The Paradox of Lesson Plans

I am a firm believer in Understanding by Design and designing lessons with the end in mind. I strongly believe that if you want your students to learn how to analyze a text YOU as a teacher need to have a clear sense of the skills needed to get there, and the assignments/activities they need to practice to get there.

One of the greatest gifts though that my experience and graduate education has allowed me is the ability to shift and adapt those plans to what my students need if they're not getting something, or if something isn't working.

Yet K-12 education seems designed to restrict this sort of responsive teaching by its insistence on structures.
For examples, my observations by my assistant principal, follow this rubric:

In the past, if admin did not see a feature in the class they were sitting in, you did not get credit for it. Other admins interpret the rubric differently, checking things they know you do. The end result is all over the spectrum.

There's all kinds of literature about how teacher evaluations are often just a box to check and rarely do what they should which is observe teachers and offer feedback and resources that help them improve. Up until our new governor, student performance on state tests figured into our end of year evaluations which meant that if you taught all honors/AP and your students scored better on the state test, you would have a higher score than teachers who taught other classes, special ed, etc. This requirement no longer is in effect.

We have one schedule observation in the fall, one unscheduled in the spring, and a couple of walk-throughs.

For the structured observations we're required to upload our lesson plan within 48 hours. In my building lots of people complain about this, which honestly, I do not get. Is it a hoop to jump through? Absolutely. If your teaching is doing what it should, it should not be a big deal to type it up.

Another issue with observations though is the "dog and pony" show aspect. When there is no habit of informal drop bys, observations, or when teachers are not comfortable being observed and receiving feedback for improvement, and reflecting, then what happens is on the one day they're observed, suddenly teachers are speaking to students, engaging, in ways that are not a regular occurrence in the classroom. Usually this is evident from the odd looks on students' faces, but not always.

Here is my lesson plan for my fall observation. The district and school do not require a specific format like other places I've taught, but they do recommend that you use the rubric to design/format your lessons.

My school does "require" an essential question and learning objectives to be posted clearly in the room. They also "require" a closing activity, like an exit ticket and bell to bell instruction. So these are often the first things checked off on your observation.

I like being organized. I like my lessons to be accessible.
I rough plan out my year in week by week calendars divided by marking periods. Here is the one for AP Lang, here is the one for English 9.

I post hardcopies of the calendars in my room, and in Google Classroom so the students always have access to it. It is a live doc, which I tell them, with me making changes as needed. I try not to move deadlines on them, or make major changes once the marking period has started.

In addition, for each unit I create a version of the Understanding by Design unit template, changed over the years to fit my needs. Here is the one for our novel unit this marking period.
One of the biggest changes I've made over the years is to give the students copies at the beginning of the marking period and making it more an interactive worksheet.

I edit, revise them as the marking period progresses. Maybe I move a story, or change a reading, based on what we're doing in class, or maybe I add a mini-lesson when I see them struggling with a skill. While the broad strokes are in place in August, based on skills I know I need to teach, testing requirements, etc. the specifics and details only get put in once I know and can respond to my kids.

This year I used this planner, which I really like, and each week I look at the next week in the calendar, and plan the specific breakdown of class. If there are resources, I hyperlink them on the calendar, but this is the nitty gritty work. Once this is done, I write my learning targets based on what we're doing.

Next, I use my planner to write the day by lessons that project to the students each day. My AP students do have a class notes set of slides, but it's not this detailed.

Here is the slide for my English 9 students. It's not as detailed as I used to make them because I realized students weren't thinking and responding about stuff, they were just copying. So the Notebook Time prompt gives them a topic, but I don't give specifics because that's our discussion.
The station rotations I try to give questions to get them thinking more than locked in things.

I post the link to this in Google Classroom so they always have access to it. This is really helpful when the rotation requires them to watch a video or read an article, because I put the hyperlink on the slides.

I used to make them more colorful and with multipages with images, but I've gone to this because students said the slide being laid out how they should organize their notebook helped, and the less busy it is the more I think it helps them focus.

 Now, something I've struggled with the last few years is the idea that I am replicating work and I'm not always sure why.

Practically, to do my job, I just need the calendar and the planner. But I do the other stuff because it helps me communicate with parents, and it makes my class more accessible to students.

Some students like checking my notebook (below) if they've been absent rather than the class slides.
Also, this year I have committed to doing the work with the students, so when that's applicable having the sample to show them helps.

But all this means I'm often typing/recreating the same thing over and over again. Which means when 2nd period's class points out an issue, and I change things, it's easy to change the slide for 5th and 6th period. But then the notebook is not up to date. So I spend a lot of time ripping pages out, or covering notes with Post-Its.

Last week when I taught a station rotation on problematic favs as a way to get students to think about representation and lack thereof, each class had radically different reactions to the topic, so the materials I'd prepped fell flat for two our of three classes. Which was fine, because I was able to change my approach for them, but it also means that the class I taught did not resemble the class planned. There are some schools where that flexibility and responsiveness is not praised but punished.

I mention all this because I think it's a concrete example of a basic paradox and issue with teaching. We should be tailoring our lessons and teaching to the students in front of us on any given day who are not necessarily the ones in front of us tomorrow, or Monday. Yet the mechanisms of administration and housekeeping restrict these ideas or mean that if you're committed to doing this work, you're doing a lot more of it to comply.

Should teachers wing their whole class with no concept or feeling of where they're headed or how to get their students there? Of course not. But in many ways, the requirement of boxes and paperwork to check off feels like another way we don't trust teachers to be professionals.

Like it or not, part of my job is to cover the Common Core State Standards.
Yet I can't be trusted that I'll do this, I have to put them on paper and prove it.

It is my job to serve all the needs of my students.
Yet I can't be trusted to do this, I have to list target students on a lesson and explain in detail how I'm serving them. This means identified students get written down, but on any given day I don't know which of my students is going to need more help, more attention, and most days it is not an identified kiddo.

It's also part of my responsibility as a teacher to communicate with parents, call home with concerns and praise, let them know what we're doing in class, make sure my lessons are accessible (for English Language Learners, technology, special education modifications) yet none of these are checked in an observation. I know teachers who refuse to call home. Hate grading. Literally two-thirds of the job.

More and more I've realized that it is my job to be actively anti-racist in my teaching, pushing back against sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia in the classroom. Yet there are no measures of that.

There are lots of things that we should all see in all classrooms. Yet few of them are reflected on the piece of paper called a lesson plan.

I understand that teachers need to be accountable, we shoulder a great responsibility. But I wish we as a profession were trusted AS professionals to determine what we needed to do our jobs and what we did not. I think if we had less boxes to check, and more freedom to try things out in our classrooms that our students would benefit because we'd be focused on them and not getting in trouble for not covering X or submitting Y.