Tips for Better Lesson and Course Planning

In previous articles, I wrote about the primacy and recency effects, the forgetting curve, and retrieval practice. Keeping these four concepts at the forefront of your mind can significantly help you plan your teaching sessions and courses, so that you engage your students and help them remember what they learn. 

Here are some practical tips to keep these concepts in mind when you are planning. 

1. Focus students' attention

In today's digital world, we know we need to get students' attention —focused attention. That means unhooking them from distractions. Not always an easy feat. However, instructional design models fully support the importance of this. Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction and the AGES (Attention-Generation-Emotion-Spacing) models both specifically focus on the importance of student attention. AGES focuses on removing distractions, while Gagne's approach emphasizes the primacy effect of grabbing students' attention right at the start of class. Either way, the importance here is to get the student's attention.

Suggestions:

• Require students to turn off notifications on their phones, tablets, and computers.
• Start class by inviting students to clear their minds—such as by closing their eyes, taking some deep breaths, and clearing their minds of all the chatter. It will all be there when class is over.
• Start class with a hook (primacy effect) about the topic of the day, a reflective question, or a quick self-assessment of what they learned in the last class. From a neurobiological perspective, such activities help the brain 'pay attention.' 

2. Help them connect the dots

Connecting new material to existing knowledge fosters retention (Sridhar et al., 2023; van Kesteren et al., 2018). This is the basic underpinning of constructivist learning theory, which posits that students need to actively participate in learning by building new knowledge on prior knowledge (Olusegun, 2015). 

In our role as teachers, it is important to intentionally build into our classes and courses, helping students bridge what they have previously learned with the new material being presented. In order to do this, faculty must know not only what has already been covered in their course, but also what has been covered in other courses in the same semester or quarter, as well as what students learned in the previous semester or quarter. We cannot assume students will link things together. This is a good place to consider using retrieval practice as a learning strategy. Remember, this practice involves requiring students to retrieve information from memory actively (Agarwal et al., 2021). 

Suggestions:

• Think about ways to spark students' memory (retrieval) by questions or memory cues, such as asking 'what do you already know about'… or 'what have you previously learned about'….or can you tell me how what we just learned connects with something you already knew?" This is good for connecting content to content
• Consider ways to have students connect content to text, such as using small-group discussion to connect ideas from readings to class content.
• Have students connect the content to their personal experience, for example, by relating what they are learning about a disease to their observations and experiences of a family member who has or had the disease.
• Encourage student to relate what they are learning to how it will help them in their role as a PA.

Helping students connect these dots deepens their comprehension and recall and builds stronger neural networks. Remember the Hebbian neuroplasticity principle – neurons that fire together wire together. The stronger the connections, the better the retention (Friedrich Miescher Institute, 2021; Keysers & Gazzola, 2014) 

3. Engage the emotions

Emotions play a powerful role in learning and retention (Tyng et al., 2017). They can greatly foster it or hinder it. Compared to neutral experiences, emotionally charged experiences stick in our memory much longer. In education, we mostly want to use positive emotions to help students build a bridge of knowledge, especially when there is no prior knowledge to build on.

Suggestions:

• Storytelling - since we are talking specifically about concepts to consider when building your lesson, one of the most common ways we can introduce emotion into a lesson is by sharing a story or experience – either one of yours or one from students, as long as it is tethered to the topic (Oberstein, 2025). Sometimes, a story shared in class can be a powerful tool for helping students remember some of what they are learning. The story triggers an emotional response that connects to what they learned.
• Using a video clip from a TV show or movie that shows a situation that evokes emotion is another way. Years back, I used so many clips from "Grey's Anatomy" for ethical situations because they were effective at triggering emotions that we would then discuss in relation to the ethical concept being addressed that day. 

One caveat here – always keep a constant finger on the pulse of the class when you engage emotions. A student may have an unexpected and unpleasant response, so you want to notice it and follow up with that student. Also, as mentioned above, we want activities that trigger positive emotions. Negative emotions can and will shut down a student and hinder learning. 

4. 4. Don't overwhelm by trying to cover too much.

Trying to cover too much is a very common problem among PA faculty. I know. I get it. We want to share everything we know, so we try to cram it into a two-hour class. If you have done this, you know it can be frustrating for you and the students. 

