The most common approach taken by instructors when planning a lecture is to concentrate on the content that they feel is important to know. Content is important, and best remembered when organized in a manner that the student sees as relevant. However, a more useful teaching tool is to identify the concepts needed to meet your objectives. When students learn concepts, they are able to apply those concepts to different situations.

Consider the concept of "positive reinforcement." Reinforcement can be defined by the following principle:

If a behavior is reinforced, it will likely increase.

This principle is developed from the theory of behaviorism. The students' understanding the general rule of reinforcement allows them to more easily take this a step further when learning the concepts of positive and negative reinforcement.

When you focus your content on objectives, and draw your content from theories, principles, or concepts, your students will be able to generalize those concepts to other areas of content as well.