Name of Teacher / Presenter:

Date: 11/21/14

Jennifer Barnes
Section: Kirsten
Title of Lesson:
The Key(s) to Happiness

Materials (What materials will you need

for this lesson? What creative visual
aides can you use to help your students
grasp the concepts?)
Laptop with powerpoint
Gratitude Journal - construction paper,
scissors, stapler

LESSON OBJECTIVE (S) - Desired Results

1. What will your students learn from this lesson? Example: By the end of this
lesson, students will
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to connect real life experiences to
one or more of the happiness techniques presented.

2. How does this lesson connect to a larger purpose?

A persons life can almost always be summed up as a continual pursuit of
happiness. Learning simple techniques such as these can help place a person
on the track to a happier life.

ASSESSMENT (S) - Acceptable Evidence

1. Describe your assessment measure(s). Example: I will measure students
comprehension of the lesson by . . .(e.g., responding to a writing prompt, doing a
performance, making something)

I will measure students comprehension of the lesson by asking them to discuss

in pairs any experiences they have had or heard of that have to do with the
techniques I teach. I will walk around the room to see if students are actively
discussing such experiences.

2. How will you know that students got the material? In other words, what
evidence will you see or hear to know your students mastered the objective(s)?
I will know students understood the material if I hear them talking about any real
life experiences that have to do with either meditation, gratitude, acts of kindness,
or exercise, and how they may have related to some type of happiness.

LESSON DELIVERY/ PRESENTATION OUTLINE - Learning Experiences

What sequence of learning activities will equip students to achieve the lesson objectives?
Do your best to include time estimates for each part of the lesson/presentation (you will
have a total of 20 min).

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY:
STUDENTS

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY:
TEACHERS

Introduction/Hook: How will students be

introduced to the lesson (e.g.,writing
reflection,icebreaker,video-clip)?

How will you activate the prior knowledge of

your students (build on previous concepts,
etc.)?

Students will

Teachers will . . .

Watch an excerpt from a youtube clip

titled A scene from the documentary
Happy (0:38-2:17).

Introduce the video clip by shortly

describing the documentary Happy it is
from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LF6jph_f64I

After the clip I will talk to them about the

common misconception that money
produces happiness and then introduce
the field of positive psychology.
As the video shows, after a person
reaches an annual income of $50K, any
increase in income has little to no effect
on subjective happiness. This desire to

understand happiness and where it

stems from was only recently included in
the field of psychology. Before, there
was a focus on mental illnesses or
psychological problems and how to treat
them. Now, there is also a focus on what
makes life worth living. Positive
psychology officially became an area of
psychology in 1998. With it comes
simple techniques to help increase
general happiness.
[4 minutes total]

INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES:
STUDENTS

INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES:
TEACHERS

How will students participate in learning the

objectives? Think about a variety of
participant structures and learning
modalities to keep learning active (writing,
talking in pairs, moving around, making
something)

Describe how you will help students carry

out the instructional activities. What
questions will you ask students to connect
the learning with their experiences? Describe
activities in as much detail as possible.

Students will

Teachers will . . .

Actively listen while I am lecturing, and Tell the students at the beginning to,
ask any questions they may have.
throughout the lecture, be thinking about
how any of the methods may relate to
their lives, someone they knows life, or
anything they have heard from the
media or other sources. Tell the students
that they will be asked to discuss this in
pairs at the end. Also, tell them they can
raise their hand with questions at any
point.
[1 minute]
Powerpoint presentation of first two
slides (meditation + gratitude)
Meditation:
- reduces stress, anxiety, chronic pain,
&other illnesses
- Loving-Kindness Meditation style
- increases empathy & compassion
- positive relationships with others, selfacceptance
-positive long term differences
Gratitude:
-inspires reciprocal altruism

-appreciate simple pleasures

-strengthens social relationships
-leads you to be kinder to others
[2 minutes]
After the Gratitude slide, students will
make gratitude journals.

Pass out construction paper. Tell

students to:
1) fold it into four rectangles by folding it
hamburger style twice in a row
2) cut out the four rectangles
3) stack all the rectangles together and
fold them together hamburger style
4) staple along the folded side on the left
to make a small book
[7-8 minutes]
Powerpoint presentation of last two
slides (acts of kindness + exercise)
[2:15 minutes]

CLOSING ACTIVITY: STUDENTS

CLOSING ACTIVITIES: TEACHERS

How will students know that the lesson is

What specific questions will you ask
coming to a close? How will student learning students to illicit thought and reflection?
be assessed?
How will you guide students in meeting the
lesson objective(s)?

Students will

Teachers will . . .

See that the power point is over and be

prompted to share how any of their
experiences or experiences theyve
heard of can relate to the methods
shown in the slides. They will be
assessed based on if they are able to
share ideas with their partner that are
relevant to the material.

I will ask them if they have either had

personal experience with these topics, if
someone they know has told them about
relevant experiences, or if they have
heard about relevant experiences from
any form of media. I will walk around the
room in between pairs to try to gage if
students are connecting real life
experiences to the material.
[3 minutes]

EDUCATION 180 Introduction to Teaching 20-minute Lesson Plan

Template
PAGE
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Teachers give detailed instructions on how to carry out lessons (for administrators, substitutes, etc.) Lesson plans
should be clear enough that readers can deliver the lesson as the author(s) has intended. The following page is broken
into two columns; the left column is reserved for teachers to describe exactly what the students will do and the right
column is where teachers describe what they will say and do to support students in carrying out the lesson plan.