March 25, 2025 • 24 mins
Can activity-packed lessons actually hinder true learning? Join Tammy and Christine on the Minimalist Educator Podcast as we unravel the "twin sins of planning," a thought-provoking concept brought to light by McTighe and Willis. We promise you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of how the focus on fun, activity-oriented lessons and an obsession with content coverage can unintentionally overshadow genuine student engagement and understanding. Sharing insights from personal journeys and the brilliant Minimalist Teacher book, we explore strategies to ensure that lessons are not only engaging but also meaningful and centered around the students' needs.
Facing the tug-of-war between curriculum pacing guides and addressing skill gaps is a common challenge for educators. We dive into the heart of this issue, discussing the immense pressure to keep up with timelines while ensuring that no student is left behind. Listen in as we share practical tips like small group instruction and lesson restructuring that prioritize student comprehension over rigid schedules. In our conversation, we stress the importance of building buffer time into planning and encourage educators to streamline their planning documents, focusing on what truly matters: fostering deep understanding and involvement in the learning process.
Buy The Minimalist Teacher book from ASCD+ISTE.
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a
podcast about paring down torefocus on the purpose and
priorities in our roles withco-hosts and co-authors of the
Minimalist Teacher Book, TammyMusialski-Bornemann and
Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
On this week's episode of the Minimalist
Educator Podcast, we talk aboutthe topic of the twin sins of
planning.
This is another part in ourthree-part bend about
instructional strategies, so wehope you enjoy finding out about
the twin sins of planning.
Hello everyone and welcome totoday's episode of the
(01:00):
Minimalist Educator podcast.
I'm here with Tammy today.
How are you, Tammy?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm pretty good.
I'm excited that we're kind ofin this three-week run of these
specific instructional pieces toteaching, so I'm looking
forward to talking about today'stopic.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
How are you yeah, good, no same.
I think it's good because youknow we talk about so many
different aspects of education,so it's nice to spend a little
bit of time thinking about someinstructional strategies and,
you know, diving back into thebook the Minimalist Teacher some
of the things that we talkedabout in there as well.
It's nice to revisit that workthat we did previously.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
For sure, for sure.
So today we are talking aboutthe twin sins of planning.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Isn't that great.
I love that.
Who thought of that as an idea?
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Right, it feels like you're doing something totally
wrong, which kind of?
But also I don't know.
We just have to, like, talkthis through.
Um, cause planning is trickyfor sure.
Um, this idea was introduced byMcTighe and Willis just pre
(02:17):
COVID, it seems like, and weknow that Jay McTighe is, you
know, known for UBD andbackwards planning, and so to
know that he has, you know,spent a good portion of his
educational career focusing onplanning and really digging into
(02:38):
effective practices and whatworks best for instruction,
teaching and learning, this iskind of an interesting idea
actually.
And I think probably most of ushave been stuck, caught, trapped
in it.
If that's the right word, yeah,if not both of them, definitely
(03:00):
in one.
Yeah, for sure, yeah yeah, yeah, so again we're talking.
Last week we talked about adouble whammy.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So again we're talking.
Last week we talked about adouble whammy, Today we're
talking about twin sins.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So something about the number two that we're
working on?
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, so what are the twin sins?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Okay, so the twin sins of planning.
So there are two of these sinsthat people get caught up when
they're planning.
The first one is what they callactivity-oriented planning, so
we're basing our planning juston an activity that might be fun
, or oh, the kids would lovethat, that would be so exciting,
(03:39):
or wouldn't that be cute.
So we're focused on theactivity rather than the deep
learning.
Guilty, guilty, yeah, whohasn't been?
Who hasn't been guilty,absolutely.
And then the second sin thatthey talk about is this
preoccupation with coverage.
So again, moving away from thatdeep learning that we want to
(04:02):
achieve and getting really,really over-focused on covering
everything that we can possiblycover, but doing it in a way
that ends up just being thisvery surface level, just quick
touch base, and never reallygetting to that deep
understanding with that transferand application of what the
(04:24):
kids can do.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So those are the twin sins focusing too much on
activity and also on coverage.
Yeah, yeah, relatable for sure.
I'm sure our listeners are likeyeah, I've done that for sure.
And I mean, as you're learningto teach and plan, it's going to
happen right Like you.
Just you have to find your waysomehow to become an effective
planner and you're not going toknow how to do it right away.
(04:54):
But this made me think of I waslooking at a unit plan this
morning that a teacher sent meand it was very much the first
one, activity oriented, which isgreat.
