I just got an email from my principal. It was a mass email to the entire teaching staff. There were several bullet points. One of the points said this:
Okay, enough procrastinating. Off to write a lesson plan...
- Lesson plans for the week of Oct. 4-8 are due in the principal's mailbox by Tuesday, October 5th.
- I keep my lesson plans in a blog. There is no way to turn them into the principal's mailbox. I'll gladly write the name of the blog on a piece of paper and put into her box.
- We are on a strict copy allotment. Copying my lesson plans will take away from the copies that I am able to make for my students.
- I have a lesson plan for each day that teach. However, planning a week at a time doesn't make sense for me. My plan changes depending on what happens each day. By Thursday, the plan that I write on Monday is probably going to be useless. In fact, it would downright confusing if someone brought that plan into my room on Thursday expecting to see that lesson.
- If I make it very vague and general, perhaps stating a concept for the week, what good is that? It doesn't tell you anything about how I'm going to teach.
Okay, enough procrastinating. Off to write a lesson plan...
I don't have to turn in plans because my admin recognizes that my plans change daily based on formative assessment.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that you're in such a weird spot. Seems like a hoop. Don't strain yourself jumping through it.
Russ
Thanks Russ!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'll jump to high. My only concern is that our principal is not tech savvy. Not sure how well received a lesson plan blog will be. It all screams lack of trust to me.
I plan a unit's worth of lessons at a time and then pull them to fill in my weekly plans (which do have to be submitted). I, luckily, work for people who know that my plans will change based on what happened the day before or the mood of the class.
ReplyDeleteI find that lesson planning is important for me (in my 3rd year of teaching) because it means that I am organized for each day. Over time, I can see the need for actually writing written plans to become less and less.
For the past two years, we have followed 1 lesson plan template. This year a new format has been introduced and it doesn't click as well with my thought process. I find myself where you are in that the new format seems unnecessary to me because it doesn't fit with what I'm already doing.
The important thing that we are both doing is planning--how we write it down or format it before teaching it is not important.
Lesson plans a week in advance are pure fiction... Had a great principal once who realized this and had us turn them in the week after the lessons were taught.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing to keep in mind is that the direction you were given is very vague and open ended. It's about the principal needing to report that they are checking lesson plans.
ReplyDeletePaste the blog you have into a google docs and send her a link to that doc. Follow her lead then as to what to do next.
Keep reporting here and call your team as necessary.
@2ndgradetcher - I have an overall unit/week/objective goal and plan off that daily based on what happens in class. My daily format is general: Objectives, Activities, Assessment, Turn-in, Homework.
ReplyDelete@Mrs. Booth - I like the week after idea. Add a reflective piece and you've got pure gold.
@Dan - I just emailed her a link to my lesson plan blog. I'll keep you all updated with what I get back. Hoops.
We had to turn in plans as well. Ours were a month in advance. I ran into the same problem, my lessons were based on what was happening on a classroom and changed regularly to adapt to the needs of my students. I turned in my rough draft outline of my plans and adjusted as needed in my classroom. In my case, the admin never read any of my plans anyway so it didn't really matter what I had written.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Tenkely - a month? That is impossible unless they just want on overview. No way I could I give detailed objectives/outcomes that far in advance. Wow. And it seems like it doesn't really matter as they don't get read. That is a common thread.
ReplyDelete