important part of how you understand the topic.

Sometimes a teacher needs to push their students so they can come up with some ideas or thoughts on the topic. That’s why you may need to prepare some questions beforehand.

This column is supposed to help a teacher and students to understand what misconceptions they might have going into some topic. That’s why KWL Charts will be useful when you only start working on something new. Then they will help you check your intermediate results and track your progress. And, in the end, they will help you fill gaps if there are some.

This stage doesn’t require corrections if you’re a teacher. It’s more about showing the real picture, so you can plan your learning accordingly to the real issues and needs. However, if you prefer to make clear something with your class before you start, you’re free to do so.

Column “W” – Want to Know

When the first column is filled, it will be easier to identify what exactly you want to learn or what your students want/need to learn during the lesson or course.

If you split your students into groups, you will get more answers which will be helpful for the whole class. Ask students to note others’ answers if they feel that they resonate with their goals.

When you use KWL Chart for personal needs, be honest with yourself filling it in. It’s OK not to know something, and that’s OK to be interested in something that might seem weird.

Sometimes, simple questions like “Who?”, “What?”, “When?”, “Why?”, “How?” are enough to help understand what exactly needs to be learned or polished. Also, they will be enough to start a discussion in a class that may lead to more meaningful conversations and questions.

Filling this column, students help their teacher create a better lesson plan that will suit their needs.

Column “L” – Learned

The last column will conclude what you learned during a lesson. You may fill it in at the end or work on it throughout the lesson. 

What kind of information should you put in this column? That’s the exact place to answer your questions from the second column. Also, that’s the exact place to correct your opinions and ideas from the first column in case there was some misconception. Everything you find amusing or interesting should end up in this column too.

This column helps you review what you have learned. And later, it will be useful for retrospecting a topic you need to go over again. If you’re a teacher, it will help you check what was unclear for your students.

Optional columns

Even though the traditional structure of the KWL Chart is well-known and pre-defined, no one can stop you from using it as you wish. You’re free to divide your columns into different sections, or you may add more columns if you want. The xTiles KWL Chart template is highly flexible and allows you to organize your learning materials the way you prefer.

What columns may make a KWL Chart even more helpful? For example, after you review your newly gained knowledge, you may add a column “Still needs to be learned” if there’s something you struggle to memorize.

Another helpful column or little section may be devoted to resources you used to find the information. You also may add a place for additional questions that arose after you dived deep into the new topic.

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