This post is meant to provide you with some concrete tools to help with lesson planning as a first year teacher, whether you are brand new, or just teaching something new this year!
1. Be kind to yourself
You are in a new job, in a new environment, with new people, and a new curriculum. You’re not going to be perfect and nobody (other than yourself) expects you to be!
2. Over-plan procedures
Classroom management procedures are what make class run smoothly, and you must have control over the class before you can teach anything. Your classroom management procedures can (and should) change if they are not working. Just make sure you are deliberate and explain why you made the change to students so you don’t appear wishy-washy. Students crave routine and order, so make sure you have procedures in place for them.
3. Under-plan your lessons
This may seem counterintuitive, so let me explain. I am a severe over-planner. My first year teaching, I wanted to plan weeks in advance and have all my copies ready to go! What a waste of paper that turned out to be!
I completely miscalculated how long things would take. Lessons that were supposed to take five minutes took forty, and visa versa. Furthermore, I had no idea how to anticipate the kinds of questions my students would ask. Their questions would inform my explanations, and how I taught.
Within a few days of my first year teaching, I had to throw out most of my lesson plans because they weren’t relevant to the kids I was teaching.
I had to learn to be okay with planning just a few days in advance. If I ever tried to get too far ahead, my kids (or a special schedule) would jolt me back to reality. There is just no use in planning too far ahead during your first two years teaching, or your first time through any new curriculum. That being said, you should always put a great deal of effort into planning the lesson in front of you at that time, and have a sense of where you would like students to end up. Try to keep some filler games in your back pocket too for those days where you get through material more quickly than expected.
4. Record everything!
This is HUGE! You won’t have time to fill out those fancy lesson plan templates you were forced to do while student teaching (unless of course you are required to turn them in to your administration, and then you better make that a priority!). But you MUST keep good notes about what you did, what worked, and what totally failed. My favorite way to do this is in Google Sheets. I create a template for the year and a new tab for each week.
I type in my lesson plans in list form and then in the column next to it, I leave myself a place entitled “Notes.”
This is the most important part. During lunch or after school, I quickly fill in anything I need to remember like:
- This activity took way too long. Break into smaller steps and assign part for homework.
- This game was way too complicated. Cut it completely.
- Kids more focused if we do game last.
- Third period never finished the reading activity. Build in time tomorrow.
If you are lucky enough to teach the same thing two years in a row, these notes will become invaluable to you! Also, if you loop with your students and may need to remember what you did three years ago, you will be overjoyed that you did this. I print mine out each June and pay $4 to have Office Max bind them into a book, but having them in Drive also means you can access them anywhere and any time!
Documenting student behavior
Documenting student behavior and parent interactions is part of recording everything. You never know which parent or child is going to be your squeaky wheel, so if you start to notice a pattern of behavior in a child, jot down some notes. I use a google form to electronically document my notes template. Ask your mentor if you school has a policy about documenting (some schools do not allow electronic documentation), but always remember to keep notes factual. For example:
- 3-3 Billy whispered something to Bobby. Bobby put his head down and was upset.
- 3-4 Billy took a pencil off Suzy’s desk and laughed when she couldn’t find it.
- 3-5 Billy rolled his eyes and whispered something under his breath that made other students laugh when the teacher assigned him to be partners with Bruno.
These notes will help if you ever need to call home or write-up a student. Nowadays, parents tend to believe their children over the teacher, so having proof is important. Similarly, if you have a face-to-face interaction or phone conversation with a parent, make sure you take notes afterwards as well.
5. Don’t be afraid to deviate from the book
This one is for the language teachers specifically, although it may apply to other areas as well. If your school uses a textbook, you don’t have to go in order. I don’t.
Our department has decided that we want to finish four chapters by the end of the year, but we each can choose how to accomplish that. I only use my book as a starting place, but I create 95% of my own materials. Looking back, I don’t know if this was something I could have done my first year, because I needed to witness what challenged my students, but having those notes in my lesson plan book made it much easier to reorder topics the following year.
After about 3 years teaching with the same textbook series, Así se dice, I was able to write lesson plans that look like this:
It took me about 3 years to get the pacing down perfectly and anticipate where students would need more help. During that time I was able to create supplemental activities to differentiate for faster and slower learners. I found better videos, more useful games, and ways to engage all learners. I put everything I learned and created into these unit bundles, which you can download for free!
