What does your planning currently look like? Well, I try to make a detailed weekly plan after consulting the LTP over the weekend and will make small changes the night before if needed. However, I usually only plan through Wednesday or Thursday, and then my plans get less specific and I have to spend more time during the week planning for upcoming days. So I'm somewhere between planning a week at a time and a day at a time, and not too far in advance. I have loose unit plans that I made with my team teacher in August but I could put more into them.
What is one thing about your current planning that is working well? It's hard to think of even one thing that's going well. I guess I am comfortable with the LTP that was made in August and I can see where the year is going, unit by unit. (That doesn't mean that I have these units planned out at all, of course, but I do like having an overarching vision for the year and where the standards fit in.)
What is one challenge with your current planning?
I can't pick just one--planning is not going well for me! I think the two biggest challenges are making detailed plans in advance, i.e. more than one week before I will teach them. I just don't feel comfortable making detailed plans for the future because I think things will change between writing and delivering the plan or I will forget what I planned and have to review it which takes away from the time I would have saved by planning in advance. The other biggest challenge is being ruthless with my classroom time and making sure I am getting done what I absolutely need to get done every day or week in class. I am way behind on two of my units for one of my classes right now and it really frustrates me. It is partially a classroom management issue, but now that I've got everything figured out after our last seminar (ha ha!) I should be able to move ahead with my "difficult" class. I don't know if I should plan every minute and watch the clock every day in class, because that is time-consuming and stressful, but when I don't do that I miss out on an entire part of my plan (I am constantly putting writing time aside for that one class and they are struggling because of it).
I hope that with this seminar I can learn to balance long-term with last-minute planning and clock-watching with having confidence in how my daily schedule will flow. Just the fact that I am writing this more than 24 hours past the due date shows that planning my own time needs to improve...
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2 comments:
Claire-- Give it a shot. I need to start planning more like you though, what with the weekly plans and such. I'm trying to work on that tonight, but it's not going so well.
I feel the same as you about the LTPs. I'm so glad I have them so that I do hit the standards, but I probably don't use them or even refer to them nearly enough. I'm pretty sure there is stuff that's getting lost in there somewhere.
Let me know how the checking it off goes. For my PM class, I literally use the 'Objectives' portion of the board and erase as I hit things. Then if I don't get to something, it gets left on the board so that I remember to hit hard on it the next day. It seems to (kind of) be working, but I'm always less diligent about it with the AM class.
Claire, I definitely understand your frustration with being behind. It will be a miracle of God if my kids lean anything about the rock cycle. I've totally lost touch with them there. Every teacher that has taught it before loves it and quite truthfully I have no idea what I'm doing and I can't get myself amped up about it so how am I supposed to make them excited for it? blah! You always seem so diligent with your lessons. Someday I would like to actually read some of those massive plans that you make...they seem very impressive anyway! :) Have a good week!
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