Last year, I wrote an article about cognitive overload. Cognitive load refers to the limit our brains have on the amount of information we can process at any given time (Schiano, 2021; van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2005). Cognitive overload is when we exceed our brain's capacity to process information (Marousis, 2023; Schiano, 2021). When this occurs, it is common to feel overwhelmed, burned out, and anxious. It can lead to diminished ability to focus and concentrate, making learning more difficult (Marousis, 2023). Therefore, when designing your class time or your course, step back and ask yourself whether what you plan to do is doable within the time you have with students, including how much cognitive load you are placing on them. 

Suggestions:

• Use your course learning outcomes and instructional objectives. It's important, when planning, to focus on the courses' learning outcomes and instructional objectives as a guide to help you determine and prioritize what you need to cover versus what you want to cover. Once you have those key areas covered, then if you still have time, you can cover some additional aspects.
• Consider cognitive load from a student's perspective —give breaks. Consider scheduled breaks during your class time and your course. Consider the concept of spacing, which encourages giving students a break from the material, such as a day, then coming back to it and continuing. Or have the unit or module spaced out in shorter sessions instead of marathon ones. Cognitive load or overload should also be evaluated from a broader perspective, not just your course, but all the courses the students are taking. The overload can result from the combined effect of all or several courses. Thus, it is helpful for faculty to know when heavy topics are occurring in other courses.
• Remember, the average attention span is 15-20, although graduate-level students are generally able to stay focused for 30-60 minutes. Plan accordingly. 

Class and course design are critical to effective teaching. Creating environments that foster and support learning takes time, practice, knowledge, and intention. Planning is key. 

References 

Albers, J. (2019, November 6). The cognitive science behind learning that resonates: The AGES model. Training Industry. https://trainingindustry.com/blog/content-development/the-cognitive-science-behind-learning-that-resonates-the-ages-model/ 

Argarwal, P. K., Nunes, L. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2021). Retrieval practice consistently benefits student learning: a Systematic review of applied research in schools and classrooms. Educ Psychol Rev 33,  1409–1453. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09595-9 

Friedrich Miescher Intitute for Biomedical Research. (2021, December 23). How neurons that wire together fire together. Neuroscience News. https://neurosciencenews.com/wire-fire-neurons-19835/ 

Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction. (n.d.) The Peak Performance Center. https://thepeakperformancecenter.com/business/learning/business-training/gagnes-nine-events-instruction/ 

Keysers, C., & Gazzola, V. (2014). Hebbian learning and predictive mirror neurons for actions, sensations and emotions. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 369(1644), 20130175. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0175 

Marousis, A. (2023, April 7). What is cognitive overload? Causes, effects, and solutions. Talentcards. https://www.talentcards.com/blog/what-is-cognitive-overload/ 

Oberstein, S. (2025, August 27). 6 tips for better lesson planning. Harvard Business Impact. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/engaging-lesson-planning-tips 

Olusegun, S. (2015). Constructivism learning theory: A paradigm for teaching and learning. IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education. 5(6), v1. P 66-70.

https://iosrjournals.org/iosr-jrme/papers/Vol-5%20Issue-6/Version-1/I05616670.pdf 

Schiano, B. (2121, May 6). Give your brain a break – Course design tips to avoid feeling overwhelmed: 5 Questions to ask yourself when planning for a new semester. Harvard Business Publishing Education. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/course-design-tips-to-avoid-feeling-overwhelmed?cid 

Sridhar, S., Khamaj, A., & Asthana, M. K. (2023). Cognitive neuroscience perspective on memory: overview and summary. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 17, 1217093. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1217093

 Tyng, C. M., Amin, H. U., Saad, M. N. M., & Malik, A. S. (2017). The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1454. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454 

van Kesteren, M. T. R., Krabbendam, L., & Meeter, M. (2018). Integrating educational knowledge: reactivation of prior knowledge during educational learning enhances memory integration. NPJ science of learning, 3, 11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-018-0027-8 

van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Sweller, J. (2005). Cognitive Load Theory and complex learning: Recent developments and future directions. Educational Psychology Review, 17(2), 147–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-005-3951-0