Day 22 and 23- Rearranging the furniture and Chat questions

I broke my streak again for posting every day.  However, this time I felt a bit guilty about not posting anything.  And I think that is where the 30 day challenge comes into play.  One must make blogging a habit in order to it to be successful and 30 days is a great amount of time to make something a habit. Through my recent reading it seems that 21 days is what is actually needed to form a habit.  I will see through to 30 then take a slight hiatus to reorganize.

The week has been devoted to lesson planning.  The final step in planning lessons is to create a way to make it easier as it goes along.  For me, my favorite part of teaching was creating new ways for my students to learn the same thing each year.  I would be lying if I said that I recreated each lesson each year.  To me that seemed foolish.  Starting from fresh, while valiant, is very time consuming and tiring.  Plus, if we "throw the baby out with the bath water" each time, we can never narrow down what worked in each lesson and what did not work.  That is what this all boils down to.  Sharpening your lesson planning skills with laser like focus.

I would recommend a few tips:

1. For the first few years of your career be as detailed oriented in your lessons.  At the end of each lesson/period taught AND and the end of the day, take time to reflect on what was successful and what you would do differently.
2. Plan ahead.  Make a unit plan.  Then a monthly plan.  Then a weekly plan.  Then a daily plan.  Start big and then break it down.  Even the tallest mountains will one day be a rolling hill.  It takes time, persistence, and patience to get this right.  Keep plugging away.  It is not easy but as you finish up a few years, you will see your work pay off.
3. Keep assessing.  Assess your students and keep a few responses from lessons to see if you need to make adjustments.  I used to keep one to three assessments from each lesson: a correct response, a somewhat right response, and a different planet response.  I wanted to see where I went right and where I went wrong.
4. If you feel yourself getting comfortable and that you don't need to plan: STOP.  Reassess the situation and challenge yourself in a different way.  One example: If you shoot for 75-80% proficiency on assessments, create a lesson that will have 100% of students on the right track.  Create the challenge.
5. You need to be your toughest critic.  Please do not allow another person to come into your room to tell you things you should already know.  Mentors, administration, and peer observations are great; but, you need to make sure that you have a strong understand of what was and was not successful in your class.

#WMMS CHAT

TOPIC: Lesson Planning

Reminder questions may change and please use #wmmschat in your response. 

We follow Q&A format.

Welcome to #wmmschat, please introduce yourself and state how comfortable you are with planning daily lessons.

Q1) How do you start planning your lessons?  Where do you begin? #wmmschat

Q2) What component of a lesson plan is most important to you?  Why? #wmmschat

Q3) How do you include Ss and their responses in your lesson plan? #wmmschat

Q4) IYO (in your opinion), are lesson plan templates necessary for good instruction? Explain. #wmmschat

Q5) How do you remain flexible to your Ss and their needs during instruction? #wmmschat