But but then like, how are yougoing to teach that?
Yeah, how, what's?
(05:15):
How are you going to teach that?
And I think that one of the thethings that I loved so much
about when we used to teachtogether in Singapore, um, and
when we would have our teammeetings I mean I know that we
were on different teams, but theprocess was the same, right,
like we were all looking at thisis our unit of study, how are
we going to teach these ideas?
(05:36):
So there was really like yeah,we know, you know, we got to the
activity part after.
We were like this is how we'regoing to teach it, because you
need all of those pieces but youcan't.
It's not teaching if you justhave an activity.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And similarly, if your focus isjust on, I have to teach all of
this content yeah, is thatreally teaching?
If you're just like I'mexpelling information in your is
just on, I have to teach all ofthis content yeah, is that
really teaching?
If you're just like I'mexpelling information in your
direction as fast as I possiblycan, yeah, is that actually what
we want to be doing as well?
(06:16):
The thing that is coming up forme when I look at these twin
sins is that it's reallyteacher-centred, isn't it?
Yeah, it's the teacher reallybeing at the center of the
activity, whether it's beingfocused on activities or
coverage, rather than on thestudents themselves, which I
(06:36):
think is quite interesting tothink about.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, because you can definitely
co-plan some activities withyour students, right?
they can tell you what they wantto do but, I, I think one of
the things that um teachers getexcited right yes, we do, we
really do yeah yeah, we do, andthen we're like we get carried
(06:59):
away and so we get planningsomething like, oh, this would
be so fun, but then we disregard, like we just forget about how
much time and energy we'reputting into planning activity
that may not serve its purposethe way we want it to, and so
(07:21):
that time figuring out thesereally elaborate activities can
be just a waste, sadly, becausethey are the fun things Like we
want to plan those things.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, it's often not the best use of time to.
Yeah, unless it's like along-term thing, then that might
be different, like a long-termproject or you know some kind of
interactive thing.
That's different.
But I've seen a lot of timeswhere teachers will, you know,
(07:55):
put a lot of time and energyeven searching for something.
That's the right thing, whenreally, if you just sat back and
thought, let's go back to ourepisode of one teaching point
what am I teaching and how can Iteach it Like two simple
questions, you would probablyfigure it out really quick in a
quick and easy activity.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
That wouldn't make you go crazy for sure and that's
so much of the work that wetalk about with teachers is is
yeah, how do we get to to thepriority of what we're doing,
which is, you know, in this caseof instructional strategies,
it's student understanding.
(08:34):
How can we, how can we getthere with bang for your buck,
rather than getting over focusedon the fun activity or what
would be really cool at the end?
For sure, and thinking aboutthat is this idea of return on
investment.
You know it's often a businessterm, but I think it's really
(08:57):
applicable here is, if you thinkabout the return on investment,
if you're thinking about howmuch time am I putting into
planning this or preparing thisactivity versus how much is it
going to impact student learning, I think that's going to help
you make a good decision aboutwhether it's really worthwhile
(09:19):
or not.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, definitely out whether it's really worthwhile
or not.
Yeah, definitely.
Um, and I'm kind of thinkinghere too, like I don't want to
sound like a stickler, right,like, don't plan any fun
activities because it's going totake you too long.
But we just have to be careful,right, because teachers love
(09:41):
these things, many teachers do,and they want to be creative and
so like we don't want tonecessarily stifle a teacher's
creativity and say, like, don'tplan that because that's not
going to be worth it.
But you kind of have to be realand ask yourself is it going to
be worth it, like you've beensaying, what's the impact on
student learning?
Is this going to be?
(10:02):
Give me the return oninvestment?
And if it's not, even if you'relike no, the answer is no,
don't do it Right.
Like if you have to think aboutthe answer, then the answer is
no.
And so just reevaluate orrethink how you could maybe
break down that activity orprolong it.
(10:24):
Or, like, think about theskills, something so that you
don't have to stifle yourcreativity if that's something
you want to do, but just like,use it better.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes, yeah, definitely use it better.
Or I was going to say, you know, maybe sprinkle it out a little
bit across the year and, justyou know, have a few points
where you're like I'm just goingfor fun right now, I'm just
going for the pure enjoyment ofthis experience.
I think there's space for thattoo, and I think you know, when
(10:57):
we're talking the the secondscene of the preoccupation with
coverage, I think that's that'ssuper understandable as well you
can definitely see why peopleget sucked into that.
