Are Lesson Plans that important?

Are Lesson Plans that important?

Lesson planning is essential to the smooth running of a class session. It is also one of the responsibilities that most educators least look forward to. The truth is that lesson planning can be time consuming and a bit tedious, especially when there are so many other things to focus on. Yet, it remains the most effective way to achieve maximum results from your lessons.

What is the point of a lesson plan?
A lesson plan is an educator’s road map of what students need to learn and how to do this effectively during class time. It offers a detailed description of the course of instruction for one class. It helps to maintain focus on the particular subject/topic. It provides the educator with a solid account of what has been taught. It allows the educator to track students’ progress as well as the various teaching techniques, learning aides utilized and the efficiency with which all were used. Having a lesson plan means that there is an actual outline with thought out goals and objectives, some of which may have impacted the learning experience in meaningful ways. This tells you how to proceed for your next lessons because your lesson plans have given you a clear picture of where your students are and how you can improve them learning particular topics going forward.
How to approach lesson planning
Lesson planning is similar to creating a story. You begin with what your motivations are. Why are you planning your lesson? Is it to improve knowledge of a particular topic or is it to reinforce something that was already taught? How badly do you want your class to grasp what you are teaching? These are easy questions to ask yourself when you are about to begin your planning. Educators who have students who take a while to understand particular topics will need to get creative and realistic with their objectives, goals, instructional materials and the activities that are used to explain and reinforce what is being taught. Students are great at providing feedback on lessons based on their facial expressions and body language during the session in addition to what is presented by them in evaluative exercises.

What do educators get from lesson planning?
Many educators are good with teaching a particular topic without the use of a lesson plan. However, these same educators, lesson plan in tow, are a pleasure to observe in the classroom. Their planned lesson allows them to show off their skill in the classroom as well as their accomplishments. It also gives them something tangible that may benefit their colleagues. Their creativity and imagination come to life as their lessons unfold and even if adjustments are made; it is still highly rewarding to their students.
What are some of the lessons in lesson planning?
It is easy to say that students are the ones who benefit most from lesson planning. Educators also learn a lot during a class session even with a lesson plan that they wrote. Here are a few points that highlight some of the lessons in lesson planning:

A lesson in patience – Even the best lesson planner has to spend some time doing research and marry the appropriate teaching aid/materials with the goals/objectives for maximum results from the lesson. Research also includes being acutely aware of each student’s learning ability and potential in order for each to get something from the overall lesson.
Ÿ A lesson in knowledge – Often times, educators surprise themselves with new discoveries when prepping for new topics through research. This allows for their lessons to be interesting and meaningful not only for the students but also to them and/or colleagues that they may share their discoveries with. Students can be great teachers of something new at points in time. A well-executed lesson will reward both the educator and the students in the process. It almost always furnishes those present with a new discovery or several.
Ÿ A lesson in individuality – Sometimes a class of eager faces is grouped as just that. They are individuals with different learning abilities despite having a myriad of similarities. There are a few students who are good at learning complex topics easily and then there are others who take a bit more time. Added to this, each student has his/her own personality and experiential background that may impact the rate at which he/she learns. Once an educator understands the individual potential of students, he/she will know how to best plan lessons.
A lesson in planning – Most take the idea of lesson planning and apply a similar approach to life events. Educators, who love to plan, understand that even if changes are made to the plan, it can still work. This helps them to adapt to changes in their personal life a lot easier. The time and effort placed in doing research affords them a wealth of resource persons and material to draw on.
In conclusion, it always helps to have a plan and to make that plan worthwhile. Students are great at detecting un-preparedness and they will act on that especially if they are very alert. Once there is a solid lesson plan in place, educators easily cut down on distractions during the lesson, improve upon what has already been introduced and can effectively manage the class time.

THE UNSUPPORTIVE CO-TEACHER: WHAT IS THE ROOT?

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Teamwork: one of the values that we, teachers, always impart to our students. We always insist the importance of its value when dealing with students in and outside the class. Everybody must agree that everywhere, teachers sometimes struggle because of teamwork issues in the faculty.

The lack of teamwork is a common problem that school faculty deal with all the time.

·       ‘a teacher bringing down her fellow teacher’

·       ‘a teacher unhappy for her colleague’s promotion’

·       ‘a teacher giving disagreeing remarks to her fellow teacher who has just received an award’

·       ‘a teacher giving no support of participation in a school activity proposed by her fellow teacher’

The situations listed above are just among the hundred concerns that we often hear about.

WHY IS IT HARD FOR OTHER TEACHERS TO SHOW SUPPORT TO THEIR FELLOW TEACHERS?

