INTRODUCTION Planning is an important step towards effective teaching.

As a mathematics teacher, you need to be able to plan your lesson systematically. YEARLY PLAN On of the first instructional plan that you need to do at the beginning of each academic year is the yearly plan and the semester plan. A yearly plan is an overall framework that arranges all topics in an intended instructional sequence, whereas a semester plan contains a more detailed description of the content of these topics for a semester. A common practice is to divide a yearly plan into two semester plans. Some guidelines for you to consider when preparing your yearly/semester plan are as follows: Identify your pupils background. Study the relevant mathematics curriculum specifications and identify the learning areas (topics), learning outcomes (skills) and contents to be taught. Study the school calendar and identify the number of schooling weeks, lesson hours available, and expected intrusions to your lessons. Identify the teaching and learning strategies. Identify relevant resources. Decide and plan for your strategies to evaluate your pupils learning. Integrated various aspects such as moral values, futures studies, thinking skills and contextual learning in your plan. DAILY LESSON PLAN Basically, there are three fundamental questions that you need to ask yourself when planning a mathematics daily lesson. These questions are Where do I want my pupils to go? How do I guide them there? How would I know if they have arrived?

CRITERIA for PLANNING a MATHEMATICS LESSON 1. Set the stage. At the beginning of the lesson you may want to arouse students attention, capture their imagination, or possibly, just indicate how todays lesson is connected to yesterdays lesson.

2. Tell students your objective (s). Students need to know the intended purpose of the lesson. What will your students be able to do as a result of the lesson?

3. Give directions. Students must understand specifically what they will be doing during the lesson. Clear directions are crucial to the success of a lesson. Will students work together or alone? Will they make things? How much time do they have to complete the activity?

4. Provide a context for learning. It is necessary to build a frame of reference based on past learning and projected toward future learning in order to prove some sense of continuity in learning and to help students see that learning has a cumulative effect. It is absolutely critical that you make connections between lessons.

5. Illustrate the key concept of skills. Decide ahead of time exactly what your students will need to do in order to carry out the assignment. Demonstrate or illustrate the material until you feel the students have grasped the idea and are ready to work on their own.

6. Help your students to carry out the assignment. Move around the classroom to provide assistance. The nature and amount of guidance will vary with such factors as student age, ability, motivation, and with the nature of the task itself.

7. Promote reflective thinking. You need to allow time for students to look reflectively on their work. If you dont, you may seriously inhibit your students chances of retaining key ideas, and you may limit the lessons potential to achieve transfer of learning. These criteria are meant to give you a framework for lesson planning. Dont fall into the trap of thinking that every point has to be thoroughly accounted for every time you work with students. But remember that these criteria are based on known principles of effective teaching. A daily lesson plan is a detailed written guide to deliver your lesson. Although there are various formats to write a daily lesson plan, there are several important elements that all daily lesson plan should have. As suggested by Callahan, Clark & Kellough (1995) generally a written lesson plan should contain the following basic elements. General information. These are presented as the heading of the lesson plan and they include name of subject and grade level, unit and topic within unit etc.

Learning outcomes. Learning outcomes refers to your expectations of what the students are able to do as a result of the lessons.

Subject matter content. An outline of the content that can be easily and quickly referred to.

The procedure or learning activities. This section determines what you and the students will be doing. It normally begins with an introduction, followed by the development of the lesson, and ends with a closure. In addition, the allocation of time for each step needs to b considered.

Materials and equipment. This serves as a reminder that you will need to have certain materials ready in advance for the lesson. Assignment. This should be noted somewhere in the lesson plan and presented clearly to the students so that they understand how and what to do.

Special notes and reminders. This refers to such things as announcements to be made, information for the class and so forth that can be recorded in the remarks column. They may or may not be important but they need to be remembered.

Comprehension checks. This serves as an evaluation on how well the students are learning or have learned. It could be in the form of questions asked during or at the end of the lesson or even at the beginning of the next lesson.

Evaluation of lesson. This section is reserved for the teacher to reflect on the teaching that have been done. This can help in improving the next presentation of the same lesson.