Module 5 – Unit 4 – Activity 3

Marc Finks

Module 5 – Unit 4 – Activity 3

Teacher Collaboration in Lesson Planning

The two teachers that I chose to interview are Jill Hayden and Kevin Cowell. Jill is a third grade teacher at a nearby international school and sees the same class every day for seven hours, while Kevin is professor at a university in Seoul and sees his students for about one hour per week.

1. How much time do you spend creating your lesson plans?

2. How far in advance do you actually prepare your lessons before the actual class?

3. Do you prepare for each unit, or do you generally make an overall plan first?

4. How do you prepare for differentiation if your students are of different levels?

5. How closely do you follow your lesson plans once you get into the classroom?

6. Is there a certain style that you follow, or did you create your own for making lesson plans?

7. Does lesson planning help you have a better class?

8. Do you edit or annotate your lesson plans after the class is finished?

9. Who do you submit your lesson plans to?

Jill Hayden has been working at an international school in Seoul for the last five years. Before that, she taught in a public school in the United States after receiving her degree in education.

Jill said that since the grade level that she teaches has changed twice over the last three years that she is still redoing and revising lesson plans. However, if she had been teaching the same grade for the entire time, then the lesson planning process would be a lot easier and less time-consuming, since it’s probable that she would be able to reuse the majority of her previous lessons, or at least have a better understanding of where students should be at each point during the semester.

She said that she does a lot of planning and preparation before the school year begins and always tries to be six to eight weeks ahead of schedule. Because of this, her lesson plans need to be really detailed as she needs to trust whatever she made two months prior to teaching the class. Jill explained that she always studies the objectives and end goals for each lesson, and then considers the major steps along the way that will be necessary to reach the end goal, and then she breaks down the lessons into weeks and days, determines how long she can spend on each section, and then makes the individual lesson plans from there.

As for differentiation, she said that she always has two or three alternate activities written into the side of each lesson plan, which she can use for students who are struggling with the material, or who are ready for more challenging work. She also said that she tries to adhere to the lesson, but things happen or questions are asked that must be adapted to on the fly. The key thing, though, is to always remember that this is a journey and the students must be at certain points by certain dates. If she spends an extra day on one section, then she said it’s just a matter of squeezing a little bit more into another day. The trick is to not let these types of things happen too consistently or else teachers will find that they are always behind schedule.

The lesson plan that she follows was required by her first school in the States, and she said that she just feels the most comfortable using it now. When she first started at her current school, she had to let a senior teacher look over her plans at the beginning of each unit, but now, she is in that role at her school and no one checks her lesson plans.

Overall, Jill is a huge fan of lesson plans and how much they help teachers prepare and understand what they need to do for their students. While it does take a lot of time to make the initial ones at the beginning, after a year or two, all you really do is jot notes to say what worked and/or didn’t work, and add in new ideas that you would like to try the next time you teach the lesson.

Kevin has been working in Seoul for over ten years, and has been at his university for almost five years. He teaches EFL students and sees them once a week. Kevin has a Masters in TOEFL and a CELTA degree and said how much both of those really helped him in learning how to prepare for teaching his classes.

Kevin said that he will usually do a brief overview of the term before classes begin, but since he doesn’t need to prepare many lessons each week, and he only teaches twelve hours each week, he prefers to make the plans the week before. Usually, once he finishes his class, he will go to his office and make the lesson plan for the next week, since his students’ needs will still be fresh in his mind. Even though he often teaches similar courses each term, he still likes to redo the lesson plans each time because they change depending on the makeup of his classes. He said that he does keep one from the previous terms, just so he can look back at what he did, and if things worked well, then he will incorporate them into his lesson. But he needs to change things up each term depending on the abilities and personalities of his students.

Kevin said that he uses the lesson plan style that he learned while studying for his CELTA. He said the one that they made him use in his classes were extremely detailed and encouraged teachers to prepare for unexpected things that may happen, and that while his is similar, it’s not nearly as detailed as they used to be.

He is a big fan of lesson planning, though. He has seen a number of new professors at his university who just try to make things up each class, and most of them end of with terrible reviews from their students and the professors usually don’t get re-signed. He says that lesson planning gives each class a sense of purpose, and it’s obvious to the students that the teacher always has something planned and clearly knows that the next step is going to be in the class.

Even though Kevin doesn’t have anyone checking to see if he has made any lesson plans, he still feels that it’s something that all teachers should be doing.

Overall, I’m starting to understand just how important it is to lesson plan. Speaking with Kevin about it and hearing his opinion really affected me because he doesn’t generally come across as a serious person. However, he let me observe one of his classes, and it was obvious how professional and prepared he seemed. The class schedule was clearly mapped out, and even though he didn’t really talk about it beforehand, he had made a ton of copies to hand out and had prepared several different activities, depending upon the student’s level. In terms of planning in advance, I do understand how Kevin’s style works for university students, but for an elementary class, I think I agree with Jill and – considering how much time it takes – it is probably best to plan ahead as far as possible, which at least means that you’re always aware of what you need to do in class for the next couple of months.