Hello again! First I'd like to begin this post by saying how much I dislike lesson plans. I find them tedious and time consuming. Now do not mistake this for me saying I hate planning; without planning beforehand I wouldn't make it through 1st period. I always plan ahead for my classes with multiple back up plans because, as we all know, plans never go the way they're well... planned. However, I can honestly say I've never went back to a lesson plan to check and see what I'm going to do for the next 5 minutes of class. Knowing what I'm going to teach before hand is critical.
That being said so far this book makes a lot of great points. I found myself agreeing with the authors view on every section in chapter one. Overplanning is key. I learned this lesson early in field. It does not matter how well you manage your time or plan your lessons. You should always have a plan A, B, and C. For example, say you have a test planned but most of your students are out of class on a field trip. It would probably be wiser to go to plan B and move the test to the next day. Now does this mean that I'm going to make a lesson plan for plans A, B, and C? Absolutely not, that would be far too time consuming. However, being over prepared is always a wiser choice than being underprepared.
All of the sections in this chapter are all just small pieces of a whole. Planning, Overplanning, Flexiblity, and Time Management. You may not have the best time management, but if your flexible and made plans for an activity for students to do if there was extra time then you can use that instead. Or maybe if you find yourself less flexiblie make sure you overplan ahead of time. All in all this book makes some very good points that I wholeheartedly agree with, and I look forward to learning what more this book can teach me.
I agree that the act of writing lessons seems long, but I really think it's just to get us to consider every part of the lesson and how everything should fit together. I do agree that I don't look back to see what I'm doing minute by minute because I adapt and change my lesson as I'm teaching it. I very rarely carry out the lesson exactly as I had planned, which shows flexibility. I'd rather change my lesson if I realize it's not going to work than stick to something that I believe is going to fail.
ReplyDeleteI also think having multiple plans for the unknown is necessary when teaching. Again, sometimes it's more beneficial to throw out the original plan as circumstances arrive that might hinder your ability to follow through with it.
I too agree that lesson planning is not my strong point! I differ from you in that I have a hard time narrowing down what I should teach and how far in depth I should go. Planning for A, B, and C helps me have a place for all the extra stuff that I'd like to cover. In my student teaching experiences so far, I understand the critical need to create the smaller details and plan in five minute sections. It's provides me with a framework to reference and gauge my lesson plans by. Each time I teach the lesson I alter it. It's a fluid document to reference by.
ReplyDeleteDenise