Why is lesson planning important?
Lesson planning is a big part of your job as a teacher. By planning the lesson ahead of time, you can see places where the lesson might break down or where problems might arise. Lessons don't always work out the way we want them to, so planning allows us to extend the lesson if needed or cut the lesson down. The plan provides guidelines that we can follow to keep ourselves organized so the lesson doesn't get away from us and we don't stray too far from the topic. Lesson planning is critical to your day to day routine as a teacher.
What things are important to consider?
When planning a lesson, it is important to consider a number of things:
1. Safety - the student's and your safety should come first
2. Plan for extended time - if you finish early, you don't want to waste precious teaching time, so plan to extra
3.Plan areas you alter- if time is running short, plan what is most important and what you can afford to cut out
4. Plan for accommodations and modifications - some students may need the lesson plan to be altered to fit their learning style, and it's important to think of these ahead of time.
5. Supplies - make sure you have enough materials for each student before beginning the lesson.
Alisha,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that by planning a lesson ahead of time, you can get a good idea of where possible breakdowns might occur. It is always so important to be prepared for such events! I also agree that the lesson plan is a guideline for teachers to use. If the lesson is not going the way we planned, it is always nice to have a possible back up....or at least to have some sort of positive reaction to it.
In regards to your considerations, safety was my #1 also. This is so true, if a classroom has even a chance of being unsafe, the teacher needs to consult her lesson and make changes. Planning for extended time is key too. Like I said earlier, it is always good to have a Plan B. I really like your #3. Its realistic that teachers won't get to cover everything they would like to. So, if they go into a lesson knowing which ideas they would like to cover, the lesson should reflect this. Maybe cover these items first, or like you said, cut other things out. Number 5 is great too. It may seem simple, however, its something like having missing supplies or not enough that can cause students to have a riot in the classroom. Anything that can be done to avoid this, should be done.
Great ideas! :-)
Hi Alisha,
ReplyDeleteLike Katelyn, I agree with your point about using a lesson plan to think about where break downs might happen. I hadn't really thought about it that way but it makes sense! Even if things don't go totally according to our plan, we can use it to make adjustments as we go along.
I like that you list planning extra material and thinking about what you could cut as part of your lesson planning considerations, too. I'm sure that it will take a while for us to get timing down so being flexible that way will really help!
p.s. - your blog post title made me wonder... do you watch The Amazing Race?
Alisha, I love the Confucius quote you put at the top of your blog this week! It fits perfectly with what we have been discussing about how extremely important it is to have a lesson plan in front of you so that you can refer to it in case there are any roadblocks when delivering our intended lesson. I like how you compared having a lesson plan to having a guideline that we can follow in order to keep ourselves organized, because if we cannot keep ourselves organized, than who will? Without an organized and well thought out lesson plan, a teacher would be setting his/herself up for failure because that unexpected time is bound to come, and it will be our responsibility to make sure that we are prepared for the worst case scenario. I also like how you put safety at the top of the list of things to consider when writing a lesson plan, because even though it would be a terrible thing for a lesson plan that we worked so hard on to fall apart right before our very eyes, that would not even compare to how terrible we would feel if something safety related were ever to happen to our students.
ReplyDeleteAlisha! I just had to comment because of your Confucius quote: I watched the season premiere of Amazing Race this Sunday and one of the road blocks was one of the team member had to listen to this quote, memorize it, and recite it back. What a small world! but anyways...you are so right...lesson planning is extremely critical for success. I also loved how you included areas where things can be alters because even after just being in a couple classrooms, I can see that things will almost never go perfectly according to plan, so as much as possible, we should plan for the unplanned...that sounds like a mouthful..and a handful! :)
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