Academic Staff’s View Points on the Implementation of Lesson Plan

Background and purpose: Lesson plan is considered a vital component of the teacher training and successful teachers are in variably good planners and thinkers. The present study was conducted to survey the academic staff’s views about lesson plan in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 2001. Moreover, considering the finding of the study there was an attempt to seek the experts’ views on how to perform lesson plan practically through forming a focus group.Methods: This is a descriptive study indicating the attitudes of 152 academic staff about lesson plan. The data were collected using a questionnaire. The findings of the first stage was followed by forminga focus group in the second stage. Ten authorities and experts in the field were selected. They were interviewed on how to perform lesson plans in Shiraz university of Medical Sciences in three sessions. It was concluded that the main barrier for designing and performing the lesson plan is the academic staff’s lack of awareness about its advantages.Results: Of the population under the study, 30% were females and 70% males. The majority of the academic staff (126 individuals, 85.1%) believes that they need a lesson plan in their field and thatthe implementation of lesson plan contributes to the improvement of education. 70.9% (1.5) of them believe that lesson plan does not limit the educational process. Some of their coworkers (51.5%) consider lesson plan as necessary and are ready to cooperate in this way. 44.6% of them (42) state that designing a lesson plan somehow conforms to our country’s educational system. The majority of them (75.8%) state that they know the “must learns” but believe that there is no sufficient education about lesson plan. The experts in the focus group presented their  recommendations with regard to lesson plan as follows:1- Continual education of the academic staff; 2- Compilations of logbook;3- Application of those sections with lesson plan; 4- Compulsory regulations for using lesson in university.Conclusion: The findings of this study reveal that the academic staffs have a positive view about lesson plan. However, their active participation in designing and implementing lesson plan requires educational programs to be compiled. This entails special managerial strategies.