Candidly Kim - The Point of Lesson Plans

Let's get real about lesson plans and whether or not they're worth it!

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive but actually thrive.So this is another episode of Candidly Kim
where I'm just going to be speakingto you a little more off the cuff
about something that I noticed today andI wanted to discuss this so on Instagram

(00:21):
on the We are Teachers' Instagram account. The question that was posed is what's
something that you had to do foryour degree program that you don't ever use
as a teacher. And I wouldhave to say that a surprising number of
teachers discussed writing a lesson plan,especially one of those ten plus page lesson

(00:44):
plans, and that got me thinkingabout that because I do remember both when
I was getting my teaching credential andthen also when I was in my master's
program having to write these really longlesson plans, and I can even visualize
the template that I had to use, and it was really complicated. And
I think I also found it difficultto write these lesson plans because I didn't

(01:10):
really have any context, like Ididn't even know what I was doing,
and so writing the lesson plan washard for me because I i didn't know
if what I was planning would actuallywork or even like what a good lesson
plan looks like, especially because Ithis is back in like the late nineties

(01:30):
when I was getting my teaching credentialtwo thousand and so I just didn't have
like teachers made teachers or anything towork off of, and I didn't have
just like all of the resources availableonline to help me contextualize what a lesson
plan should be. Like, here'sthe thing. I know that a lot

(01:53):
of teachers are like, lesson plansare unnecessary. Why do we need to
write all these things out? Whyten plus pages? And I get that
part in terms of the breadth andthe depth in terms of writing these plants,
like they want you to write amillion of them, one for every
single day that's ten pages long.And the part is relatively unreasonable to have

(02:20):
to write ten pages for every dayof the week for one hundred and eight
or five teaching days or whatever yourcontract is. However, and this is
where might get a little bit controversialdepending on who you talk to. I
do think, especially when you werestarting out teaching, that there is definitely
value in writing out a lesson plan. Writing out the plan for an entire

(02:43):
period. And here's why. Solet me just tell you this based on
my experience. So when I transitionedover to teaching English, I don't know
if for those of you that havebeen following me, I taught band for
the first ten years of my careerand then I switched over to teaching middle
school English, and delivering a lessonfor band was different. Obviously, or

(03:05):
at least I thought it was different. Now that I look back, I
bet if I use the same techniques, my band would have been better,
But that's for another conversation maybe,But delivering a lesson when teaching English,
it just it didn't make sense tome. When I started out, like
I did have all of the resourcesthat I needed, and the lesson plans

(03:29):
and worksheets from a colleague of minewho I really trusted dearly and respected so
much. She's just an amazing Englishteacher, and so I was lucky to
have those resources. But even then, when it came time to delivering the
lesson and actually delivering an effective lesson, that's where it got tricky, because

(03:52):
there's so many layers to a lessonthat you have to think about. And
so that's why I definitely found thatplanning my lessons every day, every day
it really made it so that eventuallyI became somewhat effective. I definitely wasn't
effective that first year. I meanI would just go and look at the

(04:14):
worksheet that I had to teach,and that I would teach it, and
then the kids would complete it,and then that would be the end of
the class period, and the nextday it would be here's the worksheet,
I give the lecture, we practiceand then so I didn't really know what
I was doing because I didn't buildin all the other things that a more
detailed lesson plan would have. SoI didn't have things like the anticipatory set,

(04:42):
and I didn't have things like figuringout the objectives. I basically just
followed the curriculum. I didn't evenreally know what it was that I was
teaching and why I didn't necessarily planfor checking for understanding or the worm up,
or what I was going to doin terms of whole group work versus
individual work the formative assessment. Howwas I going to know other than the

(05:06):
blank looks on their face whether ornot what I was teaching was actually sinking
in. I mean, you know, the feeling of raise your hand and
then like no one raises their handor calling on a student and they don't
know the answer. It's like,how can I tell they were actually learning

(05:27):
what I taught them and figuring itout. And then also, in addition
to the formative assessment, what wasgoing to be the summative, Like what
was I aiming towards? How wasI going to determine whether or not they
understood this particular unit before moving on? And then could I move on or
did I have to go back andreteach. So these are all things that

(05:49):
didn't come naturally to me, especiallyin the beginning. And that's why planning
out all of those elements of alesson, especially like let's say that you
have students with IEPs in your class, You've got to plan for accommodations for
them, you have to plan forscaffolding. But when you're a new teacher,

(06:11):
those are things that don't necessarily comenaturally to you. So that's why
I definitely think that learning how towrite an effective lesson plan is something that
they should teach you when you arein a teacher prep program. Now I'm
not saying that the fact that theyrequired you to write a lesson plan means

(06:32):
that they effectively taught you how todo that, because again need some context.
And I feel like ideally it wouldhelp to learn this process while you
are apprenticing or doing student teaching.However, you will probably run into a
mentor teacher who doesn't plan lessons atall. It's up in their head.