Because we're told we have thiscurriculum, you have these
standards or objectives that youneed to cover and it feels you
(11:20):
know.
Especially if, if you've gotyou know, evaluation cycles or
standardized testing, all ofthese different factors coming
in, it feels like that is justhugely important to say yes, I
have proof, I taught this.
But if we're doing that at theexpense of them actually
(11:41):
retaining what they're learningand being able to apply it, then
we've kind of lost the point ofeverything that we're trying to
do.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
But again, it's super understandable why people fall
into that yeah, absolutely makesme think of when I would spend
some of my summer times planningcurriculum planning with some
teachers in New York and I foundit always easier to be better
(12:13):
about the planning with ELAbecause we're like, well, this
is how we're going to teach thisreading and this is how we'll
teach this writing.
But then when it came to thecontent, it was math was
actually fine because you knowwe had a teacher guide and you
know all of that support.
But for science and socialstudies we had textbooks which
are fine to have some content.
(12:34):
But then I found once and thiscould have been like a tired
thing or like I don't know butthe further we got into that
planning, I relied more on like,oh, we're going to read this
page and do these questionsagain, but how am I teaching it?
Like I'm not teaching anything.
Then we're just reading ittogether, maybe talking about
(12:55):
something, and then they'reanswering these questions or
doing this little experiment orsomething.
But that just like really sticksin my mind as one of those
could have been a tired thing.
I'm tired of planning.
I don't know my students yetbecause you know I'm just using
the textbook as my guide, right,and you know and not saying you
(13:16):
can't do these kinds of thingsduring your summer months or
ahead of time, but I think youhave to leave out like you can
map your unit topics definitelyin your content, but you've got
to wait to plan in some of thehows Like you might build in
some like, let's say, the startof the unit.
(13:36):
We're always going to do achalk talk so I can get to know
what people know or use a zoomin or something like that, some
kind of like simple protocolthat gets them engaged and
hooked in.
And then, like I am going tohave to wait to get to know my
kids, to know what kind ofactivities I'm going to have to
plan for them or how I'm goingto teach them and you know like
(13:57):
that isn't going to be foreverything all the time, but you
know I got to leave some roomfor knowing them.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Absolutely for sure.
But yeah, it brings me back towhat I was saying earlier about
the you know, the teachercenteredness of these two
practices, because if you aresuper focused on I'm going to do
this activity, this will bereally fun, this will be really
cute, or I've got this endproduct in mind, or if you're
(14:26):
just I'm getting through thewhole breadth of this curriculum
, you're ignoring where the kidsare themselves, what they're
interested in, what they know,what their prior knowledge is,
and so if you go headlong intothese twin sins, you're ignoring
the kids that are in front ofyou with this other goal in mind
(14:47):
, which is it's really yeah,it's not really where we want to
go.
We're in the business ofeducation, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Right, and so you know a lot of.
If you have programs thatyou're using which can be
helpful.
They give you a pacing guide,right, but again they don't know
who your kids are.
So, yes, we're looking at thatcoverage piece and you know a
lot of programs give somedifferentiation for you know how
(15:17):
to challenge learners or how toremediate and whatever, which
are all helpful, but again, like, they don't know your kids
either and so they might offersome okay ideas to start with or
think about, but it's when weget so caught in the content we
(15:38):
just forget about.
Like last week we talked aboutthat double whammy where we're
looking at pairing the contentwith skills.
Like where's the skilldevelopment in here?
Yeah, right, like it might bethere in your teacher guide, but
is that one of those thingsthat gets dropped off Because
there's so much in a teacherguide, like it's the teacher
(15:58):
materials that we get forprograms.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It's overwhelming and what do you?
What do you do then if, say,you're supposed to be doing a
unit on I don't know fractions,for example?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
okay.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I went a different direction yeah yeah, well, let's
say fractions, for example, andyou've got this pacing guide,
you've got a teacher guide andit's telling you, like here are
your lessons, here are theobjectives that you're going for
, but you, you realize that yourstudents have a gap in this
area.
Yeah, what do you do then?
Do you ignore the gap and justcarry on because you've got a
(16:38):
pacing guide, or do you then addin more things to cover,
because you've got to now goback and teach the foundational
skills before what you need todo as well as what you need to
do?
That's like.
That feels like you're going toget trapped in a corner there
when you've already got so muchto cover.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's really tricky it is, and I've had that
question a few times lately fromteachers.
