Best Lesson Planner Tools

The best part about teaching on a block schedule is being able to start fresh with a new semester in January. As a classroom teacher, I enjoyed this perk--especially if I had struggled with a particular group during the Fall semester. I always knew I would have a chance to "try it again." With that said, being a better lesson planner was always a goal of mine. Many times I started my semester out strong, but then descended into scribbled post it notes on my desk. 

The downside to not following through with my lesson plan goals was not having more detailed plans when a new semester would begin and then having to re-do much of what I had done in the previous semester.

After many years of this cycle, I began to implement a more stable lesson planning process and from semester to semester I found it much easier to keep up with my work flow because I had detailed plans from previous semesters to assist me with my planning. 

This blog post will focus on highlighting a few strategies and tools for effective lesson planning!

Mooresville's M-Powerment Strategies 

At this beginning of this school year, MGSD rolled our our M-Powerment strategies which serve as a guideline for good instruction . The M-Powerment strategies represent 10 strategies our district feels all successful teachers incorporate into his/her instruction with the heart of the M-Powerment strategies being M-1: A Collaborative Culture of Caring and M-2: High Expectations as referenced below. 

From the M-Powerment strategies, we Instructional Coaches worked to develop a Unit and Lesson Planner for teachers to assist teachers with designing lessons with the M-Powerment strategies in mind. Please see examples of both the Unit and Lesson Planners below. 

Both planners were designed to assist teachers with an easy to use format for planning units and lessons. By creating these documents in Google, teachers are able to work together to collaborate on Unit and Lesson Plans and store their lesson plans digitally. 

The Lesson Plan Cycle 

There is an art to lesson planning. Not only are lesson plans used as a guideline for teachers to keep up over the course of class, but they are also a very powerful tool for reflection. Understanding how a planning cycle works and then vowing to follow this cycle can really take your teaching to the next level. The other awesome piece of this is sharing the planning cycle with your ELT and working together to plan, reflect, evaluate, and move forward. 

Of course there are many different methods to effective lesson planning. Choosing a system that works best for you and sticking to that system will pay dividends back to you in the semesters to come. 

References:

"PPD500: Collaborative Planning." Pinterest. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.