Comments on: Why Secondary Teachers Don’t Want a GitHub for Lesson Plans

By: This year’s #mathphoto16 challenge begins / Global Math Department

This year’s #mathphoto16 challenge begins / Global Math Department — Tue, 09 May 2017 16:03:22 +0000

[…] but the idea is hopefully clear). Check out these posts from Chris Lusto and Dan Meyer, as well as the thoughtful comments. And join in the […]

By: Peter Nilsson

Peter Nilsson — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 23:42:44 +0000

This is something I care about deeply, and I think there will be some solutions to the plans versus planning problem in the coming few years.

In the meantime, some insight on how different teachers plan. We asked teachers to illustrate their planning process. How many of them involve using other people’s plans? How many involve tweaking other resources to make their own?

https://planningprocessillustrated.com/

By: David

David — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 15:53:59 +0000

Code and its output can be standardized. Students themselves really can’t be. Because student populations differ so radically and our goal is not to standardize them down to clones, we don’t want or need full standardization of lesson plans. While it would be comforting to starting teachers to have something to start from (hence plans from master teachers have some use), everyone ultimately knows their students better than anyone else knows them. We must honor this. It goes to the root of why full standardization of American education is a bad idea, in the first place.

By: Marcos ColÃ³n

Marcos ColÃ³n — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 03:52:59 +0000

My problem with that type of sites is that there are a bunch of unrelated lessons without a sequence. More times than not the lessons don’t fit to the pacing and the reality of my students in my classroom. There are many good places to find lesson plans and tasks but it takes a lot of time to find what you want and then a lot of time modifying to make it fit to my own style and classroom situation.

For me it would work in one of two ways.

1. I make everything mostly “from scratch” and forget about the lesson plan repositories.

2. I use lesson plans made by the same person or group with the whole year planned out in the same style and format.

It all comes down to time-management and experience.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 13:43:52 +0000

Using someone else’s plan- the bane of substitute teaching. There must be a better organizational plan to provide for the day(s) when a teacher is not able to be in class.

By: Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 16:05:04 +0000

I don’t see a lot of mention of “know your audience.” After years of teaching in the same district, I’ve gotten to know the level and academic background of my students. I know what to spend time on, and what I can assume that they know (and those are different for students who have come through different tracks). Even then, I still need to adjust every year for the mix of students that I have, and every few years to make sure that examples and activities resonant well with my students. If you dropped me into a new district, with a different population, it would take several years for me to return to my current level of effectiveness in teaching. That’s why people say that ideas are useful, but the particular details need to be customized.

By: Andrew Saltz

Andrew Saltz — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 13:24:37 +0000

Hello. First time, long time. Agree with all on 3 big issues: Trust, ownership, time-to-modify. Many times, it's easier to start from scratch.

I think a repository of Essential Questions, Sample Texts, and Final Assessments (aka Ideas) would be really useful. I believe this because when I do scan lessons, I generally don't steal much else. The forks could be much shorter and easier to sort than a full lesson.

Would be way superior to TpT in any iteration, though.

By: Dennis Decker Jensen

Dennis Decker Jensen — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 11:49:07 +0000

Give it ten years or so, and teachers will have gotten over the idea that the lessons are the small kingdoms of which they are kings. The advantages of letting a few experts making the lessons are too great. It frees up resources to do more important things in teaching. That has been the experience of many teachers here in Denmark, who felt about 15 years ago that they couldn't give up this particular kingdom of theirs.

By: education realist

education realist — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 00:22:33 +0000

Here’s something I wonder about: do you guys all mean “curriculum” when you talk about “lesson plans”?

Because seriously, who the hell actually plans out lessons? Like, you guys say I’ll start with this opening activity, and then I’ll turn to page 57 in the textbook and do these problems, and here are the answers to these problems?

I went to a good ed school; I write a good lesson plan that I only use when I’m getting observed. I never do any of this. Based on the comments, my take is more like Bob’s than anyone–I just want some good ideas. A good problem that I can turn into an activity, or a good worksheet that sequences problems well so I don’t have to.

I have no need whatsoever for a lesson plan repository, since I don’t use or write lesson plans. I write and develop curriculum that anyone could use in a lesson plan of their choice.

I actually wrote about this once at Grant Wiggins’ site: https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/how-do-you-plan-redux/#comment-12634 and we agreed that a really good survey would be to unpack what teachers mean by planning.

By: Bridget Dunbar

Bridget Dunbar — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 22:41:02 +0000

I agree with Chris Lusto that, math teachers have a trust issue. And Jo, in the featured comments, that I don't want this repository of lessons, but the teachers that I work with need one. Actually, what they need me for, is someone that is able to see the trees through the forest. And, understand where said lesson fits in the progression of instruction that they are currently delivering. This is the bigger issue.

Better Lesson hasn't worked out because... I don't trust them. I trust the people on Twitter because I see their conversations and know where they are coming from. I can take a spark of a conversation and know where it fits in a learning progression. As has been said before, it is quicker to do this yourself, than to look for and modify something that already exists.