Teacher workshop on Effective Lesson Planning

“To teach is to touch a life forever.” – Unknown

On 7 June 2021, an online workshop on “Effective Lesson Planning'' was organized by The Indian School and The Indian School-Second Shift for teachers. Ms. Upasana Malik welcomed the resource person Ms. Meenakshi Kushwaha, Principal of Birla Vidya Niketan to conduct the session.

Lesson plans are the best way to deliver an effective and engaging lesson. It also helps in keeping a track so to ensure that the learners hit their goals and targets, in line with the course curriculum. Keeping this view in mind, Ms. Kushwaha shared some interesting information about effective teaching through proper lesson planning. She showcased a lesson plan prepared by her co-teacher on the topic “Vegetation and Wildlife”. It was a single lesson plan which was divided into various periods based on the chapter requirements.   

The sample lesson plan comprised of components such as learning outcome, teaching objectives, teaching preparation required before class, teaching methodologies including the demonstration of learning parameters, assessment and assignments and multi-disciplinary project work.

Ms. Kushwaha emphasized upon preparing a lesson plan keeping in view the learning outcome followed by the learning objectives. She emphasised on the importance of integrating art, music, dance, role play and other extra curricular activities in the curriculum to keep the learners engaged.  

Through her presentation she displayed various aspects as well as possibilities to promote an effective teaching and learning environment in the virtual world. She gave vivid examples of some resourceful tools available online which could be incorporated in the virtual classrooms such as podcasts, videos, journals, autocorrected google form quizzes as well as gave suggestions of including lower order and higher order thinking-based questions to recapitulate the concepts absorbed during the lesson.

Ms. Kushwaha spoke in terms of the National Educational Policy 2020 of ensuring the equitable use of technology and enabling an inclusive approach in teaching. She gave vital importance to Bloom's taxonomy while planning and executing a lesson. The concept of introducing Desh Bhakti and Value Education in the classroom by interconnecting with the topic of the lesson is an exceptional idea to build and nurture a sense of belongingness towards one’s own country and its culture. Her session on lesson planning revolved around, making students self-learners by assigning multidisciplinary projects which foster them to learn by doing. 

The Q&A session at the end helped the teachers to put forth their apprehensions relating to the online teaching which were promptly answered.

It was truly an enriching session that encouraged and inspired the teachers to explore the various possibilities of making their virtual classrooms captivating, interactive and enhance the creativity of learners.