Eye on Education posted a great article online* about maximizing lesson plans. Here are their suggestions for introducing lessons.
1. Create a novel approach to grab students attention.
2. Keep the lesson relevant to your students’ lives.
3. Use verbal AND written instructions to accommodate varied ways students take in information.
4. Model your thinking process to provide hints to students on how to proceed.
5. Remind them of how the information related to their prior knowledge.
6. Encourage them to translate the task into their own words (since plagarism is frowned upon)
*date of article: 2-13-2013