Lesson Planning in the Real World

While Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, it’s my designated work day. After a long week, it’s close to impossible for me to just jump into more work on a Friday afternoon. Friday’s are for some R&R and sleep. Saturdays I attempt to do some work, but I usually try to take some time to do something for myself, because it’s hard to fit in during the week. So when it comes to getting work done, Sundays it is.

By: Sila Tiptanatoranin. Courtesy of Flickr.

While I have a general idea of the upcoming content in my classes, I usually translate those ideas into lessons: four of them per week for my three separate courses that I teach.

I remember lesson planning during my undergraduate and graduate school years and how long they could take sometimes. Both schools I attended had their own lesson plan templates with all of the important factors:

• Unit Title/Lesson Topic
• Class/Grade Level
• Standards
• Essential Question
• Objective
• Language Acquisition
• Lesson Materials
• Vocabulary
• Lesson Plan
• Assessment/Evidence of Learning
• Reflection

Now this list can go on even further and there are many different versions of the list that I have written above, but this is generally what I would fill out. It was really time consuming! I had to submit formal lesson plans for observations and assignments. Working through these templates for various lessons gave me extremely valuable skills and I still apply these to my lesson plans now, but I use a different method.

I’m very lucky because I am not required by my employer to submit lesson plans, hence my weekly Sunday work sessions. But knowing how tedious completing those old templates can be, I’ve had to come up with a more efficient way to lesson plan just as thoroughly.

By: Wilda Kristiansson. Courtesy of Flickr

I have notebooks for each of my classes instead of plan books. For me, they work better and I have more room to add my own notes to my lesson plans. I usually designate one page per day and run through each day roughly like so:

• Do Now: What do I want my students to remember from yesterday? Is there something I would like for them to reflect on from their most recent assignment or reading? Are we learning something new today? Is there a way I can get my students thinking about this new topic while gaining insight about what prior knowledge they have?
• Hook: How will I connect today’s Do Now to what our learning objectives are for today’s lesson? How will I build on my students’ prior knowledge in their learning today?
• Goal Setting: What would I like my students to learn today? Is there a new skill that I need to teach? Is there a new learning activity procedure that needs to be explained or demonstrated? Is there background information that my students need to know before get into the majority of the lesson? What expectations do I need to communicate to my students?
• Student Practice: How are my students going to achieve the learning objectives for today? What methods will be put into practice in order to do so? Will my students be working independently, with a partner, or in a small group? How will I integrate teaching skills and content?
• Summary: What are effective ways I can check for understanding for this lesson? Are there ways I can extend this lesson? How can I collect data from my students?

This outline is something one of my graduate school professors taught me. It has changed how I approach lesson planning and feel it is an extremely effective way of doing it.

Even though I’m using my planning time a lot more wisely, a weakness of mine is the fact that even having taught all three of the courses I have this year, I still insist on starting from scratch. I have the same planning notebooks from years past with all of my lessons, learning activities, assessment ideas, and more and yet I still insist that I rewrite what I’ve done already or do something completely new.

I think a part of teaching is definitely reflection and with that there are bound to be changes or adjustments made to lessons, learning activities, assessment ideas… but, there are definitely times when I need to tell myself that what I have and what I’ve done is good. And as the saying goes, “there’s no use in reinventing the wheel.” (But that’s also just the perfectionist in me).

By: Pat Young. Courtesy of Flickr.

Lesson planning is the first step to figuring out how to make history (or any subject) engaging, interesting, and fun. In thinking about the content you need to teach and the skills your students need, a quick brainstorm is an easy way to start thinking about potential lessons. To go back to what I mentioned before, don’t go crazy trying to come up with something original all the time like I do, (and yes, I drive myself crazy). Don’t reinvent the wheel! There are some amazing resources and PEOPLE out there who love to share what they’ve done! I thank those people from the bottom of my heart who have saved me from some of my usual crazy.

And on that note, Sunday work session, COMPLETE.