Why Are So Many Teachers Bad at Lesson Planning?
Master Teacher Series: Lesson Planning 101
What’s the Purpose of the Lesson Plan?
This topic can get very complicated, very fast, so I’m going to attempt to make it as easy to follow as possible.
Let’s start with outlining some key questions this article will answer:
- Who uses the Lesson Plan?
- How much time should Teachers spend writing lesson plans?
- How important are common core standards?
- What’s the difference between weekly lesson planning, as opposed to bi-weekly or monthly planning? And is one better than the other?
- How can I improve my Lesson Planning?
- For Principals: How can I help Teachers improve their lesson plans?
Let’s not waste any time and get right to it.
Who uses the Lesson Plan?
I have listened to Teachers complain for 20 years, how much time it takes to write lesson plans and they wish they didn’t have to turn them in so often. And I empathize. I was a Teacher for three years and I hated writing lesson plans.
But that’s because I was never properly taught how to write them or what was its purpose. Yes, I had to figure that out as an administrator.
We all know Teachers must submit lesson plans and administrators must approve them — it’s the basic legal check districts have that administrators provide supervision of Teachers in the classroom. But who uses the plan outside of the legal requirement?
The answer is hopefully the Teacher. And if the Teacher is not using the lesson plan, then that lesson plans is not very good. The lesson plan should be a script for the daily class. I have heard a lot of Teachers get upset when they think about scripted classes, but lesson planning and scripted classes are two different things.
The Teacher is writing the lesson plan. The script is in the hands of the Teacher. And the Teacher decides what happens or does not happen in class. If the Teacher is fully prepared to teach a class, they should be writing everything down into the lesson plan. And this is where things get interesting.
For Novice Teachers, lesson plans are expected to be leaner, shorter and provide less detail. That’s because Novice Teachers do not know what will or won’t work in class. And part of the craft of teaching is exploring activities and tasks that may work with students.
For veteran teachers, their lesson plans should be much more descriptive. Lesson plans should include how and when groups will be formed. How to differentiate instruction. Which students will be doing which tasks at what time during the class. The lesson plan should look and read like a script for a play. And the students and staff are the actors and the tasks and instructions are the “lines.”
If Teachers are using their lesson plans, the way they were intended, they should be writing notes on the lesson plan itself while class is happening. And after school, reviewing those notes and editing the lesson plan for future use.
Hopefully this does not come as a surprise to the reader, but Teachers should be using lesson plans more than once. Hopefully, how I described it makes more sense. The script or lesson plan used in class is not the same lesson plan that is edited and used the following year. It’s been altered based on field experience and practice.
Any Teacher that is submitting the same lesson plan without alteration year after year has given up on the craft of teaching. And they should consider finding a way to reignite their passion for education.
How much time should Teachers spend writing lesson plans?
This may be the most controversial statement in this article, but there is no direct correlation between how much time a Teacher spends on lesson planning and the quality of the lesson plan.
It should go without saying, but if you spend four hours using a bad habit, you still have the bad habit after the four hours. It didn’t magically go away.
That’s why when Teachers tried to use the number of hours they spent on lesson plans as a justification for how hard they were working, I only saw it as an excuse for why their teaching lacked engagement with students or failed to meet student growth objectives.
The truth is that a great lesson plan can be written in an hour. But it can also take four hours, it really depends on the understanding of the Teacher and whether or not they are writing lesson plans that help them in class or trying to impress their Principal.
Unfortunately, I can’t speak for all Principals and there are some lazy and bad ones out there — so I know Teachers will object to this statement on the face — but I was most impressed by Teachers that used the lesson plan in class. When I did walkthroughs and saw the teacher writing notes on the actual plan, I was impressed. It said to me they care about the craft of teaching.
How important are common core standards?
Without the common core standards, there is no lesson plan. BUT, the common core standards are not the first element teachers should research or write when writing a lesson plan.
I will highlight how to write a great lesson plan in another article in this series, but the first element should be the lesson objective. If Teachers do not know what the purpose of the lesson is, then it doesn’t matter what standards are covered.
