Planning a Training Session

Organizing Key Concepts for Learning

A training session
plan is a road map of your lesson.
Imagine that you've just led a training session. Unfortunately, it
didn't go as well as you'd hoped.

First, you forgot to cover some important points in your

presentation. Then, you ran out of time to answer questions,
because you had to change your session "on the fly" to cover the
points you'd missed.

All in all, you're not sure that people learned what they needed to
know, and you wish you'd had a clearer plan for the session.

In this article, we'll look at how to plan a training session

effectively.

What Is a Training Session Plan?

A training session plan – also called a learning plan – is an
organized description of the activities and resources you'll use to
guide a group toward a specific learning objective.
It details the subject matter that you'll teach, how long each
section should take, the methods of instruction for each topic
covered, and the measures you'll use to check that people have
learned what you needed them to learn.

It can be as simple as a brief outline, or more complex, with

scripts, prompts, and lists of questions that you plan to ask.

Why Use a Training Session Plan?

It takes time to plan a good training session. However, you and
your trainees will benefit from this preparation.

As you plan, you visualize each step of the class. This helps you
ensure that you've thought about everything that you need to
say, and that you present information in a logical order. You'll
also be able to prepare for points that people might find difficult
to understand.

After your session, you can use your plan to work out what went
well – and what didn't – so that you can adapt it for future
lessons.

Last, a training session plan will be invaluable for a substitute

instructor, if you can't make it to class.

How to Develop a Session Plan

To develop a session plan, it's useful to use a standard training
plan template. This helps you organize material consistently over
sessions, and avoid duplicating topics.

You can download a lesson plan template here. Then, to plan your
session, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Define Learning Objectives

Your first step is to specify what you want your trainees to learn,
and determine how you will measure this.

Think about these questions:

 What are the most important concepts or skills that trainees

need to understand by the end of the class?
 Why are these concepts and skills important?
 How will you know that they have understood these
correctly?

Tip 1:
You can use the ABCD Learning Objectives Model to set a
training objective that comprehensively addresses your learners'
needs.

This helps you understand your Audience, define the Behavior

needed at the end of the session, specify the Conditions under
which knowledge will be used, and determine the Degree of
knowledge needed.

Tip 2:
You should only have one or two learning objectives for each
class. If you have more, you are likely to have too much
information to cover, and trainees may feel overwhelmed with
information.

Step 2: Clarify Key Topics and Related

Concepts
Your class will focus on a few central ideas or skills, but you'll
need to explain related concepts to reach your learning
objectives.

List your key topics and their related concepts, and then group
them together – for example, using an Affinity Diagram – to
show how they're connected.
Step 3: Organize Material
Once you have a general idea of what you need to cover, draft a
lesson outline. List all of the points that you need to cover, in the
order in which you'll cover them.

Use the 5 E Learning Cycle to link information to trainees'

existing skills and knowledge. This will help them put it into a
personal context, which, in turn, will help them retain it better.

Now, insert the information from your outline into your training
plan template. Check back against your initial brainstorming
document to make sure that you've covered everything that you
need to say. Also, compare your template with your objectives for
the session, to make sure that you'll achieve them.

Step 4: Plan Presentation Techniques

Now think about how you will teach this material to your
students. It's best to use several different presentation
approaches to keep students engaged, and to appeal to people
with different learning styles . (This is very important, because
learning styles vary widely.)

Consider using these activities in your training session:

  Lectures are ideal for introducing a topic. Keep lectures to
30 minutes or less, and summarize the important points at
the beginning and end. You may want to use a guest
speaker if the topic is highly specialized.
 Demonstrations work best when you need to show the
steps in a process or task. Learners can try the task out for
themselves, or you can demonstrate it in front of the group.
 Discussions and debates are useful after a lecture,
because they allow trainees to ask questions about the
concepts that they have just learned. Consider handing out
a list of questions or topics to prompt a discussion.
 Online learning is helpful when trainees need to gain
practical experience of IT skills, if they need to access video
or audio material, or if quizzes and self-test activities will be
useful.
 Role play involves trainees acting out a new skill in a
simulated environment, and learning from feedback from
other participants.
 Small group teaching helps learners clarify their
understanding of the new information. They can explain it to
one another in their own words, and answer questions.
 Case studies can help learners put new information into
context. As they process the information and relate it to a
situation that's relevant to them, they create mental
connections that will help them recall the information later.
Once you've decided which training methods to use, note them in
your template.

Step 5: Include Evaluation

Now, think about when you'll check that students have
understood key points. Build in learning checks and question-and-
answer sessions, and include these in your template.
Also, consider how you will evaluate the session. You may want to
use a formal measurement approach aligned with Kirkpatrick's
Four-Level Training Evaluation Model, or you may want to create
a simple on- or off-line questionnaire that will help you tell if the
session has been successful.

