Guide for Evaluating Lesson Plans

Objectives
 Objectives are clearly stated and realistic.
 At the end of the lesson, the teacher will be able to determine if the objectives were
achieved.
 Lesson content relates directly to the stated objectives and is likely to accomplish
them.

Application of the Seven Laws of Teaching

 A teacher must know that which he would teach.
o Clear, measurable objectives.
o Teacher has a fullness of knowledge about the subject.
 A learner must attend with interest to the material to be learned.
o Student interest is aroused.
o Connections are made between this lesson and previous lessons and prior
knowledge. Context is provided.
o Students understand the value of the knowledge or skill.
 The language used as a medium between the teacher and learner must be common to
both.
o Teacher has a means to assess current vocabulary and understanding of the
students.
o New vocabulary is taught by giving definitions and by using words in context.
 The lesson to be mastered must be explicable in terms of truth already known by the
learner; the known must be explained by means of the known.
o Teacher does not assume what students know, but has a means for
determining it.
o Necessary background information is elicited from students or reviewed by
the teacher.
 Teaching is arousing and using the pupil’s mind to grasp the desired thought or to
master the desired art. Excite and direct the self-activities of the pupil, and as a rule
tell him nothing that he can discover himself.
o Students are discoverers rather than receivers of information.
o Questioning and problem solving is used to guide the discovery process.
o Diagrams, visual clues, verbal reasoning, maps, charts, outlines, mnemonic
devices, etc., are used to help students organize information and fix it in their
memories.
 The pupil must reproduce in his own mind the truth to be learned.
o Students are given opportunity to do something with the lesson: to rewrite,
rethink or apply the information learned.
o Students are given time to reflect and to discuss.
o Students are given help making real-world connections with the lesson.
 The test and proof of teaching done must be a reviewing, rethinking, reknowing,
reproducing and applying of the material that has been taught.
o The lesson plan provides a means, either formal or informal, for the teacher to
determine if the lesson’s objectives were met by each student.
 o The plan includes a means to review this lesson in the future.

Application of the Trivium (How much of the lesson is spent on each of these levels? The
balance should be appropriate for the level of the students.)
 Grammar Stages: Knowledge (recalling facts, defining terms, identifying, listing,
reciting, quoting, retrieving information from text and diagrams, arranging, ordering,
categorizing) and Comprehension (Grasping meaning, inferring, predicting,
generalizing, rewriting, observing cause and effect, recording information,
paraphrasing).
 Dialectic Stages: Application (Applying rules or knowledge to problem solving or
new situations, demonstrating, solving, showing, constructing, reporting, adapting)
and Analysis (Making distinctions, outlining, relating, breaking something down into
its component parts, taking apart and reassembling, finding patterns, interpreting
symbolism, finding allusions to other works, finding parallels)
 Rhetoric Stages: Evaluation (appraising, critiquing, discriminating, supporting
judgments, using criteria for evaluation, persuading, concluding, discerning the
author’s worldview and purpose, understanding theme and audience).) and Synthesis
(designing, experimenting, creating, combining skills and ideas, designing tests and
interpreting the results, inventing, revising, relating, organizing, planning,
rearranging, relating information from various sources, authors, disciplines, theories
or viewpoints)

Balance of Learning Pathways (All students learn better when multiple pathways are
employed. Strive for balance among lessons, not necessarily in every lesson.)
 There is an opportunity for active learning, that is, to do something with the
information or discuss it with others.
 There is an opportunity for reflection, that is, for thinking things through or writing a
response.
 The facts to be learned are clearly stated, with strategies for learning them. Students
are helped with attention to details.
 Abstract concepts are taught using concrete examples and students are given an
opportunity to explore real-world connections.
 Information is presented visually by making use of pictures, diagrams, maps, writing
key words on the board, using overhead transparencies, and using outlines, text boxes
or color-coding for written materials.
 Students are given an opportunity to process information verbally by summarizing in
their own words, writing reports, discussing, or explaining something to others.
 Students are given the “big picture” of the lesson and how it relates to other lessons
and information. They are told what they will be learning before it is taught, they are
given time to try to solve a problem before the procedure is taught or they are given a
deep question to ponder before the answer is given.
 Students are given an opportunity for metacognition, that is to think or talk about the
mental process or methods they are using to solve problems.
 Students are pushed to discover applications and connections and consider
alternatives.
© 2009 Dory Zinkand