Teachers are different from each other. We all have our own personal issues and we all have our own grief and our own success and failures that contribute to how we will behave or get along with our fellow teachers at the workplace. There are teachers who get along with each other and there are teachers who don’t. Why? Well, this roots to many things like:

1. INSECURITY and ENVY

SITUATION:

Ms. Angel has been teaching for a year in LLEGO ACADEMY, which is the first ever, school she has worked in. This academic year, she will be working with some newly hired teachers in the Science department. Ms. May, one of the new teachers has been in the field of teaching for 5 years and it is very evident that she can share so many ideas and teach what she has learned in her previous job experiences to the teachers.

During the faculty meeting, teachers were asked to suggest activities for the opening of the new academic year. Ms. May have proposed several suggestions, which the teachers agreed on. Everybody was impressed except Ms. Angel who frowned at the corner. On the opening day of the school, all the teachers were assigned to finish their own task assigned to them during the meeting. Ms. Angel and some teachers closest to her chose not to participate and didn’t do their task, as they hated how Ms. May took over the last faculty meeting. They thought that Ms. May was bragging her experiences and was trying to tell all the teachers that she is excellent in everything she does.

As the result, the activity on the opening day of the school turned unsuccessful−, as the other teachers didn’t do their task. Because of this, Ms. May felt bad and some members of the faculty even gave her comments that emphasize how the activity didn’t work. Though some still encouraged her. Ms. May then decided not to voice out ideas every time they are asked to suggest good activities for the school.

Whenever I encounter such situation, I wince deep inside me, not because I can’t take criticism, but because of the lack of support we show to our fellow teachers- especially teachers who want to think “outside of the box” the public put us in. This type of pessimism toward teaching isn’t good for teachers and it’s the same behavior that allowed people with no experience in education to come in and make policies that has made teaching more difficult.

2. TALENTS AND ABILITY

We don’t support our fellow teacher because we see their talents and ability as a threat. We are afraid to admit and accept that they can do better than us so as a mechanism, we say that his/her talent or ability is lacking so our colleagues will think that there is more to improve on her talent.

Of course, being a teacher means showcasing your talent and using it to the point that students are being influenced to mold the talents they have. In our field, being able to do many things is plus point. Not only students will be impressed but also the superiors. If you can sing, dance, act, write and speak in front of the public, then you are the perfect person that program organisers in the school look for whenever there is a particular school activity. Sadly, when you are always chosen, some of our fellow teachers start to think that you are the favourite and that you are a grandstander or a show-off. This kind of mentality is very common and it is unavoidable. It is a shame there are teachers who know nothing but to criticize someone who is on stage but cannot do even better than the person they criticize.

To deal with people who have a very big issue about favoritism or envy, you just have to keep quiet and it is better not to talk about your assignments to anyone except to your work colleagues that you trust the most.

3. STUDENTS APPROVAL

Some teachers do not support their fellow teachers, as they are afraid that their students might like their fellow teachers more.

Sadly, some teachers consider themselves effective based on the number of students who like them. It is so wrong as all teachers and students are different. There are teachers who are willing to cry in their class and open up to the students their problem with their co-teachers just to get the sympathy of the students. Not knowing that they are already wrecking the reputation of their co-teachers. This will result to distasteful consequences. Involving the students will ruin the image of the teachers. It’ll make them think that it is just alright for them to fight with their fellow students as they see the same thing from their teachers.

With this, I’d like to leave a simple message: TEACHERS ARE MODELS. EVERYWHERE AND EVERYTIME.

4. SENIORITY ISSUES

What I despise the most is the “I-AM-BETTER-THAN-YOU-BECAUSE-I-AM-MORE-EXPERIENCED” mentality. Of course, we, teachers must not think that we are better than anyone else. Even our students can be better than us. We can learn something from everyone so we must always be open to the suggestion of others. We must support the others when they suggest things, which will obviously help the whole school community. Even if it means that they will get more applause than us.

Teachers must work as a team. If we always emphasize the value of teamwork to the students, we to must exercise it. Working as a team means considering the benefit of all. So if we want a better working environment, we should all support one another.

Why is it so hard for fellow teachers to support one another?
Why do we respond negatively to a positive thing done by our co-teacher?
Why do we feel envy when our co-teachers achieve something big instead of feeling happy?

How many times has a student in your class found a way to make her classmates solve a problem or understand a reading text? What would happen if another student (upon hearing his answer) rolled their eyes and shot down what this student had worked on to think about? I don’t know about you, but I would have pulled the negative student in the hallway and given him or her a nice little “talk”. So, if we can correct this behavior with students, why is it so hard for us to do the same with our fellow teachers?

Thank you!

It has been sometime since I visited myself... Lots of water has flown under the bridges... 

