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Structure of your lesson

Ready to use this lesson plan? Use the button below to save a copy of this lesson plan in your account. After doing so, you will be able to modify the lessons as you wish.

What you will learn: the key factors of a well-structured lesson and how to apply these factors in your lesson planning for tomorrow.
Time required: 40 minutes (including the assignment).

Factors for a good lesson structure

A good lesson structure is essential to keep the attention of your students focused during the lesson. Several factors influence a good lesson structure, such as the recognisability of your lesson, and the organisation and sequence of lesson components. Let's go through the various factors with you.

1. RecogniSability and structure

Recognisability and structure in a lesson help students absorb the learning material better. They experience more clarity and absorb the content faster. Consider the following aspects:

  • Position of text and images
  • Order of components in your lesson
  • Consistent font and font size
  • Use of colors

Tip: Create a recognisable layout for each part of your lesson and save it in your favorites so that you can easily reuse it.
Every teacher has their own preferred lesson structure. We are here simply to assist you in creating a good structure for your lesson. You can choose to use the pre-made lesson stages we offer in LessonUp by clicking on the hat icon in the top left corner of the screen.

2. NAMING LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Naming the lesson's main learning objectives helps teachers achieve optimal learning outcomes. In LessonUp, you can see many lessons with a slide at the beginning indicating the learning objective. Sometimes it's a subject-related objective, and others it is related to the learning process and skills.

The way learning objectives are formulated is a personal choice, but formulating learning objectives from the perspective of the learner is often much more powerful: "You can..." or "I can...".

3. ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Activating prior knowledge is not only a playful lesson starter, but it also serves another important purpose: if you activate prior knowledge, new lesson material is retained better. Prior knowledge is placed alongside new information in the student's 'working memory' (Ausubel, 1968).
You can use the interactive mind map to find out what students already know about a particular topic. 

4. INFORMATIVE SLIDES

Informative "slides" are used to provide information. We'd like to give you some suggestions on how to use text on your slides:

  • Use words, not sentences.
  • Ensure sufficient contrast between the text and background.
  • Use a maximum of 20 slides per half hour.

Tip: When working with the text in the slides, you can make texts fly in. Use the magic wand for this. This way, students won't be overloaded with information all at once, but you can make it appear at a slower pace.

5. IMAGES AND VIDEOS

An image can be a very effective visual aid within your lesson. It stimulates imagination and increase student engagement. The kind of image you might choose depends strongly on your learning objective/s. Hereunder follow 2 tips we would like to share with you:

  • Use copyright-free visual material as much as possible.
  • Choose relevant images.


For most subjects, you can find beautiful and useful videos. YouTube and Vimeo videos can be easily embedded in your LessonUp lesson.

6. INTERACTIVE LESSON COMPONENTS

In addition to the mind map, LessonUp offers many more interactive lesson components, such as interactive videos, photo questions, polls, and much more. Each of these components has its own character, making your lesson more dynamic. Even more importantly, they provide extensive possibilities for processing the learning material.

If you go back to the 'Beginner' level of this Academy, in module 2 'Interaction in the classroom,' we cover all the interactive components. If you want step-by-step explanations for each interactive component, check out our article about all interactive components that you can find in LessonUp.

7. LESSON PHASES

While teachers have a clear understanding of the stage their lessons have reached, students may not always have the same clarity about their current tasks and objectives. Displaying this information subtly can be highly beneficial. You can incorporate this series of icons as an Image component (accessible via the '+ component' button) in your LessonUp lesson. This enables students to quickly identify which stage of the lesson they are currently working on. The series includes four stages:
  • You already know this
  • You are learning this now
  • Do
  • Look back
Using these icons will offer students a clear visual representation of the stages within the lesson.

8. exit ticket

Just naming a learning objective is not enough. A learning objective becomes meaningful when you link back to it at the end of the lesson. With an exit ticket plenary, you give students the opportunity to reflect on the lesson—both on its content, and on their own role and/or acquired knowledge.
Try placing 3 open questions at the end of your lesson:
  • Tell me 3 things you learnt this lesson
  • Tell me 2 things you'd like more information on.
  • Tell me 1 thing we need to go over again.
This example is from LessonUp's Exit Tickets lesson

🛠️ASSIGNMENT

Create a lesson that includes the following elements:
  • A learning objective
  • A mind map to activate prior knowledge
  • At least 1 informative slide with text and/or an image
  • At least 1 interactive component
  • An exit ticket

🧑‍🎓 CONTINUE LEARNING: NEXT MODULE
"DESIGNING YOUR LESSON"

You have now learnt more about the different factors that contribute to achieving a good lesson structure. In the next lesson plan, you will receive tips on designing your lesson.

👉 Go directly to the next lesson plan: Designing Your Lesson (Part 1).