Step 6: Focus on Timing

Finally, think about the timing of your session. Some concepts or
skills will take more time to master than others, so identify these
up front, and allow students extra time to absorb or practice the
material.

Record the time that you will allocate for each concept or section
on your training plan, and make sure that you've allowed plenty
of time to focus on the core concepts – if you don't have enough
time, you'll need to run additional sessions, or narrow your
learning objectives and reduce the number of topics that you plan
to cover.

Note:
You can use the same steps to create a plan for an online training
session.

However, you'll want to allow extra time for learners to log in to

the training platform, ask questions about it, and resolve any
technical problems.

You’ll also need to include extra opportunities to check for

comprehension, because it can be harder to see if students have
fully understood the lesson when you're not in the same room as
them. Ask frequent open-ended questions to confirm
understanding.

Example Training Session Plan

The example below shows a completed training session plan.
Learning Objective: To teach new team members in a call
center how to handle challenging customer calls more effectively.

Key Points Training Aids/Tools Time Learning Check

Introduction

Open session:
Confirm that students
introduce tutor, outline Handouts showing
10 mins. understand the session
structure, explain session structure
format.
"housekeeping."

Recordings of positive
and negative customer
calls.

Circle activity: ask

each trainee for a
Employees need to be
comment on the
able to handle difficult
recordings. What
customers confidently.
words come to mind? Check that each
How well are the trainee has given a
When customers feel
recorded agents 30 mins. response in both
that they haven't had a
handling their calls? activities.
positive interaction,
they are more likely to
Circle activity: ask
switch suppliers.
each trainee to share a
negative call that
they've experienced as
a customer, and to
explain how they felt
about it.

Main Session

Run through the full Group activity: trainees 60 mins. Check that trainees
call process: discuss how to assess come up with a variety
needs and information of realistic responses.
 Answer call and during the call.
determine Ensure that each
trainee demonstrates
 Key Points Training Aids/Tools Time Learning Check

Introduction

customer needs.

 Gather customer
information.

 Analyze Pair activity: use role

one successful
play to practice
customer's interaction.
difficult calls.
emotion.

 Present solutions
based on
customer's
needs.

Conclusion
Group summary
activity: students list Check that each group
Summarize practical
the solutions that they has at least three
methods of handling 30 mins.
found most effective, responses on their flip
difficult callers
and why, on a flip chart.
chart.

Wrap-up questions Open question session 10 mins. Check for questions.

Pass out
questionnaires to
Collect a questionnaire
Evaluation evaluate the 10 mins.
from each trainee.
effectiveness of the
session.

Key Points
A training session plan provides a useful format for thinking about
the activities and resources you'll use to guide a group toward a
learning objective.
To create an effective training session plan, take the following
steps:

Step 1: Define your objectives.

Step 2: Clarify key topics and related concepts.
Step 3: Organize material.
Step 4: Plan presentation techniques.
Step 5: Include evaluation.
Step 6: Focus on timing.

Training session plans take time to create, but they ensure that
the information you need to teach follows a logical sequence. This
will help your students engage with it, and, ultimately,
understand and retain it.

You can also use training session plans for online training
sessions, although you'll need to allow extra time, and include
extra learning checks, as it may be harder to gauge whether
students have understood all of your points.

