Lesson Planning for New Teachers

As the school year approaches I'm reminded of my first year teaching, and how utterly lost I was. I want to encourage and help out all the new teachers in any way that I can. Lesson planning is something that new teachers ALWAYS struggle with. It takes up hours of your schedule, when really it should take AT MOST one hour a week depending on how many classes you have. Use this simple step by step guide to get a handle on lesson planning, and stop wasting all of your free time.

1. Curriculum Mapping

Before the school year even starts, it's so important to map out your content for the entire year. If you don't, you will most likely run out of time! Some school districts already do this for you, but if yours doesn't then take a day and do it. It will save you hours during the school year. The best way to create a curriculum map is to sit down with your text book and standards for a few hours and just get it done. It can be as easy as printing out a calendar and writing a one word topic for each day.

Examples: 
"Causes of the Civil War"
"Fractions"
"Theme in Short Stories"

2. Learning Objective

A learning objective tells you and your students what the goal for the day is! What will they be learning today. Start EVERY lesson plan by creating a learning objective before you even get to the specifics of how you will teach it. Your learning objective will be the guide for your lesson. It basically tells you the end goal of the class period. When planning this ask yourself "What should the students know based on the standard we are covering". You are putting the standard into "kid language" for them to understand what they are learning. If your learning objectives start getting too wordy or complicated then students will have no idea what the goal is.

Examples: 
"Students will be able to analyze the causes of the Civil War."
"I can identify fractions."
"We will evaluate themes used in short stories."

3. Engage

Students have to be engaged in a topic before you get into the meat of the lesson. Even if you are working with a short class period, this is the most important step to get students to buy into a lesson. I use this as my "Do Now" activity or "Bellwork" as they come into class. Every lesson plan should have this included. If your Do Now is not engaging then you should still do something engaging to start the lesson.

Examples: 
Short video clips
Tell a story
Play a game

4. Activity

This is where the bulk of lesson planning comes in! What are they going to actually do to learn the material? This should be aligned with your learning objective. If the objective is to be able to "analyze" then part of the activity should be analyzing. A lot of teachers fall into the trap of constantly giving the information to their students because of how much content they have to cover, but I want to challenge you to make your students work! Don't just give them the information, make them learn it! This is where Teachers Pay Teachers comes in. Utilize the resources you have. Google is an awesome source for lesson ideas and even full plans from other teachers. 

Examples: 
Discussion
Socratic Seminar
Gallery Walk
Speed Dating
Nearpod Powerpoint
Stations
Video Analysis

5. Formative Assessment

In every single lesson you need to include multiple forms of formative assessment. Formative Assessment is checking for students understanding. It's something teachers have always done, but not in the frequency that is necessary to gauge understanding. Basically it's asking students questions or giving them tasks to prove their knowledge. This should be done every 3-5 minutes, which sounds daunting, but it is really simple once you get into the habit of it. I tend to prefer formative assessments that includes the whole class responding! If you talk for more than 5 minutes straight without checking for understanding, I guarantee that half your class has no idea what you're talking about.

Examples: 
Thumbs up/down
Think, Pair, Share
White Boards
Doodle
3 things you learned, 2 things you already knew, 1 question you have
Turn and Talk
Quick Write
Whip Around

6. Exit Tickets

The end of EVERY lesson should include a formative assessment in the form of an exit ticket or demonstration of learning. The point is to take the learning objective, and turn it into a formative assessment. This is the most important part of the lesson to gauge understanding. If students get to the end of the class period, and are unable to complete this then something went wrong! It gives you a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn't. 

Examples: 
"Students will analyze the causes of the Civil War by reading a quote from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and analyzing what two causes of the Civil War were."  
"Students will identify fractions by choosing them from a lineup of decimals, fractions, and whole numbers."
"Students will evaluate themes in short stories by reading a short story, and evaluating the theme."

These are the main steps that I take to complete my lesson planning process! I would take the time at the beginning of the school year to explain the daily lesson routine to students. If your students understand the goal and agenda for every class period, then they will be better prepared to learn. Routine is great for students, but with that being said the activity should vary frequently. If you are constantly doing powerpoint notes, or reading from the textbook then students will be craving an engaging activity! If you're a new teacher looking for ideas on how to run your classroom, check out my post New Teacher Survival Guide. 

 xoxo, 

kelsey