RESEARCH PROPOSAL

THE IMPACT OF LESSON PLANNING ON STUDENTS’

PERFORMANCE

Submitted By: Fouzia Yaqoob

Roll No: BP613241

Reg No: 17-PSL-05246

Supervisor: Mr. Muhammad Akmal

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for B.Ed (1.5 Year) Program
Leadership and Management at Education Department

Faculty of Education

ALLAM IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

FEBRUARY, 2019
Introduction:

A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed description of the course of instruction or

"learning trajectory" for a lesson. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to
guide class learning. Details will vary depending on the preference of the teacher,
subject being covered, and the needs of the students. There may be requirements
mandated by the school system regarding the plan. A lesson plan is the teacher's
guide for running a particular lesson and answering the following questions:

What the students are supposed to learn?

What should be the method and procedure to fulfill students’ learning needs?

How can I measure the impact of lesson planning on students’ performance?

There are many educators and researchers who have debated that there
are some school variables which influence the students’ performance in particular.
Lesson planning is one of them. There is a great impact of lesson planning on the
students’ academic performance and learning outcome along with the researcher’s
own experiences. A teacher plays a vital role within a few hours in the classroom
by delivering the daily specific planned content which is a part of curriculum for a
specific grade. It depends on the teacher to plan it out and use effective strategies
for its instructional deliverance. Teachers must have passion for learning and
teaching as well as to understand needs and interests of the students. World
is changing and advancing day by day, so teachers need to be technology savvies
as well, in order to meet new global emerging demands.

Lesson planning is directly related to student achievement for many reasons. The
main one may simply be if your lesson plan does not work, the students won’t
achieve. The three actions for lessons are planning, implementation and assessing.
If the teacher lacks in any of these three areas the student will suffer in some way.
When a teacher plan’s a lesson with visual aids and lecture, the children who learn
best kinesthetically will not gain as much. Or if teachers don’t plan an opener that
creates interest and attention, students may learn less. Also, when material is related
to the real world, students may learn more. Then in the implementation process
teachers need to do everything they can to ensure everyone is processing the
information. This may mean sticking to the plan or it may mean doing something
completely different than what you thought would work.

The last stage is also very important for student performance. Assessing your lesson
properly will tell you if your plan worked or not and why. Without assessing you
may never know if your students learned. Also, you need to figure out why students
didn’t learn to be able to fix the problem. Until you can say “every student in my
class learned everything I wanted them to today”.

Good lesson planning is essential to the process of teaching and learning. A teacher
who is prepared is well on his/her way to a successful instructional experience. The
development of interesting lessons takes a great deal of time and effort. As a new
teacher you must be committed to spending the necessary time in this endeavor.

All teachers should understand that they are not an island unto themselves. The
educational philosophy and the uniqueness of their schools should be the guiding
force behind what takes place in the classroom. The school’s code of discipline,
which should be fair, responsible and meaningful, must be reflected in every
teacher’s classroom management efforts.
Lesson planning is a complex process that involves analyzing students learning
needs, delineating learning objectives, designing sequence of activities and tasks to
promote cognitive development of learners, and planning for evaluating and
reflecting
on the outcomes of learning and teaching. A high-quality lesson plan takes
into account the cognitive activation of students and is adapted to preconditions. A
lesson plan that takes into account the cognitive activation of students is
characterized
by the presence of deep learning tasks that are cognitively challenging and enabling
students in constructing and applying knowledge.

To plan lessons customized to individual students learning needs, a teacher must

base instructional decisions on students’ performance data.

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it
will be done effectively during the class time. Then, you can design appropriate
learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning.
Having a carefully constructed lesson plan for each lesson allows you to enter the
classroom with more confidence and maximizes your chance of having a meaningful
learning experience with your students.

A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates three key components:

Learning Objectives

Learning activities

Assessment to check for student understanding

A lesson plan provides you with a general outline of your teaching goals, learning
objectives, and means to accomplish them, and is by no means exhaustive. A
productive lesson is not one in which everything goes exactly as planned, but one in
which both students and instructor learn from each other.

Creating a lesson plan is an important aspect of instructional design. Lesson plans

allow professors to create learning objectives, organize and deliver course content,
and plan and prepare learning activities and materials. It also outlines the type of
informal or formal assessment methods professors will use in their classrooms.

