The most important part of a lesson plan is the end goal: what are students supposed to learn? Planning then continues in reverse order. From the goal comes the assessment strategy, from the assessment come the activities, and from the activities comes the setup. In this kind of plan, there is no “busy work”; every activity has a set of clear and measurable objectives, and each of those objectives relates to the Standards of Learning.
Effective instruction comes from the ability to translate the intent of the lesson plan into action. If that means changing an activity that the class is not responding to, then the teacher should do just that. No plan is perfect, just as no class is the same, so the ability of the teacher to be flexible is paramount. More importantly, the teacher has to be in tune with the students in their classroom, able to divine their needs in the moment. In the end, the one who knows a student’s knowledge best is the student, so a teacher’s best strategy is to listen.
Below are some examples of lesson plans, assessment tools, and instruction:
Herndon HS Symphonic Band Lesson Plan
5th Grade Note Reading Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan September 10-14 2018
Sticker Charts, used to catalog elementary band students’ progress:
Jonathan Hilgendorf 