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 Post subject: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from me)
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 6:33 pm 
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Just wondering here: I have friends who teach at public schools, and they talk about having a huge mountain of "lesson planning" to do & it has to be written down ahead of time. One friend spends an hour planning time per day.

I'm totally confused as to what would go into a lesson plan like that! I simply sit down with my materials and *teach*!

Okay, when I taught a group in Sunday school, I would read the lesson & the Bible passage in advance to make sure I was familiar with it, and choose a memory verse for the day. If the Bible passage was long, that might take 20 minutes.

And, if I teach our Co-Op group I might make a powerpoint and design a craft for a special lesson, and that can take some time.

But for EVERYDAY lessons (reading, writing, foreign language, math, history, science, etc)- what kind of planning does one really have to do?

(Perhaps it doesn't help that my Mom was a teacher, and she seemed to think the whole lesson planning thing -barring a special activity- was a bunch of unnecessary busywork, too)

Any idea what the professional teachers are spending so much time on writing down? For those with experience here (like Martha) do you feel formal planning really enhances the process, or is it just busywork? I have these same questions about buying a "curriculum" where someone does the lesson planning for me.

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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 7:32 pm 
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My ex MIL and SIl are both teachers.
From what my SIL told me in a previous conversation, the lesson plans are what they have to present to the school to show what they plan to teach.
Then they have to teach that and then test students accordingly.
Now that we have computers everywhere, she also has the added burden of updating her class website each and every night. Grades are posted there, any field trip news, upcoming tests, etc.
She told me that it's a huge time consumer and that most people have no idea how much time out of school a teacher uses up just getting the paperwork and computer stuff done each week.


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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 10:22 pm 
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Tory is right. We have to have lesson plans turned in a week in advance with what we will be teaching. If there are any assignments, there has to be a rubric to show how the kids will be graded. End of semester tests have to be turned in two weeks in advance. Any grade that is C or below has to be sent home to the parent to be signed. (And we have to track who has not brought it back.) In addition, there is an on-line system where grades and assignments are posted, and everything has to be put into it. If the student has a C or below at mid-term, you have to have a conference with the parent. And we are also supposed to send a weekly "update" email to the parents for each class. At the beginning of the year we have to put together syllabi for each class, and the parent has to sign they he/she received it. We also have to do professional goal sheets (that are totally bogus but still required.) At the end of the year we have to do curriculum inventory and requests for additional books/materials and evaluations of whatever we used. We also have to do an analysis of the students' standardized test scores, comparing last year to this year and discussing why they didn't go up in the score (if they didn't.) All of this is in addition to actually deciding what you are going to talk about for the entire class period. I don't like text books so I don't use them, and that makes my prep time even longer.
The paperwork for teaching is absolutely unbelievable, but that's not the worst part. The administration says all this paperwork is needed to cover your rear when parents complain so the admin. can back you up. Sure enough, the parents complain incessently. "Why didn't Johnny get an A on this assignment? He worked hard on it."
"Well, Johnny copied it and didn't have references."
"But he worked hard, and I pay good money for tuition."
or
"Your tests are too hard. Seventh graders shouldn't have to know this much."
or
"You are too hard a grader. Eleventh graders don't know how to write an essay like this. You need to spend more time building a scaffold so they know exactly what you want them to write."

Wowsers, last year was AWFUL. I hope this year is better. Seriously, our country is doomed with the state of our education system. We have to teach children how to think, and their parents don't want them to think. They just want A's. It's sad.

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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 10:39 pm 
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So sorry, Martha.

I'm afraid if I was dealing all that I would just give out A's and get it over with! (That's my frustration talking - of course I wouldn't *really*)

I used to know an elderly retired teacher (she had *retired* in 1958 after starting teaching during WWI) and she told me about a particularly abysmal (lazy & poorly behaved) group of students she had way-back-when. She said that the end of the year came, and they all KNEW they should fail. She announced to the class that she was going to pass *every last one of them*! She told them, "Do you think I want to see you all again next year? I'm not going through THIS again!" and, that's what she did!

So, unfortunately, as the writer of Ecclesiastes said, "There's nothing new under the sun."

But, the paperwork gets worse by the minute. Ohio has just introduced a whole bunch of assessments that Kindergarten teachers have to do on incoming students - their emotional health, etc - to decide how best to teach each individual child. Of course, in reality it will just pigeonhole kids as they've always done - with a lot of paperwork, they'll sort the kids in to little boxes even earlier than in past years - and the teachers will have NO time to actually teach them. Very sad.

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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 10:49 pm 
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A few years ago I taught 2 classes at our home school co-op. The prep time that I spent getting ready for those 2 classes, which averaged about 15 students per class was time consuming enough! I could not imagine having to do everything that you listed, Martha!!


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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 11:40 pm 
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Tory wrote:
A few years ago I taught 2 classes at our home school co-op. The prep time that I spent getting ready for those 2 classes, which averaged about 15 students per class was time consuming enough! I could not imagine having to do everything that you listed, Martha!!



In the many years of homeschooling my kids, I never had a formal lesson plan. Once a week, usually Sundays or even Monday morning, I would look over the teacher books and the lesson. Then, we would go over the lesson, together. If there was something that I needed to get in advance and did not, we would skip that lesson for the day and do it the next day. For Social Studies, I did a formal curricula for 3rd grade, thinking that my dd needed structure for that year. We bought Abeka, and we both hated it. We went back to the way we were used to doing things and turned out much better.

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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 7:18 am 
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Our school did assessments of whether the student was auditory, kinesthetic, or visual the year before I started, and I was handed a list of who was who. Who has time to tailor the class to one child? It just won't happen.

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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 3:02 am 
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I was a teacher and I can tell you that lesson plans are a way for us to take stock of what we are about to teach. In a class of 15 and above, sometimes going up to mid 30s, you need to have plan A's and plan B's. Keeping that many kids attention, to cover relevant topics, to make sure everyone has understood, all that feeds into a lesson plan. So a lesson plan for me used to be sort of a time sheet that said this time to this time is the lesson, this time to this time is Q&A, this time to this time is an energizer etc.


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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 11:11 am 
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Isn't it also, a little bit, for a substitute that might need to come in and take over?

I love the planning more than the teaching. :) I am a planner by nature. Unfortunately, it does not mean I am *good* at it. I have my "plan" for the rest of this year almost written out. It includes holidays, the kids sports days, meal plans (ideas), a basic cleaning schedule and exercise schedule....

I just can't help myself! That's what I do for fun! LOL

BUT, I think the fact that teachers have to do all that is very ridiculous. They should be able to have an outline of the plan and then fill in what was actually done (or keep a portfolio). Martha's example is CRAZINESS! What have we come to?!


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 Post subject: Re: Lesson Planning (another dumb discussion question from m
PostPosted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:49 pm 
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Location: NE Central Texas
I always had a lesson plan book.
It helped me keep track of where I was. If took two weeks off I would of been lost without it when we started back.
I loved planning lessons.


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