Lesson planning is a significant element of teaching-learning system. A lesson plan

is a step-by-step guide that provides a structure for an essential learning. Before
planning a lesson, it is essential to classify the learning outcomes for the class. It is
important because it helps the teacher in maintaining a standard teaching pattern and
does not let the class deviate from the topic. Pre-planning helps the teacher to be
better equipped in answering questions asked by the students during the lecture. An
effective lesson plan has three basic components; aims and objectives of the course,
teaching and learning activities and, assessments to check student understanding of
the topic.

A good lesson is a vital component of the teaching learning process. Starting each
lesson with something short and interesting will going to settle the students and
engage them with the lesson. Proper class room planning will keep teachers
organized and on track and help the students to reach their objectives more easily,
class room disruptions are minimized, the stress on the teacher is reduces and the
learning environment is optimized for students.

For a good lesson it is very important always to have learning objectives in mind for
implementing important activities in the classroom. Similarly, goals are very
important in curriculum planning because they determine what the student will
accomplish.

When a plan is ready teacher can focus on its implementation and helps the students
to maintain focus. It is the teacher's reflection. Planning is a complex yet essential
part of the teaching process that changes overtime as teachers gain more hands-on
experience.

Well sequenced lesson plans benefit both the teacher and the students. Well
organized and properly sequences lesson plan allows for a smoother functioning
classroom, class room disruptions are minimized, the stress on the teacher is
reduced, and the learning environment is optimized for students.

The best teaching comes about from having not only a good lesson plan for each
individual section but also a view of the big picture, a sense of how individual
sections fit into the grand scheme of things. After all, if you don’t know what each
section is for, then you can’t communicate that to your students, and if they don’t
know why they’re in section, then why should they go?

Many teachers teach the way they were taught as students. However, that might not
be the best way. We need to constantly update ourselves with best practices that
work, and how to teach more effectively. For example, a teacher who has only
learned “how to” and not “why” when growing up will need to evaluate their own
gap in knowledge when drawing out the lesson plans for the semester. This gives the
teacher confidence when delivering the lesson in the classroom. A confident teacher
inspires respect from students, which in turn reduces discipline problems.

Lesson plans serve as a useful basis for future planning. They can be used again, in
part or in whole, for future classes. Lesson planning for subsequent years can be
drawn from and modified from current planning. The extra effort put in by first year
teachers to plan and organize the entire year’s lesson plans and resources will go a
long way for subsequent years teaching the same level.

There are many important benefits of having a clear and organized set of lesson
plans. Good planning allows for more effective teaching and learning. However,
many things can happen in class, and it is important for teachers to adapt their plans
to respond to the students’ needs. Prepare thoroughly. But, in class, teach the
learners, not the plan.

While being clear about what topics to teach is important, knowing how to teach
them is the key to success in the classroom. The same topic can be (and should be)
taught differently, depending on the students’ skills, temperament and attitude.
These considerations should influence a teacher’s planning of the tasks to be
presented, resources needed and pacing of the lessons.

Problem Statement:

Students performance is directly related with teachers’ capability to deliver a good

lesson according to a planned way. We will try find out:

What is the impact of lesson planning on student performance?

Should we follow a strict lesson plan in class or our methods should be adaptive?

Objectives of the Study:

There are two schools of thought regarding lesson planning.

  Some experienced teachers appear to have an ability to improvise and think
on their feet. They don’t feel the need of lesson planning.
 Some teachers know the importance of lesson planning. But they strictly
follow the lesson plan and their methods are not adaptive according to class
room stance.

We will try to balance the methods of above two schools of thought in this thesis.

And will try to find out what is best for students’ performance.

Research Questions:

Thesis name itself is the “Research Question”.

What is impact of lesson planning on students’ performance?

Do we even need lesson planning before going to class room?

Do we always follow the lesson plan or we need to be flexible in our lesson flow
according to students’ learning pace?

Hypotheses:

We believe that lesson planning has a great impact on student’s progress. When
teacher delivers a well-planned lesson, students are more likely to perform better as
compared to an unplanned lesson. But we don’t need to be strict on our planning and
need to be adaptive in our methods.

I, as a researcher, assumed that the influence of teachers on performance in the

schools sampled is the same and would represent the whole set of students in the
world. In my case study I assume that I will be able to collect students progress data
after two different versions of class lesson, Planned and Unplanned versions.

