A mini-lesson focuses on a specific teaching point and lasts from five to twenty minutes. You can teach a mini-lesson with a whole group, a small group, or with individual students. Mini Lessons are ideal for quick lessons that lead to active participation.

Steps to complete a mini lesson

Before you plan your mini-lesson, you need to determine your teaching point. A teaching point is a specific objective. What will the apprentice do? A teaching point might look like this: the writer will select a topic to write a non-fiction magazine article on. Once he has a teaching point, he can start planning his lesson.

Step one: model

The first step in teaching a mini-lesson is modeling what you want your students to do. If your teaching point is to have your students select a writing topic, then you should model choosing a topic. You could show students a list of ideas for writing magazine articles that were generated the night before. Maybe you have ten ideas on the list. Write the list on graph paper or put it on a projection device. Think out loud about your thinking as you consider your topics. What subject do you know more about? What topic is the most interesting? What topic could you spend time writing on without getting bored? Which topic has enough meat to fill the article space? These are the kinds of questions you would ask yourself (out loud) for this particular teaching point. Your goal is to show your students how you eliminate topics and select the best topic to write on. You can complete this step in less than five minutes.

Step Two: Active Engagement

The next step in teaching a mini-lesson is to actively engage your students. Active engagement can range from turning to a partner and talking to hands-on experience. The keyword is “active”. Students engage in practice (trial and error) while the teacher supervises and assists their students. In the case of our teaching point on writing, students could work in pairs to help each other talk about their writing ideas to choose the best idea. At the end of the session, students should be ready to write. This step may take five to ten minutes.

Step Three: Share the Learning Experience

Before leaving the mini-lesson behind and releasing students to the responsibility, gather your class (or meet with your small group or individuals) to share the learning experience. In the case of selecting topics, students could share their writing topics with the rest of the class and say how they decided on their topic. In this case, it’s not the topic they think about, but the process they engaged in when choosing the topic. Don’t spend more than five minutes on step three. You have to make your students work now! It’s time to write (or read).

Mini-lessons are a great tool to keep your students engaged and moving. Children are connected to television, video games and the Internet to the point that they quickly lose interest. Shorter, more engaging lessons keep your students engaged and your teaching fresh.