Lesson Plan Feedback: Fill & Download for Free

It really depends on what your bosses want, and how experienced you are.I have been fortunate that my bosses have given me a lot of leeway and freedom to teach. I’ve had my lesson plans checked twice in the decade I’ve been teaching, and each time they told me that they were “fine.” That’s it. That’s the sum of the feedback I’ve gotten from my lesson plans during my teaching career.When I first began teaching, I did page-long lesson plans for each lesson I taught. I taught seven classes per day, but three of those were duplicates (same grade, same class, same lesson, just a different group of students).I realized pretty quickly that such detailed lesson plans were a waste of time.Nowadays, my plans are just page numbers from the texts and bullet-pointed reminders of what I wanted to cover. I’ve taught the same material so many times that I know what to do… I can anticipate where the students will get confused, what they’ll pick up quickly, what questions they’ll ask, etc…I teach five classes each day now, and my weekly plans for all five classes fit easily on two pages. I usually do my plans for the week on Sunday night, and I plan my Monday through Wednesday classes. I highlight the plans as they’re completed, so I know what got done and what didn’t, and, on Wednesday afternoon, I make my plans for Thursday and Friday, based on how things went for the first three days of the week.Today, for example, I’d planned on covering two things with my sixth graders, but they had a harder time with the first thing than I expected. I had to pull out some back-up resources for that concept. I only highlighted the half of the lesson that I was able to finish with the students today, so I know that tomorrow’s class will have to begin with the other half of today’s class.Flexibility is key. If you get easily upset when plans change, teaching might not be a good option for you.

As a teacher, what was the most ineffective lesson plan you ever taught?Ungraded poetry analysis.Ungraded anything, really, but poetry analysis is the worst. Students usually don’t want to learn anything for the sake of learning itself. They want to learn things they deem “useful,” or they want to earn a grade. They don’t deem analyzing poetry as a “useful” thing, and I learned early on (via my own mistakes) that if I’m not going to grade something, I keep that information to myself.That’s probably one of the biggest lies I tell my students: this is going to be graded. I have to tell them that to get them to participate sometimes.If I want to read some poetry with my students and discuss the mood, tone, rhythm, meter, figurative language, etc… there has to be a written component to the lesson… something the students can hand to me at the end of class, and get some sort of written, graded feedback on.

My lowest point in school (college) academically was when I got my first C in U.S. Government. The class had about 200 students and 4 tests as grades. That’s it. I struggled to take enough notes in the class and did very badly on all the tests. I am not good at tests as i have severe anxiety.I was in my sophomore year of college after doing my freshman year at a community college. I also did some classes in high school.After my first C things started to look up. I moved back home and starting doing better. I have always done 3 semesters a year which means: spring, summer & fall. I usually did about 13 classes a year. After my C I started getting all A+ (95/100 or above) and A- (95/100 or below).I kept telling myself “C’s get degrees!” I even had a few B’s before then but I consistently made all A’s. I made the “Dean’s Honor list” for my college of education as I was in the top 5% of students.how did this happen? I was really good at school management. I’m not necessarily “smart” but I knew how to balance 5 classes (a full load. Plus observation hours in elementary schools.). Here’s how I did it:As soon as I got the syllabus from the professor for each class I would map out the due dates in my planner. Usually I wrote in red or a bright color.Next I would find out the work that had to be done. Whether papers, projects, lesson plans, chapters to be read etc. then I would chart how much I had to do each day to get it done. i did this for each class.I would plan which days I did which subjects and then assign myself break days. (I was really bad at break days..)this would result in 5 different classes mapped out so I could just sit down each day at my planner and see “today I need to do 5 math problems, read this many pages, work on this lesson plan…” etc. I always made sure I was working on bigger projects waaaaaaay before they were due.I was never: Behind in school or rushing at the last minute. I pushed myself very hard and always always asked the professor questions if I didn’t understand. Another thing I would do it write a paper draft or lesson plan draft or project draft ahead of time. Then I would send it to the professor and say “I did this and I’d like your input before the due date so I can make sure it aligns with your expectations.” I never had a professor refuse to look at my work. Usually they were impressed I was able to get it done before the due date. I always got great feedback and made A’s.The culmination of this was I graduated in the top 3% of my class with a 3.9. I worked hard and I’m proud of myself. I’m not the smartest but time management is key.That’s me standing up as one of the key with Magna Cum Laude. I’m in the middle.I was the same way in high school, junior high and elementary school. I also worked in high school in addition to doing classes.