Sharing lesson plans over the World Wide Web: Important components

Teachers differ greatly in the way they plan their lessons, using personalised formats and incorporating specific lesson components. A new resource for lesson ideas is the World Wide Web. Literally thousands of lesson plans can be found online. Are lesson plans on the web different from the lesson plans teachers write? What lesson components should be present to support teachers' needs? A study was conducted comparing the components in teacher-generated lesson plans with components found in web-published lesson plans. Results show that teachers use more logistical references in their plans while web-published lessons present more descriptive information. Combining components that teachers find important with components that are important in communicating a clear and concise description of a lesson resulted in a proposed format for web-published lesson plans. Future research should focus on validating the proposed format, investigating if this format can facilitate cross-cultural sharing of lessons, and creating a web-based lesson plan component database that allows teachers to personalise lesson formats.