Before You Submit a Lesson Plan

Teaching driver education is a very complex activity and not everyone is suited for the task. However, if you are passionate about teaching driver education, read the following information for helpful tips on how to create an effective and solid lesson plan.  

Before you submit a lesson plan to the Training & Certification Unit (TCU), think about how you will teach the material that students will need to know to pass your driver education course, not just the OMV Knowledge Exam. Students learn visually and interact with technology as well as the instructor.  

Driving is very different from 10-20 plus years ago. Teens and adults have more distractions (cell phones anyone??) and vehicles themselves have lots of technology to use or distract a driver. There are many more cars and trucks on the roadways with more being added every year. Drivers may be rude or reckless and everyone seems to be in a hurry.  

Teaching new drivers how to navigate the modern roadways of the state and country is very important and sometimes a challenge. However, it can be a very rewarding experience as an instructor. You will be teaching a life lesson to students as new drivers. The majority of people in our state drive as public transportation is not available in all parts of Louisiana. Driver education is the foundation for good driving techniques.

Some of the goals to teach new drivers are:

• How to be a safe and courteous driver. (i.e. avoid road rage and be patient with other drivers)
• How to navigate the roadways of Louisiana and the country. (i.e. how to stop at stop signs, using seat belts correctly, how to avoid crashes, how to maneuver through a sharp curve without driving off into a ditch or bridge, etc.)
• How to maintain your vehicle. (i.e. check oil, tire pressure, etc.)

Teaching driver education can help make our new drivers safer and good road users.  You may teach them something that will save their life one day. 

To start creating your lesson plan, go to the New Driver Curriculum and follow the topics. You may copy and paste from the New Driver Curriculum. You will need to decide how you teach the lessons to the students. Will you teach off of a Powerpoint presentation or a similar program? Powerpoint presentations are user-friendly and easy to make colorful slides with great pictures and graphs.  

To start:

• Look at each topic separately on the New Driver Curriculum and read through it. Once you have read one topic, determine how you will teach this information to your students.  Will you have a short video, a guest speaker, do a class discussion and ask students key questions to make them think and consider the right action to take, etc. 
• Determine what you will be saying – think of it like a script that you will use each time you teach a particular topic.
• Powerpoints have a Note Section that you can include additional notes and information to remind you and your instructors to go over in class while on that particular slide.

Remember, You will be the one in front of the class of novice drivers and will need to know the subject material.  If you do not know it, you will lose the class and the students will not be into the lessons.   

The New Driver Curriculum (NDC) is the foundation of your lessons that you will teach students in a driver education course.  All of the topics are important. 

Research everything you will teach. There is a wealth of information for driver education instructors. There are many organizations that provide very good material to use for the classroom and for behind-the-wheel instruction. Take advantage of the information! Put the information into your own words to make it easier for you to teach the students. For a list of recommended resources, click here.

Although it is not mandatory, the recommended best method to develop a lesson plan is a PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) for the students – minors and adults.   

A PowerPoint presentation can make the information attractive and interesting for the student. Today, students have grown up with technology at their fingertips. Many young children are handed a cell phone, tablet, or some sort of electronic device to help keep them entertained. Your PowerPoint presentation will be as good as the effort that is put into making it.  You can insert pictures, graphs, videos, etc.

You may copy and paste the information from the NDC into your PPT. However, you will need to show how you will teach the student this information.

In the notes section of a PowerPoint presentation, you can include information like:

• a set of questions you want to ask the students (include the answers you want the students to give you).
• explain how you will teach the topic. Will you have a guest speaker? If not, what will you teach?
• Will you have a game like Kahoot for the students to use to answer quizzes? Include the questions and correct answers that the students are going to be asked.  
• Include information from other sources, see the recommended website list here for information that can be added to the lesson plan. The more good information you have, the better your lesson plan will be.

Things not to do in your lesson plan:

• Do not just copy and paste the New Driver Curriculum without showing how it will be taught. You have to put some work into the lesson plan. This helps TCU when your lesson plan is evaluated.
• Do not copy and paste from other sources without citing the original website or publication. Some sites have copyright laws that protect their intellectual material.
• Do not provide just the information without including pictures or graphs. Nothing but words on a PPT is not very interesting to students and they will not learn this way.
• Do not use videos that are more than 10 minutes long without stopping for discussion. The videos are not for instructors to take a break.
• For the eight-hour lesson plan, do not expect to just sit and ride with the student. Instruction continues for the full eight hours.  Plan the route and how the instruction will continue.  This will need to be translated into a written lesson plan for approval.

Do not take your students for granted, every student is considered a novice driver.  Teach them that their life will depend on what they learn - because it will.