Personal Comments on Planning in Reflection from Textbook Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction

“If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.” I will always remember this quote that a teacher stated to me in college when we were learning about planning. To me planning is something with teaching that I have not got the hang of yet. In college it seems like we had to do these in-depth lesson plans that stated our objectives, standards, review, lesson, and post lesson questions. It looked great when it was done but in the real world of teaching never did I use this. Sure, I think it was good that I knew what a good lesson should look like even if I shorten it down in the classroom but it is hard to really think about doing that every day for three or four subjects. While reading this week’s chapters in our textbook Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Effective Instruction I started to think about how this material would be used my classroom. Although I don’t think I do a very good job of laying out my lesson on paper everyday I think I have a very good idea of what my goals and objectives are, I try to review and present new material in different ways to reach all types of learners, and I keep a copy of the state standards by my desk and refer to my standardized report card to make sure I am covering all the bases. I do find it difficult when I am looking at my teachers manual to find time to do the activities that they want me to fit into the curriculum while still bringing in some personal material to make my lessons fun and engaging. One comment from our textbook that I really liked was that planning should be looked at as a guide and a requirement.
At a Kindergarten level planning for me was difficult because my lesson depended on so many different things. First of all I would only be able to keep their attention on something for a maximum of twenty minutes and it would have to be during a time of day where they would be willing to listen. As weird as this may sound if the weather pattern was different such as rain, storm, or snow then the kids would be wild so it would not be quality teaching time. I found myself writing down plans in my lesson plan book and never opening it because I would either remember what I wanted to teach or I would have my materials ready and I would just grab them and go into action. At the start of the week I thought of everything I wanted to do but I would not write it down since my principal does not require it. It always felt like a waste of my time to do that when it changed if the students did not understand the material or I could tell they were not ready for something. Our curriculum flows so nicely that once I got the hang of it it was not hard to figure out what would be coming next. The only times I really sat down and wrote nice plans was when I knew that I was going to be observed for an entire lesson. I think as I become a more experienced teacher this will become easier and I will feel more benefits to planning. If anyone has any advice about planning I would love to hear it.