They're like oh really we'reteaching this unit, yeah, we're
teaching this unit, but we'renoticing these gaps, but we feel
like we have to keep going andlike, don't keep going, because
you're just gonna get furtherbehind and have to reteach even
(17:19):
more, right?
So, yeah, it's just, it's sotricky and it's it's generally
been with, like the k1 and 2classes, not so much with the
upper elementary, which is goodbecause those were.
Are they still the covid kids,like the main ones?
maybe the fifth graders are yeah, they're the ones that miss the
(17:39):
the main ones maybe the fifthgraders are.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, they're the ones that miss the the.
You know that real beginningearly education stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah and so like.
But we still see lots oframification in the younger kids
with social skills and thingsRight.
But but yeah, the I've heardthat quite a bit where teachers
are like my kids aren't gettingthis foundational piece.
But I feel like I have to keepgoing and I'm like you are not
alone.
Do you know how many teachersare saying this?
(18:07):
and feel like they just have tokeep going because of this
pacing guide, which is a greattool to have, but it does not
dictate how you should beteaching your students and when
to teach the content, because ifthey're not ready for something
, why are you moving on?
Yeah, right, and then againlike, if most of your kids are
(18:27):
getting it and just your handful, then just do a small group,
right?
Like you can teach on and justfigure out, restructure your
lessons or whatever.
So you're doing some stationteaching or you know some other
kind of variation of aneffective instructional model.
But yeah, the pacing guidesthat are offered by programs,
(18:48):
they often don't have buffertime in there either, which
we've talked about.
I think we talked about buffersin season one or two and just
that importance of feeling likeyou have that wiggle room to be
able to, like catch up almost orfill in the gaps and and get
some foundational skills inthere.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
but it's, yeah, it's sometimes that document causes a
lot of stress yeah, yeah, I canimagine, but maybe we can rest
assured here with McTighe andWillis that you know they're
calling it the twin sins ofplanning, that you know we can
feel reassured that we're doingthe right thing if we stop and
(19:32):
we pause and we make sure thatwe're not just overly focused on
coverage of everything elseyeah, yeah, for sure, again we.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
You know we talk a lot about intentionality with
things and again, this is beingvery intentional and how you're
doing your planning, absolutelyyeah so do we have pare down
pointers for the twin sins?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Oh boy, why is this?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
always so tough, I don't know.
But we do it to our guestsevery episode, I know.
But I feel like we give them aheads up kind of, but people are
usually good with picking upsomething.
Okay, let's see, I kind ofalmost feel like it's similar to
my paradigm pointer for lastweek, which is like look at your
(20:25):
planning documents and evaluatethem or audit them, almost and
have a look at what's in yourplans.
Do you have?
Is it all activity-based?
Are you just looking atcoverage?
Do you have both of thosethings?
Do you have your how allactivity based?
Are you just looking atcoverage?
Do you have both of thosethings?
Do you have your how to's,what's in there, and is there a
(20:45):
way to to better I don't want tosay plan, but better document
almost how you're putting inyour content with your how
you're teaching?
Is there like a shift in howyou can use your planning
template or your planning bookto make sure that you aren't
(21:08):
just putting the the content andthe activity?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
right, absolutely I'm gonna.
I'm to be a little bit cheekyhere with my pare down pointer.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Go for it.
So I think my pointer for thisepisode is to be kind to
yourself if and when you do fallinto these traps, because we've
all been there.
We've all been there to thesetraps.
Because we've all been there.
We've all been there and we'vetalked about how, why it's so
easy for us to be there, likegetting excited, to be creative
(21:45):
and do something really fun or,for external reasons, getting
super concerned about whetheryou're covering all of your
curriculum or not.
But I think when you, when yourealize that you're falling into
this, be cut to yourself.
We're all human.
We all get caught up.
Sometimes it's not the end ofthe world.
We can always restart and tryagain.
(22:05):
But yeah, just, we're often socritical of ourselves in the
work that we do because we wantto do such a good job.
But just take it a little biteasy with yourself.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I do really like that human-centered pare down
pointer okay good to, to my uhdo an audit of yourself, which
both important things.
But maybe you have to be kindto yourself first and just
understand that, yeah, we can't.
We can't do all the things theright way all the time.
(22:40):
Yeah, we're in a constant stateof revision.
That's what teaching is.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Absolutely Definitely .
