5.2  Basic lesson plan

In this section of the Handbook we provide details of a basic lesson plan in three parts that has been designed to engage students and maximise their learning from a complete OpenWASH study session. Table 2 summarises the three parts and they are described in more detail below.

Table 2  Basic lesson plan.

Part 1: Introducing the lesson

This section outlines ways in which the topic, learning outcomes and key terms associated with each OpenWASH study session can be integrated into the introduction to the lesson. The introduction:

• summarises the purpose of the lesson
• highlights some of the key concepts and principles that students will be exploring.

For example, the information in Table 3 is taken from Study Session 1 of the Ethiopia’s One WASH National Programme module.

Table 3  Summary of Study Session 1 in the module Ethiopia’s One WASH National Programme.

When thinking about how to integrate the topic, learning outcomes and key terms into a lesson, consider the following ideas:

• Spend five to ten minutes introducing the session.
• Write the topic on the board for the class to see. Ask the group why they think this topic is important. Suggest students read the introduction section of the study session before they answer to help them to think about why it is important.
• You could ask a few quick starter questions to stimulate discussion and get students to think about their background knowledge of the topic.
• Write the key terms and/or learning outcomes on the board for the class to see and keep them visible throughout the lesson. As the lesson progresses, cross them out or tick them off when they have been covered.

Part 2: Core teaching and learning

When constructing your lesson plan, consider the following tips:

• Prepare your short talks in advance. Assuming you have allocated 90 minutes of a two-hour lesson to the core teaching, make sure you have broken this time down into three or four subsections from the core module content. During your talks, encourage students to ask you questions if they do not understand something. This will help them to remain engaged.
• Break up the talks with activities. Try to ensure students do something different every 15–20 minutes to keep their attention focused on the topic. Avoid a long lecture or a group activity that takes a long time as this will make students feel bored.
• Use the in-text questions (ITQs) to prompt discussions, either for the whole class together or in small groups. You could give different discussion topics to different groups and get them to share their discussions with the whole class at the end.
• You don’t have to fit everything into the suggested two-hour lesson. Students can be instructed to complete homework, either beforehand to bring to the lesson or afterwards.

Part 3: Summary and learning reflection

The final section of your lesson will focus on the summary section and self-assessment questions (SAQs). We suggest it would be most effective if you split it into three parts:

1. Recap the learning outcomes covered by the session – try turning these into questions and asking students to raise their hands if they think they can answer them. This is a really good way of easily evaluating how students have understood the lesson and the concepts and ideas covered.
2. Go over each of the main points made in the summary. You could try modifying some of these points to include the word ‘not’ and asking students if the statements you make are true or false. Again, this is a way of evaluating how students have engaged with the concepts and ideas presented in the lesson.
3. Go through the SAQs with the students, or ask them to work on their own or in groups to answer these questions. You don’t need to go through all the questions, but they are excellent tools for evaluating students’ engagement with the lesson content. You can compare the answers from students with the Notes on the SAQs at the back of the book and discuss how they may differ. You could also devise some alternative questions of your own, especially if you can relate them to your local area and the students’ experience. If you want to leave time for class discussion about the SAQs and their answers, you may need more than the 20 minutes suggested in Table 2 for Part 3 of your lesson.

Finally, remember that a lesson plan is a proposed course of action – in the classroom you may need to change and alter your plan according to your students’ needs. Remember to capture these changes in a revised plan so that you or colleagues know what is likely to work best for students next time.