Evaluation of Lesson Plan Authoring Tools based on an Educational Design Representation Model for Lesson Plans

Abstract

Lesson plans (LPs) are a commonly used method for capturing and disseminating teaching practice within online teachers’ communities. Nevertheless, there are no commonly accepted and appropriately designed models for representing LPs. This shortcoming is also mirrored in the existing LP authoring tools, with each of them accommodating a different subset of the overall LP elements. To address this issue, we have proposed an educational Design-driven LP Representation Metadata Model (LPRM) which (a) comprises and extends a range of existing dimensions to model LPs and (b) is structured based on the ADDIE Educational Design Model. Capitalizing on this, the contribution of this chapter is the critical evaluation of a set of widely used LP authoring tools in terms of the level of accommodation they offer for the elements of the proposed LPRM. The findings of evaluation are used to highlight shortcomings and to propose guidelines for driving future implementations of LP authoring tools, towards enhancing the capacity of teachers to robustly capture and share their teaching practice.