Which is why the first article in this series is: The Purpose of the lesson plan.
Once the teacher determines the lesson objective, they then can outline the core tasks, standards and elements that go into achieving that objective.
What’s the difference between weekly lesson planning, as opposed to bi-weekly or monthly planning? And is one better than the other?
If I were designing a perfect district, under a utopian mindset, I would want monthly lesson plans that looked more like syllabuses and weekly plans that teachers used in class that use the lesson plan templates we are all familiar with.
The reason why I would design my perfect district this way is one — it limits the legal approval process between Teacher and Administrator. It’s better for Administrators to look deeply at lesson plans once a month and give notes and feedback before approving. But allowing Teachers flexibility to adjust in class daily and weekly with that monthly plan.
The aspect that Teachers do not grasp because they are myopically focused on their classrooms is that the Administrator approves compliance in the plan. There is a checklist a Principal goes through to review a lesson plan. It includes, these 8 elements: standards, lesson objective, lesson activities, assessments, materials, special needs, differentiation, and climate and culture.
Once that checklist is approved, the Principal is saying as long as your students assess at 70% or better on the specific standards you proposed in your plan, you can change everything else, if you want.
This is where some Teachers get hung up — “My Principal approved this plan, so I can’t change anything.”
And that’s not entirely true. And maybe a conversation with your Principal about lesson plans and making adjustments would be warranted. It would help you get clarity on what are the specific expectations of your school leader.
I don’t see weekly, bi-weekly or monthly plans as better or worse than the other. A good lesson plan is a good lesson plan regardless of the amount of class time it covers. But some teachers have preferences for how long they are comfortable planning ahead for.
If I were to design a perfect district, I would want monthly lesson plans. But it’s not because monthly plans are better.
How can I improve my Lesson Planning?
I started the most comprehensive Teacher Training Program in New Jersey almost a decade ago. And the majority of teachers were novice teachers. Some had gone traditional route, that means college education program to student teaching to full time teacher. But others went alternate route, which is transitioning from business to teacher without the benefit of the student teacher experience.
Regardless of path to Teacher — both struggled with lesson planning.
Remember at the beginning of this article, I said that I wasn’t very good at writing lesson plans myself? That’s because there are tens of thousands of teachers in America who never received proper training.
The one tip I can give from my Teacher Training program is focus on the lesson objective and common core standards if you are a novice teacher.
And for veteran teachers, focus more on the assessment component of the lesson plan.
For Principals: How can I help Teachers improve their lesson plans?
I kind of feel like this is a bonus to this article.
The best way I know how to help teachers improve lesson planning is to provide time, attention and effort to making that improvement. With my Teacher Training Program, I spent the first 30 days of school on lesson planning. That means the Teachers in the program submitted five lesson plans for review and feedback.
The first lesson plan was always the worst. That’s to be expected, but I used it as an opportunity to teach the new teachers. After the plans were submitted, we convened as a peer group and we went over the plans collectively. It was important for each teacher to speak up about their plan, what did they like about it and what did they not like. What areas could they see improving for the next plan?
By doing this weekly for the first 30 days, I was able to help them grow from complete novice to intermediate level lesson planner in a very short period of time. It helped me because reading lesson plans that make little sense is tiring, but it also boosted the confidence of the newer teachers who needed the confidence to tackle the other tasks of being a Teacher.
I sincerely hope this article helped you.
About the Author:
D.Scott Schwartz is a former Principal and Superintendent in New Jersey. He spent a total of 20 years inside schools. In 2013, he began the Education Development Institute to help Teachers and Administrators take their careers to the Next Level, through targeted and higher level professional development workshops and community building. Over the last 7-years, he has influenced over 5000 educators in New Jersey. He has written multiple Teacher and Principal workbooks, and has developed a Membership Website for Teachers to join a supportive community that also includes annual professional development. He also consults with Special Education attorneys in New Jersey related to in-district programming.
