Tips for designing slide-based lessons as a beginner

The lesson plan is a term widely used by people in education. Teachers prepare it before they teach so that the lesson flows smoothly and no information is missed. Today the lesson plan has improved as teachers use technology to prepare it. The article below shares some tips for designing slide-based lesson plans for beginners. Let’s Mona Media read on for the details!

What is a slide-based lesson plan?

To answer this question, we first need to understand what a lesson plan is. A lesson plan is the teacher's outline of a lesson, prepared before going to class. A lesson plan usually records the topic, the educational aims, the content of the lesson, the teaching methods and techniques for teacher and students, and the testing and assessment work. You can also prepare in advance the tools and equipment that support the lesson.

The content of a lesson plan can follow these 4 questions:

• What is the goal of the lesson?
• Who is the knowledge being taught to?
• What is the content of the lesson?
• What is the teaching method?

So we can understand the meaning of a slide-based lesson plan (electronic lesson plan), simply put, instead of writing on paper, teachers use information technology and applications to prepare it.

Benefits of preparing a slide-based lesson plan

Bringing slide-based lesson plans into education and training brings many benefits to both teachers and students and improves teaching quality compared with traditional lesson plans.

Makes lessons lively and interesting

A slide-based lesson plan is not just text. It also has sound and vivid, realistic images, so students can take in the lesson better and stay interested because they see things visually and hear them too. As a result, students understand the lesson more deeply and remember it longer.

Easy to store and back up

Electronic lesson plan is naturally saved as a digital file and can be backed up to a USB drive or CD, so copying data is easy. There are even simpler ways, such as uploading to a drive or copying to another disk on the computer. Documents are hard to lose over time, and teachers can review their plans or send them to students quickly.

Saves time and effort, and is easy to update

Thanks to computer applications, teachers save time and effort when preparing lessons. Compared with the traditional lesson plan teachers can create more lively, engaging lessons with images, videos and direct links, so students can take in all the information visually. With slide-based lesson plan all data is stored as digital files on the computer and can be carried around easily and quickly.

Teachers do not need to write out multiple copies or rush to prepare lessons in class. They can spend more time on lesson ideas and on how best to get each piece of content across to students.

Steps to design a complete electronic lesson plan

Define the lesson's goals

The first step in designing a complete electronic lesson plan is to define the teaching and learning goals. Depending on the student group, the plan is written to match specific knowledge or requirements.

Defining goals clearly helps teachers do their job well and get information to students in the best way through e-learning lesson plan design. To do this, first read the textbook for the material you will teach carefully. You should also consult additional materials so it is easier to define each lesson's goals and the knowledge and skills needed.

Choose the basics: key, general and well-distilled knowledge

To have thorough, accurate materials, the resources for building your lesson plan E-Learning need to come from reliable sources such as the internet, teaching software or materials you create yourself. The content must be high quality, accurate and up to date. Collecting all the data in detail and organizing it into a library and folders makes your classroom teaching smoother and better.

Collect source materials related to the content and build a library

Designing the materials must follow pedagogical principles: cover the basic knowledge fully and meet the lesson's goals from knowledge through skills. You also need to follow all the steps of the teaching task. Build good interaction between teacher and students, set up a system of questions related to the lesson, and create positive interaction that avoids putting pressure on students during the lesson. This makes for a complete, professional and standard teaching process for students.

Choose the language and the presentation software for building the electronic lesson plan

At this step, we need to choose the language and presentation software to build the most suitable electronic lesson plan . Today there is a lot of excellent software, and you can choose from options such as PowerPoint, Adobe Presenter, iSpring, and others. Among them, the tool Adobe Presenter with integration with PowerPoint is rated highly supportive and is widely used and user-friendly.

You can develop lessons by inserting video and audio recordings, and editing videos and sound files, thanks to the software integration that ensures the content comes across. Digitizing and syncing electronic lessons works very well, and that in turn makes teaching deliver better results, as required.

Test run, edit and finalize the electronic lesson

After finishing building the e-learning lesson plan the last step before the process ends is to run the lesson as a trial and note what needs changing and adjusting to fit best. During the trial, evaluate objectively and review the details and any errors that may come up, so you can fix or add to them in time to improve the lesson and raise teaching quality.

Some tips for designing electronic lesson plans for beginners

Using electronic lesson plans for teaching is growing in general schools. Each lesson and each slide serves a different purpose. Whether a presentation is effective and persuades the audience depends a great deal on the slides you design. Skills for designing e-lesson plans that are creative and lively will keep students more engaged during class. Keep a few principles in mind when designing an electronic lecture:

Keep the teaching side sound when preparing a lesson plan in PowerPoint

The content of each slide needs complete preparation so nothing is missing or excessive as you deliver it. A PowerPoint lesson plan should also link back to the textbook and to what you have researched beforehand, staying accurate and polished so the content doesn't ramble and the main points don't get lost. The wording should suit a classroom setting and be as easy to understand and convey as possible.

Follow a few presentation principles: color, font size and effects

Use color sensibly in an e-lesson plan. If the background and text colors don't pair well, the slides look glaring, hurt the look of the lesson and break students' concentration.

Font size on slides also needs to be balanced: not so small that the information is hard to read, and not so large that the slide can't carry enough content and the text gets broken up. Distinguish the main heading, subheading and body text so readers can tell them apart easily.

Effects can make a presentation livelier, but avoid using too many, since they add noise and strain the eyes.

Notes on laying out content over a background image

The content should be presented carefully, without looking unattractive or inaccurate. Images must fit the content in proportion, so don't choose distorted or blurry ones. The size of elements on a slide should also let viewers see clearly and take in as much information as possible.

Avoid inserting animated images that are purely decorative

Adding images to a slide makes it livelier and less boring. However, don't insert animated images that only decorate, since they clutter the content, or images that carry nothing related to the lesson, since they confuse the reader.

Design flexibly for situations that can go several ways

Slides should be designed to be flexible and easy to operate so the lesson isn't interrupted while teaching. Lay out each slide logically so content appears in a sequence that's easy to follow, and add notes below for more detailed information so you can explain things well and leave nothing out.

Increase interaction between learners and the presentation

To keep a lecture or presentation from getting dull, the speaker needs to interact with the slides. As you speak, interact with the presentation and point to the key items so the audience can follow more easily. That makes the presentation engaging and memorable.

We hope the tips and feedback from Mona Media on how to design a slide-based lesson plan will give you useful information and help you finish your lesson plans and lectures well. You can use digital lesson planning software to make drafting faster and more effective.