Significance of Study:

Every teacher is required to prepare a lesson plan because this is considered as

guide for the day’s lessons. Lesson planning is important because it gives the teacher
a concrete direction of what she/he wants to take up for the day. Research has shown
that student learning is correlated to teacher planning. One major explanation is that
when plan is ready, teachers can focus on its implementation. When teachers do not
have to think so much about what they need to do next they are able to focus on other
parts of the lesson. So, the significance of study of impact of lesson planning on
student’s progress is very high.

Limitations:

Lesson planning has also some limitations along with all its advantages.

 In new or odd situations teacher feels himself helpless.

 Sometimes simple matters become complicated.
 More time is required to plan a lesson.
 Teacher cannot work/teach independently.
 There is lack of flexibility in lesson-planning.
 The teaching process becomes more difficult.
Methodology:

Type of Research:

I am going to use Descriptive Research. In Descriptive Research, results are derived

from Observational Method and Case Study Method, which are to sub categories of
Descriptive Research. I will use both methods in my thesis.

Observational Method:

With the observational method animal and human behavior is closely observed. I
will closely observe the impact of lesson planning on student performance.

It is typically divided into:

 Naturalistic Observation
 Participant observation

Cases studies and archival research are special types of observational research.
Naturalistic (or nonparticipant) observation has no intervention by a researcher. It is
simply studying behaviors that occur naturally in natural contexts, unlike the
artificial environment of a controlled laboratory setting. Importantly, in naturalistic
observation, there is no attempt to manipulate variables. It permits measuring what
behavior is really like. However, its typical limitations consist in its incapability
exploring the actual causes of behaviors, and the impossibility to determine if a given
observation is truly representative of what normally occurs. I will include both type
of researches in my thesis.
Case Study Method:

Case study research involves an in-depth study of an individual or group of

individuals. I will conduct case studies on different sets of students and derive results
from it.

Population:

A research population is generally a large collection of individuals or objects that is

the main focus of a study. Every student in every education institute is the research
population for this thesis.

Sampling Technique:

Sampling is a method that allows researchers to infer information about a population

based on results from a subset of the population, without having to investigate every
individual. I will be using this technique for my thesis.

I will take on set of students as “Planned Lesson” sample and another set of students
as “Unplanned Lesson” sample.

Then I will observe the impact of both on students’ performance. I will compare the

outcomes of both the techniques.

Sampling Frame:

a sampling frame is the source material or device from which a sample is drawn. It
is a list of all those within a population who can be sampled. So, two classes of the
same grade would be the “Sampling Frame” for my thesis.

Instrumentation:

Instrumentation is the process of constructing research instruments that could be

used appropriately in gathering data on the study.

This study employed a number of instruments to obtain research data.

Questionnaires were used to collect
demographic data. The instruments for the interview were in the form
of a structured checklist used to acquire
information related to PE teachers’ preparation in planning their teachings for
Form 4 PE lessons for the physical fitness strand. This study employed a
number of instruments to obtain research data. Questionnaires were used
to collect demographic data. The instruments for the interview were in
the form of a structured checklist used to acquire information related to
PE teachers’ preparation in planning their teachings for Form 4 PE lessons for
the physical fitness strand I will employee a number of instruments to obtain
research data. Questionnaires will be used to collect demographic data. I will
conduct interviews and will collect data in the form of a structured checklist used to
acquire information related to teachers’ preparation in lesson planning and its impact
on students.
Data Analysis:

To adaptively plan lessons, teachers need to make instructional decisions based on

analysis of students’ performance feedback data. Research reports indicated that
feedback had positive effects on performance improvement.

Such feedback from external assessments of student achievement provides teachers

with information about the extent to which learners have achieved learning goals
and educational standards.

Teachers can use the externally generated feedback data on students’ performance
to adaptively plan lessons to meet students learning needs.

Teachers’ use of feedback data on their students’ performance for adaptation of

lessons, demands teachers to understand and interpret the feedback data, ask
questions
from the data about students learning, anticipate the causes for underperformance
implied by the data, and plan lessons adaptively.

I will analyze students’ performance data and compare against planned and
unplanned lessons.
References:

 Tesfaye Getinet Kibret (2016). Lesson Planning and Students’ Performance Feedback Data Use.
Submitted to Faculty of Psychology in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy. University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau, Germany.

 http://2015teflmodule3.blogspot.com/2015/09/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-lesson.html

 https://teachablemath.com/6-reasons-why-it-is-important-to-have-a-lesson-plan/

 https://researchbasics.education.uconn.edu/types-of-research/