That's a good analogy for it,for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Well, this was a fun one totalk about, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Absolutely Definitely , from many different angles too
yeah, thanks for sharing yourthoughts today christine.
Thank you and we'll see you allnext time.
Today's episode was brought toyou by plan z professional
learning services, forwardthinking, educator support.
Find out more atplanzplservicescom.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for
more episodes of the MinimalistEducator Podcast.
They would love to hear aboutyour journey with minimalism.
Connect with them at planzplson Twitter or Instagram.
The music for the podcast hasbeen written and performed by
Gaia Moretti.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a
podcast about paring down torefocus on the purpose and
priorities in our roles withco-hosts and co-authors of the
Minimalist Teacher Book, TammyMusialski-Bornemann and
Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
On this week's episode of the Minimalist
Educator Podcast, we talk aboutthe topic of the twin sins of
planning.
This is another part in ourthree-part bend about
instructional strategies, so wehope you enjoy finding out about
the twin sins of planning.
Hello everyone and welcome totoday's episode of the
(01:00):
Minimalist Educator podcast.
I'm here with Tammy today.
How are you, Tammy?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I'm pretty good.
I'm excited that we're kind ofin this three-week run of these
specific instructional pieces toteaching, so I'm looking
forward to talking about today'stopic.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
How are you yeah, good, no same.
I think it's good because youknow we talk about so many
different aspects of education,so it's nice to spend a little
bit of time thinking about someinstructional strategies and,
you know, diving back into thebook the Minimalist Teacher some
of the things that we talkedabout in there as well.
It's nice to revisit that workthat we did previously.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
For sure, for sure.
So today we are talking aboutthe twin sins of planning.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Isn't that great.
I love that.
Who thought of that as an idea?
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Right, it feels like you're doing something totally
wrong, which kind of?
But also I don't know.
We just have to, like, talkthis through.
Um, cause planning is trickyfor sure.
Um, this idea was introduced byMcTighe and Willis just pre
(02:17):
COVID, it seems like, and weknow that Jay McTighe is, you
know, known for UBD andbackwards planning, and so to
know that he has, you know,spent a good portion of his
educational career focusing onplanning and really digging into
(02:38):
effective practices and whatworks best for instruction,
teaching and learning, this iskind of an interesting idea
actually.
And I think probably most of ushave been stuck, caught, trapped
in it.
If that's the right word, yeah,if not both of them, definitely
(03:00):
in one.
Yeah, for sure, yeah yeah, yeah, so again we're talking.
Last week we talked about adouble whammy.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So again we're talking.
Last week we talked about adouble whammy, Today we're
talking about twin sins.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So something about the number two that we're
working on?
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yeah, so what are the twin sins?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Okay, so the twin sins of planning.
So there are two of these sinsthat people get caught up when
they're planning.
The first one is what they callactivity-oriented planning, so
we're basing our planning juston an activity that might be fun
, or oh, the kids would lovethat, that would be so exciting,
(03:39):
or wouldn't that be cute.
So we're focused on theactivity rather than the deep
learning.
Guilty, guilty, yeah, whohasn't been?
Who hasn't been guilty,absolutely.
And then the second sin thatthey talk about is this
preoccupation with coverage.
So again, moving away from thatdeep learning that we want to
(04:02):
achieve and getting really,really over-focused on covering
everything that we can possiblycover, but doing it in a way
that ends up just being thisvery surface level, just quick
touch base, and never reallygetting to that deep
understanding with that transferand application of what the
(04:24):
kids can do.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So those are the twin sins focusing too much on
activity and also on coverage.
Yeah, yeah, relatable for sure.
I'm sure our listeners are likeyeah, I've done that for sure.
And I mean, as you're learningto teach and plan, it's going to
happen right Like you.
Just you have to find your waysomehow to become an effective
planner and you're not going toknow how to do it right away.
(04:54):
But this made me think of I waslooking at a unit plan this
morning that a teacher sent meand it was very much the first
one, activity oriented, which isgreat.
But but then like, how are yougoing to teach that?
Yeah, how, what's?
(05:15):
How are you going to teach that?
And I think that one of the thethings that I loved so much
about when we used to teachtogether in Singapore, um, and
when we would have our teammeetings I mean I know that we
were on different teams, but theprocess was the same, right,
like we were all looking at thisis our unit of study, how are
we going to teach these ideas?
(05:36):
So there was really like yeah,we know, you know, we got to the
activity part after.
We were like this is how we'regoing to teach it, because you
need all of those pieces but youcan't.