Download Template

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Lesson Plan Writing Guide

10 Steps To Developing A Quality Lesson
Plan:
This guide is not meant to be the one and only way to develop a lesson plan. It is a
general overview that highlights the key points of creating a lesson plan. Below is a
list of the steps involved in developing a lesson plan as well as a description of what
each component should be. You may also find this new Lesson Plan Template to be
useful for creating your lesson plans!
1. The first thing to consider,
obviously, is what you want to
teach. This should be developed
based upon your state (or school)
standards. You also need to be
aware of what grade level you are
developing the lesson plan for
(and keep that in mind of course),
and also record a time estimate
for your lesson plan to help in time
budgeting. Once you have your
topic, you can begin determining
how you want to teach the topic. If
you didn’t use the state standards
to help in developing your topic,
refer to them now to see what
specific standards your lesson
plan can fulfill. Having your lesson
plan correctly aligned with state
standards helps to prove its
worthiness and necessity. It also
helps in assuring that your
students are being taught what
your state requires. If you are able
to correlate your lesson plan with
standards, record links to those
standards in your lesson plan. If
writing this lesson plan for a
website (The Lesson Plans Page)
be sure to include a title that
properly reflects your topic.
2. To make sure your lesson plan will
teach exactly what you want it to;
you need to develop clear and
specific objectives. Please note
that objectives should not be
activities that will be used in the
lesson plan. They should instead
be the learning outcomes of those
activities. As an example, if you
wanted to teach your class how to
 add 2 + 3, your objective may be
that “the students will know how to
add 2 + 3” or more specifically “the
students will demonstrate how to
add 2 + 3.”
Objectives should also be directly
measurable (we’ll get to this in
assessment / evaluation). In other
words, make sure you will be able
to tell whether these objectives
were met or not. You can certainly
have more than one objective for
a lesson plan.
To make objectives more
meaningful, you may want to
include both broad and narrow
objectives. The broad objectives
would be more like goals and
include the overall goal of the
lesson plan, i.e. to gain familiarity
with adding two numbers together.
The specific objectives would be
more like the one listed above, i.e.
“the students will demonstrate
how to add the numbers 2 and 3
together.”
3. You would probably find out
exactly what materials you are
going to use later, but they should
be shown early in your lesson
plan. This way if someone else
were going to use your lesson
plan, they would know in advance
what materials are required. Be
specific here to make sure the
teacher will have everything they
need. For the addition lesson, you
should make sure you have 10 or
so unifix cubes per student, paper,
and pencils.
4. You may also want to write an
Anticipatory Set, which would be a
way to lead into the lesson plan
and develop the students’ interest
in learning what is about to be
taught. A good example deals with
 a lesson on fractions. The teacher
could start by asking the students
how they would divide up a pizza
to make sure each of their 5
friends got an equal amount of
pizza, and tell them that they can
do this if they know how to work
with fractions.
5. Now you need to write the step-
by-step procedures that will be
performed to reach the objectives.
These don’t have to involve every
little thing the teacher will say and
do, but they should list the
relevant actions the teacher needs
to perform. For the adding 2 + 3
lesson, you may have procedures
such as these:

 The teacher will give each child 2 unifix cubes.

 The teacher will ask the students to write down how many unifix
cubes they have on paper (2).
 The students should then write a + sign below the number 2,
like this:
2
+
 The teacher will then pass out 3 more unifix cubes to each
student.
 The students will be asked to write down how many unifix
cubes they were just given. They should write this number
below the number 2 that they just wrote, so that it looks like
this:
2
+3
 Students should now draw a line under their 3.
 Now the students should count how many unifix cubes they
have together and write this number just below the 3, like this:
2
+3
—-
5
 Ask students how many unifix cubes they had to start, how
many they were given to add to that, and how many they had
total after the teacher gave them the 3 unifix cubes.

6. After the procedures have been

completed, you may want to
provide time for independent
practice. For the example of
above, students could be given
time to add different numbers of
unifix cubes together that a
partner would provide them with.
7. Just before moving on to the
assessment phase you should
have some sort of closure for the
lesson plan. A good idea for this is
to return to your anticipatory set,
i.e. ask students how they would
divide up that pizza now that they
know how to work with fractions
(refer to the example in step 4).
8. Now you want to write your
assessment / evaluation. Many
lesson plans don’t necessarily
need an assessment, but most
should have some sort of
evaluation of whether or not the
objectives were reached. The key
in developing your assessment is
to make sure that the assessment
specifically measures whether the
objectives were reached or not.
Thus, there should be a direct
correlation between the objectives
and the assessments. Assuming
the objective were to be able to
add two single digit numbers
together, an example would be to
have students approach the
teacher and add two single digit
numbers (that the teacher
provides via unifix cubes) on
paper using unifix cubes as a
guide.
9. Adaptations should also be made
for students with learning
disabilities and extensions for
 others. Examples would be adding
1 unifix cube to 1 unifix cube for
students with learning disabilities
and adding 9 unifix cubes to 13
unifix cubes for gifted students.
This is best done with specific
adaptations for specific students,
to take into account their individual
differences.
10. It’s also a good idea to include a
“Connections” section, which
shows how the lesson plan could
be integrated with other subjects.
An example would be to have
students paint 2 apples, then 3
more apples below them, etc. to
integrate Art into the lesson plan.
A better integration would involve
creating 2 or 3 different types of
textures on those apples,
assuming texture was being
studied in art class. Putting a lot of
work into this can develop
complete thematic units that would
integrate related topics into many
different subjects. This repetition
of topics in different subjects can
be extremely helpful in ensuring
retention of the material.

That’s it! If you followed all the instructions above, you’ve successfully written a very
thorough lesson plan that will be useful for any other teachers wanting to teach such
a topic. One of the most helpful tips in writing your first lesson plans would be to look
at lesson plans that are already fully developed to get a better idea of what needs to
be in the lesson plan. You can do this by looking at the lesson plans on this site!

Now you can build it right here online at Create a

Lesson Plan