A Reader Asks... Unit Lesson Plan Options

A LYS Principal asks the following:

SC,

My district’s new “improved” policy states that teachers may only be required to provide a unit or weekly lesson plan. Do you know of a good lesson plan template that meets these restrictions?

SC Opinion (NOT A RECOMMENDATION)

The unit lesson plan is darn near leadership sanctioned instructional malpractice.  So I’m not even going to entertain that discussion, other than to state that if I’m a VETERAN principal in your district, I’m ignoring that policy until I get an eyeball to eyeball cease and desist order from my boss.

The weekly lesson plan is leadership sanctioned lazy practice. Here’s why. If as a teacher, I give you (my principal) a weekly plan, then you (my principal) have to know that by Day 3, I have either adjusted my plans (best case) or I’m just “winging it” (worst case). And Ms. Principal, good luck trying to prove what you can see with your own two eyes, because you won’t be able to.

If that sounds like I am siding with Principals... I am.  But teachers, I have your back also.

Though I believe that daily lesson plans are a critical component of effective teaching, I’m NOT a fan of long lesson plans.  A one-page (maximum) lesson plan is more than adequate for the vast majority of teachers.  No need to belabor the point. Just a quick, “What I’m going to teach. How I’m going to teach it. What my students will do to learn it. How we (me and my kids) will know the students learned it.”

To require more than that means that leadership is ignoring the truism that, “No plan survives contact with reality.”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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