It's not teaching if you justhave an activity.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And similarly, if your focus isjust on, I have to teach all of
this content yeah, is thatreally teaching?
If you're just like I'mexpelling information in your is
just on, I have to teach all ofthis content yeah, is that
really teaching?
If you're just like I'mexpelling information in your
direction as fast as I possiblycan, yeah, is that actually what
we want to be doing as well?
(06:16):
The thing that is coming up forme when I look at these twin
sins is that it's reallyteacher-centred, isn't it?
Yeah, it's the teacher reallybeing at the center of the
activity, whether it's beingfocused on activities or
coverage, rather than on thestudents themselves, which I
(06:36):
think is quite interesting tothink about.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, because you can definitely
co-plan some activities withyour students, right?
they can tell you what they wantto do but, I, I think one of
the things that um teachers getexcited right yes, we do, we
really do yeah yeah, we do, andthen we're like we get carried
(06:59):
away and so we get planningsomething like, oh, this would
be so fun, but then we disregard, like we just forget about how
much time and energy we'reputting into planning activity
that may not serve its purposethe way we want it to, and so
(07:21):
that time figuring out thesereally elaborate activities can
be just a waste, sadly, becausethey are the fun things Like we
want to plan those things.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yeah, it's often not the best use of time to.
Yeah, unless it's like along-term thing, then that might
be different, like a long-termproject or you know some kind of
interactive thing.
That's different.
But I've seen a lot of timeswhere teachers will, you know,
(07:55):
put a lot of time and energyeven searching for something.
That's the right thing, whenreally, if you just sat back and
thought, let's go back to ourepisode of one teaching point
what am I teaching and how can Iteach it Like two simple
questions, you would probablyfigure it out really quick in a
quick and easy activity.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
That wouldn't make you go crazy for sure and that's
so much of the work that wetalk about with teachers is is
yeah, how do we get to to thepriority of what we're doing,
which is, you know, in this caseof instructional strategies,
it's student understanding.
(08:34):
How can we, how can we getthere with bang for your buck,
rather than getting over focusedon the fun activity or what
would be really cool at the end?
For sure, and thinking aboutthat is this idea of return on
investment.
You know it's often a businessterm, but I think it's really
(08:57):
applicable here is, if you thinkabout the return on investment,
if you're thinking about howmuch time am I putting into
planning this or preparing thisactivity versus how much is it
going to impact student learning, I think that's going to help
you make a good decision aboutwhether it's really worthwhile
(09:19):
or not.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Yeah, definitely out whether it's really worthwhile
or not.
Yeah, definitely.
Um, and I'm kind of thinkinghere too, like I don't want to
sound like a stickler, right,like, don't plan any fun
activities because it's going totake you too long.
But we just have to be careful,right, because teachers love
(09:41):
these things, many teachers do,and they want to be creative and
so like we don't want tonecessarily stifle a teacher's
creativity and say, like, don'tplan that because that's not
going to be worth it.
But you kind of have to be realand ask yourself is it going to
be worth it, like you've beensaying, what's the impact on
student learning?
Is this going to be?
(10:02):
Give me the return oninvestment?
And if it's not, even if you'relike no, the answer is no,
don't do it Right.
Like if you have to think aboutthe answer, then the answer is
no.
And so just reevaluate orrethink how you could maybe
break down that activity orprolong it.
(10:24):
Or, like, think about theskills, something so that you
don't have to stifle yourcreativity if that's something
you want to do, but just like,use it better.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes, yeah, definitely use it better.
Or I was going to say, you know, maybe sprinkle it out a little
bit across the year and, justyou know, have a few points
where you're like I'm just goingfor fun right now, I'm just
going for the pure enjoyment ofthis experience.
I think there's space for thattoo, and I think you know, when
(10:57):
we're talking the the secondscene of the preoccupation with
coverage, I think that's that'ssuper understandable as well you
can definitely see why peopleget sucked into that.
Because we're told we have thiscurriculum, you have these
standards or objectives that youneed to cover and it feels you
(11:20):
know.
Especially if, if you've gotyou know, evaluation cycles or
standardized testing, all ofthese different factors coming
in, it feels like that is justhugely important to say yes, I
have proof, I taught this.
