Engaging Lesson Development: How We Teach, Not Just What We Teach

A total flop moment in my teaching career was during my practicum. Two big things went absolutely wrong—first, I had planned an incredible interactive Jeopardy review for a science unit, complete with Google Slides, but forgot to actually make the plan for how to actually conduct the game in a way that would be effective. Second, my alarm didn’t go off that morning. I woke up to a phone call from my university facilitator, who was scheduled to observe me, at 8:30 AM—my soul literally left my body. I threw myself together, did half my makeup while driving, and made it to school just in time for what would go down as one of the worst lessons of my life.

The class turned on me. Students were shouting out answers, talking over each other—it was chaos. Meanwhile, my facilitator sat in the back of the room, taking notes on my unraveling disaster. I could feel my face burning. At recess, I ran to the bathroom to finish doing my makeup, then came back to reflect on the mess of a lesson with my mentor and facilitator. That’s when they pointed out the most important part of a lesson that I had completely overlooked—how I was going to conduct it, how I was going to involve all of their minds, how I was going to get them to buy in to the learning.

Luckily, because we specialized in Science, I had another class after recess to redo the lesson. This time, I structured how to run it. Taking their advice, every student at each table group had a role—points collector, question chooser, note taker, speaker. They had a timer to collaboratively write down their answer (extra points for teamwork), and the speaker would read exactly what was written. The result? Night and day. Students were engaged, learning from each other, and actually reviewing the content rather than just yelling out answers.

The Evolution of Lesson Planning: Shifting from 'What' to 'How'

Lesson planning evolves over time through collaboration and experience. Every year, I worked with different co-teachers, each bringing a unique spin to something that was already established. One of the biggest moments that pushed me to expand my own thinking on how I teach was working with a new Science partner.

My co-teacher and I were both in our early years of teaching, thinking we had it all together. We had our copies pulled out from the Grade 5 Science Brown Book, a solid PowerPoint, and a couple of prepped experiments for each unit. We felt set. When the more experienced Grade 6 teacher joined us for our first collaborative meeting and asked, “Okay, so how are we opening the lesson?” We were confused—what did she mean? We had everything prepped.

She was talking about the how. Taking our base and making it engaging and dynamic. True collaboration. One of her first suggestions was a silent group mind map. Each table group got poster paper and markers. Without talking, they created a visual brainstorm of everything they already knew related to the subject—words, phrases, images—then able to branch off of each others ideas, silently working together. After a set amount of time, the class would move through a gallery walk to examine each group’s completed mind maps. This simple shift completely changed how I approached lesson planning. It pulled away from the main focus on just the content and leaned into creativity - making me fall deeper in love with teaching.

How I Approach Lesson Planning Now

The first thing I consider when planning a lesson is: How can I pull in multiple styles of learning? How can I get students to engage with each other and buy in? How can I approach this in a new way?

One of my favorite ways to do this is in unit or lesson openers. Bringing in fiction or nonfiction books, podcasts, magazines, posters and thinking outside of the box to develop a way that these resources can pull in engagement from all learners. 🌱In our Trees and Forests Science unit, we looked at vintage drawn maps of hiking trails in Alberta and used sticky notes to make observations and inferences as a lesson opener. 🪐In our Space unit, we read constellation stories from different cultures throughout history and participated in a pair-up-share-up movement activity to teach each other what we had learned.

Whether I’m starting a new unit, lesson, or even an entirely new grade, to stay creative and keep engagement high without reinventing the wheel I always have the following tabs open and ready to support me:

➡️A fun, eye-catching Google Slides template from SlidesGo that resonates with the content.

➡️A blank workbook template on Google Slides (formatted to 8.5x11 inches - file - page setup) where I compile resources from various sources using screenshots—✨Insider tip✨ don't forget to add page numbers and try designing a workbook cover on Canva!

➡️ChatGPT—while there are many AI tools available for lesson planning, I find ChatGPT to be the most reliable, consistently supporting me with both my teaching and administrative needs.

This setup helps me create cohesive, visually appealing materials that are easy to follow, adaptable for students, and ready to evolve for my future self as I work with new colleagues and discover new resources.

Setting the Tone for Meaningful Engagement

Something that I instill early in the year to set the tone for an engaging classroom is what collaboration looks like in action—how chairs are arranged during conversations, the questions they ask each other, noticing if someone is on the perimeter of the group and finding ways to pull them and their ideas in, finding each other's strengths and tapping into them. Every time I am looking to bring this energy into a lesson, we talk about it to set the tone—when I am walking around, what should I see, what should I hear, what will the room feel like? We don't leave it to question, we intentionally practice it.

Focus on One Area at a Time

When you’re transitioning to a new grade, subject, or curriculum, it can take time to get the content to a place where you feel truly connected with it and excited to teach it. That’s totally normal! Rather than overwhelming yourself by trying to elevate everything at once, try focusing on one subject or unit each year that you want to dive into and develop more engagement. Transforming everything at the same time is unrealistic and can lead to burnout. By choosing one area to really focus on, you’ll start to develop a set of engagement strategies that will grow over time. Plus, bringing a focus of engagement into even one subject allows you to add tools to your teaching toolkit that you can pull out in the moment. Often, these spontaneous ideas are the ones that resonate most with your students because they’re authentic to the energy of the classroom at that time.

How to Keep Growing as an Engaging Teacher

If you’re looking to revamp your approach, here are a few things that have worked for me:

• Talk to your co-teachers – not just about what you’re teaching, but how you’re teaching it. New perspectives can elevate your practice. This doesn't just have to be accomplished in set meetings, those quick, passing in the hallway conversations can be just as effective.

• Be open to change – even if you’ve taught the same grade or subject for years, adapt and evolve. My last year in Grade 5, my entire grade team changed, and together we brought in new ideas—one of my new colleagues suggested incorporating three different versions of 🌳The Giving Tree🌳 across the year of Social Studies, a subject that had been prepped and developed by our team over the past four years. It became a beautiful cross-curricular tie-in that deepened student learning.

• Try something new – experiment with different teaching styles like flipped classrooms, inquiry-based learning, or gamification. Listen to a podcast, bring in an expert—find unique media content that can tie in student interest. Dive into the readily available AI tools or ChatGPT to support you in a using teaching methodology you are new to or to discover content that can support student engagement!

• Use technology to engage all voices – tools like Pear Deck and Padlet allow every student to participate, even the quietest ones.

Never stop adapting, changing, and growing. Be the teacher who seamlessly welcomes in new ideas and perspectives to your base. It will only make you better—and make learning more meaningful for your students.

Ponder This:

We would love for you to share your answers in the comments or simply take a moment to reflect yourself:

• What was one moment in your teaching career that didn’t go as planned, and how did you learn and grow from it?

• What strategies do you use to keep your lessons fresh and exciting for students while avoiding burnout?

• How do you incorporate different learning styles and voices into your classroom to ensure every student feels heard and valued?

  
  

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