Have you crafted your virtual lesson plan? Along the way, did you run out of ideas to keep your students engaged in an online classroom? As teachers, we are always looking for ways to improve our lessons and to deliver the best for our students. That is just how we are wired. We always want to provide our students with everything they need to go out there and change the world.
Yet, we stress over whether our lesson plans are ever enough. Add remote learning into the mix and all of our plans are thrown into disarray. Without being in a physical classroom, some of the activities we have planned for our classes are no longer feasible.
In this article, we will share some of the online resources you can refer to for an idea of how to structure your virtual lessons. Even if the content is different from what you are teaching, they nevertheless offer some insights that may inspire you to draft interactive lesson plans for your students!
We will then round up this article by going over some tips and tricks to implement your lesson plans online.
The following are nine online resources with free virtual lesson plans for teachers:
- Share My Lesson
- ClassVR
- National Council of Teachers of English
- ReadWorks
- New York Times Lesson Plans
- PBS Learning Media
- Teaching History
- Khan Academy
- Yummy Math
1. Share My Lesson
Share My Lesson is a collection of educational resources that are created and shared by teachers in the form of webinars, online lesson plans, and PowerPoint slideshows. Share My Lesson comprises resources for educators who teach students from Preschool to High School.
If you wish to, the site also encourages teachers to contribute to the community by uploading your original teaching resources for others to tap on. Share My Lesson is a thriving and supportive community of teachers from all over the world.
2. ClassVR
Are you ready to up the level of interactivity and immerse students in virtual reality to help them learn even from the comforts of their home? ClassVR can help you with that! To complement their virtual reality headsets, ClassVR hosts dozens of free lesson plans and case studies that are free for teachers to download.
ClassVR is still expanding its repository of virtual lesson plans and currently, there are over 750 documents available for free.
Even if you do not have the budget to purchase the hardware, we believe that some of these lesson plans and worksheets can still be adapted for online lessons.
3. ReadWorks
ReadWorks is a not-for-profit that offers course content as well as lesson plans for K-12 teachers to teach online. ReadWorks covers STEM topics, poetry, social studies, and literature. Resources on ReadWorks are accessible by educators, students, and parents.
Please watch the video below to get a sense of what ReadWorks has to offer.
4. National Council of Teachers of English
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) brings teachers together to publish lesson plans, research findings, and other teaching ideas. As its name suggests, the main preoccupation of the NCTE is the English language.
The NCTE website connects teachers from elementary, middle, and secondary schools as well as colleges.
Each lesson plan published by NCTE delves into the nitty-gritty details. For instance, this lesson plan titled ‘3-2-1 Vocabulary’ comprises eleven sessions and evaluative pointers for teachers. If you are interested in other teachers’ recommended ways for conducting lessons, this online resource has a wide variety of lesson plans to draw reference from.
5. New York Times Lesson Plans
Everyone knows that The New York Times is known for its investigative journalism and notoriously difficult crossword puzzles. However, did you know that The New York Times also features a page full of educational resources? These resources are targeted at teachers, not students, and they offer ideas for how to integrate news stories from The New York Times into lessons.
These lesson plans include discussion questions, online resources, videos, and essays to help students draw from a wide range of views. At the end of each section, there are also several well-thought-out reflection questions for teachers to use as they deem fit.
6. PBS Learning Media
Besides The New York Times, PBS is another news network that publishes lesson plans for teachers. These virtual lesson plans are categorised by grade levels from Pre-K to High School. Teachers can create free accounts to access the vast collection of lesson plans, worksheets, and documentary videos.
PBS Learning Media also syncs with Google Classroom, an online teaching platform. This educational resource is one of the broadest with subjects that comprise Life Science, Algebra, Literature, Consumer Health, and more.
To get a better idea of how PBS Learning Media works, please refer to this video:
7. Teaching History
Teaching History is a website that provides lesson plans for teachers in the History department. With lesson plans, teaching guides, and even a section on digital classrooms to help teachers transition to online learning, Teaching History is an all-encompassing online resource.
8. Khan Academy
You have probably heard of Khan Academy and its endless stream of instructional videos. These lessons are self-paced and catered to remote learners. You may have even incorporated some of these videos into your lessons, or your students may have referred to Khan Academy for help with their calculus homework. However, few people are aware that Khan Academy also has educational resources for parents and teachers.
These weekly lesson plans are catered for students from third grade through to high school. For teachers who need a more detailed lesson plan, Khan Academy is an excellent resource trusted by millions!
Khan Academy also publishes free daily lesson plans that are specific right down to activities for each hour. These daily lesson plans are tailored for students from preschool to Grade 12.
For more information about how to implement these virtual lesson plans, Khan Academy uploaded this video below for parents and teachers:
9. Yummy Math
While other educational resources in this list provide lesson plans and multimedia content for teachers, Yummy Math offers ideas for how teachers can guide students to visualise real-world Math applications.
For instance, Yummy Math designed some activities in conjunction with the fourth of July celebrations. One of these activities asks students to print out a worksheet and follow the instructions to make a star. Students then have to explain why their cutouts are able to form a “perfect pentagram.”
Yummy Math strives to help students appreciate Mathematics by using non-conventional methods to augment students’ learning.
Summary: Tips and tricks for teachers to implement virtual lesson plans
This article has introduced you to nine online resources with free virtual lesson plans for teachers:
- Share My Lesson
- ClassVR
- National Council of Teachers of English
- ReadWorks
- New York Times Lesson Plans
- PBS Learning Media
- Teaching History
- Khan Academy
- Yummy Math
A good lesson plan has to be complemented by an excellent mode of delivery. Here, it is our pleasure to introduce you to HeyHi’s online whiteboard.
At HeyHi, we are committed to improving the way lessons are conducted online. With video-conferencing capabilities superimposed over a shared online whiteboard, HeyHi increases interactions between students in a virtual classroom. Greater interactivity opens the doors to a wider range of activities that teachers can incorporate into their virtual lesson plan.
You may have noticed that the lesson plans offered on many of these educational resources include worksheets. Some of these worksheets may require students to work in groups to complete. Fortunately, HeyHi’s online whiteboard enables users—even if you are on a free subscription tier—to upload PDF documents and images. Students can then communicate via video and work together to write and fill up the worksheets. All of these can be accomplished without leaving HeyHi’s application!
At the end of the lesson, students and teachers can download everything that has been shared and scribbled on the whiteboard to archive for future reference.
With the capacity to support multiple users who can all draw and annotate on the whiteboard simultaneously, HeyHi’s online whiteboard is perfect for facilitating small group activities. If you are worried about a lack of whiteboard space, HeyHi’s developers have made sure to design an expandable whiteboard. When there is insufficient whiteboard space, simply zoom out or shift to a different part of the whiteboard to continue writing.
Alternatively, teachers can create new whiteboard pages to separate each group’s work.
Not only does HeyHi’s online whiteboard serve multiple purposes, but it is also convenient to access! Participants can join meetings in browsers, or they can download the application from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
If you are interested in giving HeyHi’s online whiteboard a try for your next online lesson, please request a demo or even experience the user interface for yourself!