Life has been, many times over, compared to a roller coaster ride; it has its ups and downs. We experience happy moments and we relish those moments. We experience disappointments and then we wallow in negativity. Unfortunately, we tend to experience more of life’s downward spiral than the glorious highs; and oftentimes, we get stuck.

When things were not ideally what I want them to be, I easily slipped into the blame game and blamed everything and everyone else–but myself. There was a point in my life that

I became a very negative person. I complained a lot and naively believe that I wasn’t at fault. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of negativity and of feeling hopeless.

One day, I realized that if I were truly to become a better person, I needed to get to the real root of the problem: me. What I needed to see was that everything that happens to me was largely a result of my choices.

In today’s podcast episode, I tackled a question by one member of our get busy living community about the obstacles I faced when I was stuck. I do feel that it is fitting that we address the question as we each have our own episodes of feeling stuck and wasting away.

Learn:

• The obstacles that prevent us from being the person we always want to be.
• Take responsibility of your choices and your life.
• Adopt habits that will set yourself up for success.
• Expand your horizon by opening up to possibilities.
• The importance of consistency in experiencing meaningful and lasting change.

5 Characteristics of an Effective School Team

I've been thinking a lot about what makes a good team in a school context. I'll share some of these thoughts, but I really want to hear your ideas on this subject.

I'm going to admit that it's taken me a while to feel convinced by the power of teams. Until recently, I didn't have great experiences in teams. I felt that alone I could produce whatever needed to be created better, and quicker, than working with others. I often felt frustrated working in teams -- the process felt so slow and cumbersome. I felt like I was usually given (or took) the bulk of the work. I didn't really know what an effective team looked like, how one worked together, or what the benefits could be.

In the last few years, however, my experience in a couple different teams shifted these beliefs. Now, I'm compelled to figure out how to create and develop good teams -- and to identify the specific moves that a coach or facilitator makes in this process. I want to figure out how to grow powerful teams that can transform schools.

Why Does this Matter?

Here's why I think we need to articulate our beliefs and practices about good teams:

Strong teams within a school are essential to retaining and sustaining teachers. In schools with low staff turnover , teachers report feeling connected to colleagues and supported by them. They also describe feeling that they belong to a team whose members are fulfilling a mission together. The emotions activated in this context are those which keep us engaged in a difficult endeavor for a long time. Public education is a hard place to be these days -- we need structures (such as strong teams) that cultivate our emotional resilience.

If a team is effective, then people learn from each other. They accomplish far more than would be possible alone. They inspire and challenge each other. An individual's strengths can be exploited, and we don't have to do the stuff we're not so good at. Again, this is an efficient approach to undertaking a huge project (transforming a school, for example), and it feels good.

What Makes a Good Team?

Here are some key characteristics that I believe make a good team:

1. A good team knows why it exists.

It's not enough to say, "We're the 6th grade team of teachers" -- that's simply what defines you (you teach the same grade), not why you exist. A purpose for being is a team might be: "We come together as a team to support each other, learn from each other, and identify ways that we can better meet the needs of our sixth grade students." Call it a purpose or a mission -- it doesn't really matter. What matters is that those who attend never feel like they're just obligated to attend "another meeting." The purpose is relevant, meaningful, and clear.

2. A good team creates a space for learning.

There are many reasons why those of us working in schools might gather in a team -- but I believe that all of those reasons should contain opportunities for learning with and from each other. I have met very few educators who don't want to learn -- we're a curious bunch and there's so much to learn about education. So in an effective team, learning happens within a safe context. We can make mistakes, take risks, and ask every single question we want.

3. In a good team, there's healthy conflict.

This is inevitable and essential if we're learning together and embarked on some kind of project together. We disagree about ideas, there's constructive dialogue and dissent, and our thinking is pushed.

4. Members of a good team trust each other.

This means that when there's the inevitable conflict, it's managed. People know each other. We listen to each other. There are agreements about how we treat each other and engage with each other, and we monitor these agreements. There's also someone such as a facilitator who ensures that this is a safe space. Furthermore, in order for there to be trust, within a strong team we see equitable participation among members and shared decision-making. We don't see a replication of the inequitable patterns and structures of our larger society (such as male dominance of discourse and so on).

5. A good team has a facilitator, leader, or shared leaders.

There's someone -- or a rotation of people -- who steer the ship. This ensures that there's the kind of intentionality, planning, and facilitation in the moment that's essential for a team to be high functioning.

What Next?

This last point is what I've been contemplating for this fall: What does a good team leader do? How exactly does she facilitate? How can leadership rotate or be shared?

I currently work with a fantastic team of instructional coaches, and we're thinking about this together. I'm so grateful for this team! We're developing a facilitation rubric for coaches -- a tool that identifies and articulates the precise moves we make in order to develop a team that feels purposeful and safe for learning, and that leads to improved outcomes and experiences for the students we serve. We're hoping that this tool will be helpful in our own practice and that it could be useful to others.