But if we're doing that at theexpense of them actually
(11:41):
retaining what they're learningand being able to apply it, then
we've kind of lost the point ofeverything that we're trying to
do.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
But again, it's super understandable why people fall
into that yeah, absolutely makesme think of when I would spend
some of my summer times planningcurriculum planning with some
teachers in New York and I foundit always easier to be better
(12:13):
about the planning with ELAbecause we're like, well, this
is how we're going to teach thisreading and this is how we'll
teach this writing.
But then when it came to thecontent, it was math was
actually fine because you knowwe had a teacher guide and you
know all of that support.
But for science and socialstudies we had textbooks which
are fine to have some content.
(12:34):
But then I found once and thiscould have been like a tired
thing or like I don't know butthe further we got into that
planning, I relied more on like,oh, we're going to read this
page and do these questionsagain, but how am I teaching it?
Like I'm not teaching anything.
Then we're just reading ittogether, maybe talking about
(12:55):
something, and then they'reanswering these questions or
doing this little experiment orsomething.
But that just like really sticksin my mind as one of those
could have been a tired thing.
I'm tired of planning.
I don't know my students yetbecause you know I'm just using
the textbook as my guide, right,and you know and not saying you
(13:16):
can't do these kinds of thingsduring your summer months or
ahead of time, but I think youhave to leave out like you can
map your unit topics definitelyin your content, but you've got
to wait to plan in some of thehows Like you might build in
some like, let's say, the startof the unit.
(13:36):
We're always going to do achalk talk so I can get to know
what people know or use a zoomin or something like that, some
kind of like simple protocolthat gets them engaged and
hooked in.
And then, like I am going tohave to wait to get to know my
kids, to know what kind ofactivities I'm going to have to
plan for them or how I'm goingto teach them and you know like
(13:57):
that isn't going to be foreverything all the time, but you
know I got to leave some roomfor knowing them.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Absolutely for sure.
But yeah, it brings me back towhat I was saying earlier about
the you know, the teachercenteredness of these two
practices, because if you aresuper focused on I'm going to do
this activity, this will bereally fun, this will be really
cute, or I've got this endproduct in mind, or if you're
(14:26):
just I'm getting through thewhole breadth of this curriculum
, you're ignoring where the kidsare themselves, what they're
interested in, what they know,what their prior knowledge is,
and so if you go headlong intothese twin sins, you're ignoring
the kids that are in front ofyou with this other goal in mind
(14:47):
, which is it's really yeah,it's not really where we want to
go.
We're in the business ofeducation, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Right, and so you know a lot of.
If you have programs thatyou're using which can be
helpful.
They give you a pacing guide,right, but again they don't know
who your kids are.
So, yes, we're looking at thatcoverage piece and you know a
lot of programs give somedifferentiation for you know how
(15:17):
to challenge learners or how toremediate and whatever, which
are all helpful, but again, like, they don't know your kids
either and so they might offersome okay ideas to start with or
think about, but it's when weget so caught in the content we
(15:38):
just forget about.
Like last week we talked aboutthat double whammy where we're
looking at pairing the contentwith skills.
Like where's the skilldevelopment in here?
Yeah, right, like it might bethere in your teacher guide, but
is that one of those thingsthat gets dropped off Because
there's so much in a teacherguide, like it's the teacher
(15:58):
materials that we get forprograms.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It's overwhelming and what do you?
What do you do then if, say,you're supposed to be doing a
unit on I don't know fractions,for example?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
okay.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I went a different direction yeah yeah, well, let's
say fractions, for example, andyou've got this pacing guide,
you've got a teacher guide andit's telling you, like here are
your lessons, here are theobjectives that you're going for
, but you, you realize that yourstudents have a gap in this
area.
Yeah, what do you do then?
Do you ignore the gap and justcarry on because you've got a
(16:38):
pacing guide, or do you then addin more things to cover,
because you've got to now goback and teach the foundational
skills before what you need todo as well as what you need to
do?
That's like.
That feels like you're going toget trapped in a corner there
when you've already got so muchto cover.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That's really tricky it is, and I've had that
question a few times lately fromteachers.
They're like oh really we'reteaching this unit, yeah, we're
teaching this unit, but we'renoticing these gaps, but we feel
like we have to keep going andlike, don't keep going, because
you're just gonna get furtherbehind and have to reteach even
(17:19):
more, right?
So, yeah, it's just, it's sotricky and it's it's generally
been with, like the k1 and 2classes, not so much with the
upper elementary, which is goodbecause those were.
Are they still the covid kids,like the main ones?
maybe the fifth graders are yeah, they're the ones that miss the
(17:39):
the main ones maybe the fifthgraders are.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, they're the ones that miss the the.
