MEDICAL EDUCATION

Year : 2022  |  Volume : 20  |  Issue : 1  |  Page : 48-51

Designing a comprehensive lesson plan: A crucial aspect in improving the teaching-learning process

Debkumar Pal, Manish Taywade, Gajjala Alekhya
Department of Community Medicine and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

Correspondence Address:
Dr. Manish Taywade
Department of Community Medicine and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Room Number: 322, 3^rd Floor, Academic Building, Bhubaneswar - 751 019, Odisha
India

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None

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DOI: 10.4103/cmi.cmi_83_21

Lesson plan is required for all medical educators as it would help in completing their teaching-learning activity within specific periods for completion of all learning goals. There are six steps and eight components in the formulation of a lesson plan. The lesson plan should include the instructional design or learning objectives. The learning activity should start with a proper set induction, i.e., induce the interest regarding the topic in the students. There should be a brief travel to the past lessons, and it should end with feedback from the students and one assessment for assessing the learning understandings of the students.

Keywords: Learning, lecture, lesson plan, medical educator, medical student, teaching

Introduction

1. It will help the teachers in meeting the educational goals, especially when obvious educational objectives are not clear
2. It helps in providing a historical record of educational activity for validation of inclusion topics in question. A lesson plan can also help in formulating a new class on the same topic
3. It helps in communication among teachers of any topic so that in the absence of a predesignated teacher, any other teacher can take the class.

Figure 1: Requirements for making one effective lesson plan. Click here to view

1. The predefined objective of learning activity fulfilling SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) criteria
2. One anticipatory set or set induction for attracting the minds of students towards learning activity
3. Direct instruction for delivery of the content
4. Predetermined strategies for students for practicing what they would learn
5. Properly closure the class with one brief discussion about the topic in small groups
6. Independent practice of students at home in the form of homework for practicing their learning
7. Proper materials and methods for content delivery
8. Formative or summative assessment for checking to if learning objectives are met or not.

How to Prepare a Lesson Plan?

1. Set Induction: The set induction is an essential element of a lesson plan. The gaining of attention of students is one of the most important steps in the educational session. The attention of the students is needed to capture with a stimulus, and the best way is to present a real-life scenario
2. Formulating specific learning objectives: Specific learning objectives will help in deciding at the end of class what the student would be able to learn or perform. This should be in concordance with the competency to be acquired. The learning outcomes will help the students motivate them, essentially, if they are eager to complete the lesson. For that purpose, one teacher must know about the topic of the lesson, what the teacher wants to impart in the minds of the student during the class and what the teacher expects the student to take home in their mind from the class after understanding. These learning objectives should also be prioritized. It is the pillar of any lesson plan. The domains of learning can be divided into psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains.^[9],[10]


For any topic, the special learning objectives can be made by


1. “Do” - The action verb
2. “What” - The thing to be done
3. “How” - The adverb for your action.


Example: For the topic of hypertension, the specific learning objective can be: Measure (do) blood pressure of patients (what) following guidelines (how). The specific learning objectives should follow SMART criteria, i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.^[10]


3. Building an introduction: The introduction of the topic should be attractive to the students so that they can get interested in the topic. The introduction part should be interactive, so students feel that learning is not unidirectional. For introducing any subject, a teacher can incorporate any personal experience with it to make the topic more relevant
4. Plan to check if the students understand or not: Assessment or Evaluation of students' understanding of a given topic is of utmost importance. This has to be planned to ensure that the learning outcomes are met after the lesson. The teacher should plan the questions in the form of multiple-choice questions, oral questions, and quizzes or activity demonstrations regarding the understanding of the topic. There are various platforms, Kahoot, Socrative, etc., that can be utilized for assessment
5. Summary: There should be a summary of the whole class at the end constituting the key points of the topic, which will emphasize depending on their importance. This take-home message should be brief and specific so that it can create an impact in the memory lane of students
6. Timeline: There should be a one-time constraint framework for all activities or specific learning objectives during class as the attention span is not unlimited, which in most cases is approximately 15 min.^[11] All the teaching activities should be divided equitably within the provided total period. The starting and closing of any teaching session are the important part.

Conceptual Framework of the Lesson Plan

Table 1: Lesson plan for modern contraceptives (practical session) Click here to view

Conclusion

References

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