Funny story. I celebrated my teaching anniversary on January 19th. I had my first day of teaching in San Jose, Costa Rica when I was 21-years-old. It is my 45th year annivesary (!) and I was looking through some things this week and I actually found the very first lesson plan that I did 45 years ago. It’s for an 8th-grade math lesson.
Here is the thing, though, forever now I am fond of saying that “I was prepared to teach when I started. I had my great lesson plan. I had a classroom management plan. I had spent hours getting my room ready and making it look and feel great. I was ready!”
Um, that wasn’t entirely true. Apparantly I’ve been indulging in revisionist history about this.
Here is my so-called “great” lesson plan.
I swear that I remember spending weeks writing this out and pondering and sweating over it. I remember I had 6 different preps (I have the lesson plans for all 6 preps right here in front of me while I’m typing this). Weeks and weeks and weeks to write these out and basically, as I view them now, they are a script. I was so nervous that first day.
Also, my writing looks like that of a third-grader in that lesson plan! (No offense to any third-graders!)
What I did NOT anticipate, hilariously, is that they would only take one day to teach and that - that Monday night after that first day - I would have to write new lesson plans for the following Tuesday.
The awful thing about looking at this lesson plan 45 years later is that, um…errrr, it’s pretty bad, if you can even consider it a lesson plan at all. It’s really just one piece of a lesson plan. It’s really just the “daily instructional steps to support student learning” and nothing else.
I feel as if I was a ship without a rudder as I look at this old lesson plan. No wonder that much of my first year felt like I was being tossed about in an angry sea.
NOT so funny story. Forty-five years later and the professors in your Phase 1 credential programs have identified lesson planning as a great weakness of our candidates when they get to Phase 3 Student Teaching.
Sure. The profession of education has evolved a lot since I started, but there is a reason I now look back on my early days in the classroom and feel like I struggled a bit. Truth is, I could have prepared better. Hurts to say it, but there it is.
I. Could. Have. Prepared. Better.
I really could have prepared better.
The TED faculty has met and discussed this at length. I actually used to introduce lesson planning in TED 400 but somewhere along the way someone moved it out for no-one-can-really-remember-the-reasons-but-I-am-sure-it-was-about-assessment-and-accreditation. What we realized is that so-and-so thought so-and-so was introducing lesson planning and then another person thought yadda-yadda was introducing it and, um, no one was really teaching it! Boo us!
So, recently we reorganized the Phase 1 program and I am beginning right up front with an Introduction to Lesson Planning in TED 400. You’ll be creating a lesson plan in this class during the next few weeks and you will turn in your best efforts for it in Week 6.
Then, professors in your other Phase 1 courses (like 507 and 414) are going to ask you about your TED 400 lesson plan and you are going to take it into their class and add to it, building and building and developing more skills and better nuance with each course. That way, by the end of Phase 1, you will have a strong foundation in the art and science of making a great lesson that will be built upon more in Phase 2 and carry you to success in Phase 3 Student Teaching!
Some - no, not all, but some - student teachers in Phase 3 are failing hard during their student teaching experience because they have weak lessons. We are going to fight hard for you so that this isn’t your experience.
Let’s get started.
First of all, some of you have some experience with lesson planning and a bunch of you do not. No problem. There is something here for everyone. For one, the entire College of Education credential program is using the same new and fabulous lesson plan format. For you to be successful in our College, you have to use this all the way through your program. I’m introducing it here, but other classes will have more sophisticated versions of it as you learn and nuance more.
Here it is as a Word Document so that you can type right into it. But sure, go ahead and save a blank copy too.
Any ‘ol lesson plan format you are familiar with or come across will basically have these same elements to it.
Here it is for your viewing and reading.
Just so you know, if you look at my old lesson plans from that 8th-grade math lesson, you’ll see that all I did was the “Daily instructional steps” on the second page. :(
Okay, what in the heck does all of this even mean?
I did another version of it where I wrote in GREEN what I felt each part of the lesson plan was asking of you, explaining what each part was for.
You can download this document here if you want to print it out and keep it.
Read s - l - o - w - l - y through these two version of our official CSUDH TED Lesson Plan. Familarize yourself with what each section means as much as you can.
Now, I’ve went ahead and written my own lesson plan for you to see exactly how it might look and so that you would have a model to guide you. I did mine on an 8th-grade U.S. History lesson on the concept of civil disobedience. Here it is for you to view and study.
Here it is if you want to print a copy to study it.
So, then, what is your task for this week?
I think I’d get a small folder that I’d label LESSON PLANNING and start printing out these pieces I’ve began to share with you and bank them. Yes, definitely do that. That way, anytime you need to lesson plan, everything you need is in ONE folder and easily accessible. That will help you SO very much as you go through all three of our credential phases.
Print and read carefully the lesson plan and my second version with green key concepts on it. Do you understand most of what is included in a lesson plan now? We’ll dig deeper into these parts next week. Print it out (in color) and place it in your LESSON PLANNING notebook too.
Last of all, think about what it is you want to write a lesson plan on now. Choose any topic and whatever grade you are dreaming of teaching. Most of us have a lesson in our minds that we were inspired by or that we have always wanted to write. Do that one!
Start gathering materials and resources, so many of which can easily be found online these days. We’ll do the majority of this work in class.
Read, digest, comprehend, imagine, dream, play, think, ponder, create, plan, reflect.
I find great, great joy in the creative and intellectual intersections that are so obvious in the lesson planning process.
More next week!