Lesson Preparation Materials:
After learning that you are scheduled to instruct, you can find the information on how to teach your lesson by looking at two documents, the Qualification & Standard Plan (QSP), and the Instructional Guide (IG). You can access the QSP and IG for all phases on this page on the Nelson website (I would recommend bookmarking it).

  • The QSP shows you what the minimum standard of information you need to include in your lesson is, as well as what order it should be taught. You can treat it a bit like a checklist, to be used in making sure your lesson covers everything it is expected to include.

  • The IG is your source for all of the actual details, background knowledge, and key points, which you can draw from in order to meet the requirements of the QSP. It also provides example activities and confirmation questions you can use so that you don’t have to make those from scratch.

Once you open these large documents, you can locate the exact pages you need by looking at the Table of Contents, or using Ctrl+F ("find on page") to search the document for the EO number for your lesson (in this case, EO M307.03). If you are having trouble with this, check out more detailed instructions for navigating these documents right here.
 
You will also want to find and fill out the blank Lesson Plan Template (which can also be found under Lesson Planning Resources). Making a lesson plan is an important part of making the lesson your own, and suiting it to your personal teaching style as well as the training environment. You can type in it, or print it off and fill it out with pen – it is meant to be the thing you look at to keep yourself on-track during the class, so fill it in however works for you. If you need the template to be longer, you can just print extra copies of page 2 for all of your teaching points/activities.

Many other useful tools for putting your lesson together can be found in the Lesson Planning Resources page on the website, including some pre-made powerpoints in the CCO Extranet Database.
 
How to use these materials:
  1. Read the QSP section for your lesson all the way through.
  2. Start filling out the Lesson Plan Template using what you know from the QSP and the schedule, starting with the cover page. Give each TP from the QSP a page, and label them with the TP# and title.
  3. Open your IG, and start matching the info under sections in the IG like “Introduction” or “TP1 Introduction” to blank spaces on your Lesson Plan Template. Copy this information over, writing down only the most important stuff, and using language that you will find natural to say. These are the notes you will look at while speaking, so make them as simple or detailed as you need.
  4. Keep doing #3 until you have checked off all of the information points the QSP told you to include.
  5. Prepare the materials and a set of directions for any activities/games you might plan to conduct.
  6. Make your training aids – in many cases, a colourful powerpoint would go a long way for livening a slightly dry lesson.
  7. Practice! Once you have got all your stuff put together, run through reading the lesson aloud a few times, and time yourself to see how long it takes. You will have about 25 min to teach in class, since 5 min will likely be occupied by setup.
  8. Edit anything you need in order to make the lesson shorter, longer, or more natural-sounding.
  9. Optional: if you have made a lot of edits/scribbles/margin notes to your lesson plan, it might be nice to make a fresh “final” copy at this point that will be easier to read from during the class.
  10. Relax! Take some deep breaths, and take it easy. Nobody is perfect on the first try, and we are here to help you learn and grow from here.