In my next post, I'll share some of our ideas about the facilitation moves we make. In the meantime, please share in the comments section below your stories of working in effective teams and your thoughts about what makes a good team.

A New Definition of Rigor

You would think that it would be more prevalent than it is. But it appears only four times in the Common Core State Standards. Why has a word that is mentioned so little caused such dread, anxiety, and confusion among teachers?

I'm talking about rigor.

When We Say Rigor, What Do We Mean?

Comb through all 66 pages of the ELA standards, and you will find it hiding amid larger conversations about analyzing author's choice, evaluating sources, and writing arguments. Look in the math standards, and you will not find it at all.

Yet rigor is all the buzz:

• "Our lesson must be more rigorous."
• "We must increase the rigor of our assessments."
• "Does this book possess the necessary rigor for that grade level?"

These are all things that I have heard at conferences, in faculty meetings, and through conversations with colleagues. It is a term used often, but I am still not sure if it has been clearly defined.

Some mistakenly assume that rigor means making things more difficult. Others believe it means piling on the work. A few say that they can't define rigor, but they know it when they see it.

If teachers are to achieve rigor, we must aspire to something more specific. Too bad the dictionary is of little help:

Rigor
1. (a) Harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment: severity. (b) The quality of being unyielding or inflexible. (c) An act or instance of strictness, severity, or cruelty.
2. A tremor caused by a chill.
3. A condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable.
4. Strict precision or exactness.

It is this understanding that has led to the push-down and pile-on syndrome. College-level books are now being taught in high schools. Middle school students are tackling works and ideas once assigned to high school students. Now, 20 minutes of homework for elementary kids has become two hours of cruelty.

Rigor is not defined by the text -- it comes from what students do. It is not standard across a curriculum -- it is individual to each student's needs. It is not quantified by how much gets crammed into a school day -- it is measured in depth of understanding.

Rigor is a result, not a cause.

Rigor and David Foster Wallace

For proof, we need look no further than the great 20th-century novelist, David Foster Wallace. In 1994, he taught English 102 (Literary Analysis: Prose Fiction) at Illinois State University. His syllabus does not feature the heavyweights of literature that are recommended by the Common Core. No Hamlet. No Crime and Punishment. No Canterbury Tales.

Instead, his required texts were Mary Higgins Clark's Where Are the Children?, Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs, Stephen King's Carrie, and Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, among others. Interesting that a writer known for being a little pretentious might have known a thing or two about rigor. In the syllabus, Foster-Wallace writes:

Don't let any lightweightish-looking qualities of the texts delude you into thinking this will be a blow-off-type class. These "popular" texts will end up being harder than more conventionally "literary" works to unpack and read critically.

There it is. Rigor is the result of work that challenges students' thinking in new and interesting ways. It occurs when they are encouraged toward a sophisticated understanding of fundamental ideas and are driven by curiosity to discover what they don't know.

Foster-Wallace makes a point in his syllabus to say that his course will not be what many would expect: "heavy-duty lit-crit or Literary Theory." Instead, he has the broader and more practical aim to develop students that can. . .

. . . read fiction more deeply, to come up with more interesting insights on how pieces of fiction work, to have informed intelligent reasons for liking or disliking a piece of fiction, and to write -- clearly, persuasively, and above all interestingly -- about stuff you've read.

Let us aspire to something greater than making difficult work for our students. Let's take them to that intersection of encouragement and engagement, where they confront ideas and problems that are meaningful. Let's stretch their thinking. Let's unleash their sophistication. And let's foster a love of deep knowledge. 

हरी ओम !

आज मेरा बड़ा मन कर रहा है के में हिंदी में कुछ लिखुँ।   चलो कबीर के दोहों से सुरुवात किया जाये।

निंदक नियरे राखिए, ऑंगन कुटी छवाय,
बिन पानी, साबुन बिना, निर्मल करे सुभाय।

 जो हमारी निंदा करता है, उसे अपने अधिकाधिक पास ही रखना चाहिए। वह तो बिना साबुन और पानी के हमारी कमियां बता कर हमारे स्वभाव को साफ़ करता है.

भला इस बात को आज के ज़माने में कितने लोग समझते हैं। 

जाति न पूछो साधु की, पूछ लीजिये ज्ञान,
मोल करो तरवार का, पड़ा रहन दो म्यान।

सज्जन की जाति न पूछ कर उसके ज्ञान को समझना चाहिए. तलवार का मूल्य होता है न कि उसकी मयान का – उसे ढकने वाले खोल का.

कहने को बहुत कुछ है पर आज के लिए इतना ही काफी है.