The Life of a Lesson Plan
As a new teacher coach, I often forget to explain simple ideas because I assume adults know them already. This is often also true of a teacher making assumptions of students’ background knowledge. We realize in the moment that we made a horrible assumption and have to backtrack to fill in the knowledge gap.
That happened this week. We have been working hard on lesson plans and new teachers are incorporating lots of aligned activities and higher order questions to ensure students achieve mastery. However, I missed one important piece to share:
What do you do once you have finished your lesson plan?
I assumed teachers would print them off and leave it in front of them while they teach as a reference. Nope. They wrote them, turned them in, and never looked back.
Teacher Coach FAIL!
So I drafted a quick email outlining the life cycle of a lesson plan to ensure I was clear on what happens before, during and after the creation of a lesson plan:
- Backwards plan on a blank calendar topics needed to be covered, paying special attention to how many days are required to teach it
- Select a day and begin to script it to life, taking the big idea topic and breaking it down into bite sized chunks that include teacher and student actions and aligned activities
- Continue flushing out the remaining days for one week
- The night before delivering a lesson, practice delivering “What To Do” directions and any mini lesson (major content delivery)
- Reflect and make changes to fit current needs based on the day before’s lesson and student performance
- PRINT OUT THE LESSON PLAN
- Highlight areas you want to ensure you say/do so it stands out when you are HOLDING the lesson while teaching
- Teach with the lesson plan easily accessible to ensure you deliver it how you planned to deliver it
- Repeat process making sure you adjust lessons to meet student needs
- Leave reflection notes on your lesson plans as a reminder for what went well and what didn’t- this is helpful to refer to later on in the year as you often forget as time goes on
I hoped this outline helped the new teachers understand how to best utilize what they were planning. What a waste of time planning hours worth of lessons to never print it or use it while teaching! In my opinion, why bother writing one to begin with?
I reminded these new teachers that as they got more experience, they didn’t need to script as much into their lesson and they wouldn’t need to have it in front of them. In fact, most days I had a few items listed on a notecard that I wanted to make sure I did/said, but that was it. But, I certainly did not start out that way.
I made sure to end with “you’ll get there too- in time. So follow these steps in the beginning to ensure you have a strong foundation and a strong start. GO BE GREAT!”
They were so thankful that I mentioned the obvious because sometimes they didn’t realize they didn’t understand until it was too late. This helped set the expectation and ensure they were able to fully use their hard work day in and day out.
Need a lesson plan template? Try this one here. Or if you want a checklist to remind you as you plan what you need to include, try this one here.
How can teachers best utilize the lessons that they plan to ensure they provide a strong educational learning opportunity for students?
About the author, Gretchen
I am a teacher trainer and coach. Working elbow to elbow with teachers and teacher leaders to ensure instructional proficiency and student achievement soar lights me up. We have a real need in our nation for strong educators to remain in the field. My blog, book, podcast, courses and instructional materials are geared towards empowering teachers (and those that lead them) to receive the support needed to grow and thrive today, tomorrow and always.