You know that real beginningearly education stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah and so like.
But we still see lots oframification in the younger kids
with social skills and thingsRight.
But but yeah, the I've heardthat quite a bit where teachers
are like my kids aren't gettingthis foundational piece.
But I feel like I have to keepgoing and I'm like you are not
alone.
Do you know how many teachersare saying this?
(18:07):
and feel like they just have tokeep going because of this
pacing guide, which is a greattool to have, but it does not
dictate how you should beteaching your students and when
to teach the content, because ifthey're not ready for something
, why are you moving on?
Yeah, right, and then againlike, if most of your kids are
(18:27):
getting it and just your handful, then just do a small group,
right?
Like you can teach on and justfigure out, restructure your
lessons or whatever.
So you're doing some stationteaching or you know some other
kind of variation of aneffective instructional model.
But yeah, the pacing guidesthat are offered by programs,
(18:48):
they often don't have buffertime in there either, which
we've talked about.
I think we talked about buffersin season one or two and just
that importance of feeling likeyou have that wiggle room to be
able to, like catch up almost orfill in the gaps and and get
some foundational skills inthere.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
but it's, yeah, it's sometimes that document causes a
lot of stress yeah, yeah, I canimagine, but maybe we can rest
assured here with McTighe andWillis that you know they're
calling it the twin sins ofplanning, that you know we can
feel reassured that we're doingthe right thing if we stop and
(19:32):
we pause and we make sure thatwe're not just overly focused on
coverage of everything elseyeah, yeah, for sure, again we.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
You know we talk a lot about intentionality with
things and again, this is beingvery intentional and how you're
doing your planning, absolutelyyeah so do we have pare down
pointers for the twin sins?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Oh boy, why is this?
Speaker 3 (20:00):
always so tough, I don't know.
But we do it to our guestsevery episode, I know.
But I feel like we give them aheads up kind of, but people are
usually good with picking upsomething.
Okay, let's see, I kind ofalmost feel like it's similar to
my paradigm pointer for lastweek, which is like look at your
(20:25):
planning documents and evaluatethem or audit them, almost and
have a look at what's in yourplans.
Do you have?
Is it all activity-based?
Are you just looking atcoverage?
Do you have both of thosethings?
Do you have your how allactivity based?
Are you just looking atcoverage?
Do you have both of thosethings?
Do you have your how to's,what's in there, and is there a
(20:45):
way to to better I don't want tosay plan, but better document
almost how you're putting inyour content with your how
you're teaching?
Is there like a shift in howyou can use your planning
template or your planning bookto make sure that you aren't
(21:08):
just putting the the content andthe activity?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
right, absolutely I'm gonna.
I'm to be a little bit cheekyhere with my pare down pointer.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Go for it.
So I think my pointer for thisepisode is to be kind to
yourself if and when you do fallinto these traps, because we've
all been there.
We've all been there to thesetraps.
Because we've all been there.
We've all been there and we'vetalked about how, why it's so
easy for us to be there, likegetting excited, to be creative
(21:45):
and do something really fun or,for external reasons, getting
super concerned about whetheryou're covering all of your
curriculum or not.
But I think when you, when yourealize that you're falling into
this, be cut to yourself.
We're all human.
We all get caught up.
Sometimes it's not the end ofthe world.
We can always restart and tryagain.
(22:05):
But yeah, just, we're often socritical of ourselves in the
work that we do because we wantto do such a good job.
But just take it a little biteasy with yourself.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I do really like that human-centered pare down
pointer okay good to, to my uhdo an audit of yourself, which
both important things.
But maybe you have to be kindto yourself first and just
understand that, yeah, we can't.
We can't do all the things theright way all the time.
(22:40):
Yeah, we're in a constant stateof revision.
That's what teaching is.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Absolutely Definitely .
That's a good analogy for it,for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Well, this was a fun one totalk about, for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Absolutely Definitely , from many different angles too
yeah, thanks for sharing yourthoughts today christine.
Thank you and we'll see you allnext time.
Today's episode was brought toyou by plan z professional
learning services, forwardthinking, educator support.
Find out more atplanzplservicescom.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for
more episodes of the MinimalistEducator Podcast.
They would love to hear aboutyour journey with minimalism.
Connect with them at planzplson Twitter or Instagram.
The music for the podcast hasbeen written and performed by
Gaia Moretti.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.