Have you done the necessary topic reading and thinking, have you informed yourself of what the students studied in any related lectures and have you thought of some helpful questions to ask and points to make? A course will usually have clear, written course aims and some have more detailed objectives or outcomes. It may then be useful for you to prepare some more specific learning outcomes. A learning outcome\objective is a statement that describes what a student should be able to do or understand after attending the class and completing the associated work assignments. These will clearly inform and help focus your class discussions. Here is an example of a set of learning outcomes from a second year Economics course at the LSE.