(06:57):
So then that wouldn't be very effective. Like there are a lot of teachers
are like, oh, lesson planaged, lesson plan whatever, you don't need
to do that, and so they'renot actually going to teach it to you.
And I really really think that it'simportant to know the process and how
to plan and how to anticipate allthe things that you need to do that
you need to look for, thatyou need to bake into a daily lesson

(07:19):
because you really don't have that muchtime with them for what it is that
you need to teach. Those areall things that you need to have planned
out for you. So do Istill use lesson plans today? Yes?
And no. So before I starteddoing the Modern Classroom project, yes,
I planned out at least my week, if not two weeks, because I

(07:42):
had a goal. I finally learnedafter a long long time. You need
something to shoot for. It's somethingthat I probably should have known a long
time ago, but it actually tookme a good part of my career to
figure this out. You need toknow what it is that they need that
they need to know so, andit just beyond the standards or objectives.
Like in my mind, I realizedthat I need to actually teach them skills.

(08:07):
I couldn't just teach them content.I had to teach them skills so
that they would know how to applythe content. So you need to plan
out the objective and then you're goingto have to figure out backwards, like
how many lessons is going to take? What are the skills that I need
to teach them in order for themto accomplish that, in order for them

(08:28):
to be able to be successful onthis summative assessment sumative meaning kind of like
this culminating assessment that you give themto see if they actually got it.
What are all the things that Ineed to teach them leading up to that?
And then when you figure out thoseskills, what do I have to
do to break those down for themto get them to grasp that? How
can I access prior knowledge? Howcan I build upon the skills that they

(08:54):
already know so that they can levelup to where they need to be to
successfully do this summative assessment. Soagain, planning this out is really important
and I can't stress that enough.And maybe you're surprised to know that I
do plan. I plan every day. Well I did. Now my planning

(09:16):
is a little bit different because Iam planning out entire units and filming the
videos, and in that sense,I still am planning for every day if
you think about that. But it'sbecause I don't want to leave anything to
chance. Like I said, Iwould teach a lesson and I would just
forget something like scaffolding. I wouldforget to check for understanding and just go

(09:39):
through the motions, and I wouldwonder why they were doing so poorly unassessments,
or why their writing wasn't getting anybetter, or why they were getting
bored. I wasn't building in anygroup work, or I would use to
use group work as an excuse tonot have to stand in front of the
room and teach. Like I'm realwith you guys here, Like I was

(10:01):
not a good teacher when I firststarted teaching English because I didn't have everything
as organized, like, yes,I had a lesson plan in terms of
tomorrow, we're going to do thisworksheet, and then on Tuesday, we're
going to do this worksheet. ButI didn't have a sense of the big
picture. And that's where I thinklesson planning is really valuable. Now my

(10:24):
lesson plans aren't as detailed. Sometimesthey could be as simple as just like
a checklist of things that I needto do in a class period, because
I inherently know how to teach thatlesson and how to deliver it, the
things that I want to say,the questions I'm going to ask. But
I've earned that right because I've taughtthat lesson so many times, and I've

(10:46):
done the proper troubleshooting to make surethat I don't make those same mistakes.
I've done the reflection and taken notesand written down how I would teach it
differently the next time. I've earnedthat right to not have to have as
detailed of a lesson plan. Butin the beginning, after I fumbled for
a couple of years because my lessonplans were not detailed, then I definitely

(11:09):
went to a very detailed lesson planso that I could eventually make sure that
I captured all the things that Ineeded to do on top of classroom management
and things like that. So Idon't know. I agree and disagree with
the comments about lesson planning during yourteacher prep program. I think it should

(11:31):
be taught by people who are inthe classroom and by people who are using
these lesson plans, and not juston a surface level, because I don't
know. Maybe this happened to youat your university, but where I went,
the people teaching us how to beteachers didn't teach for very long.
It's just kind of hard to havesomeone who hasn't had that experience in a

(11:54):
really long time teach you how toeffectively write one and implement a lesson.
So I can see why there's someskepticism on that, but I definitely see
value in lesson plans. If youhave many comments on this, I'd love
to hear about it. I reallywish, like with podcasts, maybe I
need to find this, but Ireally wish there was a way for us
to have a conversation about this,like the way that you can in the

(12:16):
comments on YouTube. But as faras I know right now, there's not
a way for that, and ifyou do know one, please let me
know. You can email me atKim at Teachersneed Teachers dot com. You
can also go to my Facebook groupTeachers Need Teachers and comment on how you
feel about lesson plans and if youagree or disagree about their importance. Thanks

(12:41):
for hanging out with me today,you guys, and I will talk to
you next time.