Lesson plan deadlines

Our lesson plans are always due 3pm Fridays. I asked my principal, "hey I'm teaching 2 grades and 2 subjects and taking a class during the week, can I turn them in Sunday?" Unfortunately, He turned me down.

I know I'm a second-year teacher, but a lot of reading and research goes into my lessons. How do you make your school's deadline? Are there any short cuts you take?

 

In order to meet a deadline of that kind, you need to be further ahead by more than just a week. You need a long term plan as well.

 

Why don't you just do them a week early so that you can turn them in on Sunday? It still meets the deadline and it works better for you in your schedule.

 

Roughly map out your next month of lessons...what are the key content standards/units of study on which you'll be focusing? Break that down further by weeks. Slot the lessons for each week into your daily schedule.
We're ALL busy, Milsey..with work, home, classes, family, the holidays. Your admin really only wants to know about how you are fulfilling your job requirements. Do that well. Leave no doubt in your administation's minds that you can handle whatever is thrown at you. Lesson plans are 'baseline' expectations...show them you can do that and more...

 

How detailed do your plans have to be? Writing lesson plans can take forever, if you have to meet a lot of guidelines in doing so.

While getting my certification I had to write my plans according to the university's guidelines. It took me 2.5 hours to write a 45 minute lesson plan. That's nuts. Thankfully my principal doesn't require me to jump through those types of hoops.

I've had two different principals insist I submit lesson plans on a weekly basis. In the 13 months that I've had to do so, not ONCE has an administrator ever look at my plans. Thus my plans now are little more than a checklist of daily activities. At the top I list the state standards that I will be tackling for the week. Super easy to write. Deciding what to put for those activities takes me about 15-30 minutes each week.

And most importantly, I no longer stress out if I change things around during the day/week. Just because I PLAN to do something does not mean I have to adhere to it.

 

Our lesson plans are due by 5 on Friday. Last year, our parish had Thursday as a deadline. Our principal stood up for us and moved it to Friday. We map out our year, so the weekly plans are easier. We know where we are going. I work on ELA (the easiest to plan for, we have an all-inclusive program) on Tues and a co-worker and I stay late on Wed or Thur to plan math, science, and social studies. My principal is understanding if something prevents us from being ready to email them on Friday, but I try not to push it. I have a sped teacher that I work with on Reading and Math, she has to use my plans to write her own. I try to make sure she has them in time.

 

We are supposed to turn lesson plans in every Monday afternoon. I think. I haven't submitted one in a few weeks. That's not to say I don't have lesson plans. I have the six weeks at a glance posted on my website (the district mandated website). I have the weeks plan, day by day on the whiteboard. The kids know what we're doing and why. I know what we're doing and why. But I don't necessarily have time to make a copy beyond that for admins who don't even look at them. They haven't even told us what they wanted beyond an "I can"- statement. I know they don't look at them because for the first six weeks I put extreeeeeemely bare bones versions of my lesson plans in the folder and then I stopped and I haven't heard a single word about it. And apparently I'm not the only one.

I'm definitely not telling you to take my route. It will probably get you in trouble since your admins are clearly checking up on you and your cohorts. Do you have some sort of template your following? Maybe you could find a short template that hits all the relevant points so that you can submit to your admins in time and then continue working on them for your own personal use?

 

During this holiday break make next week's plans and the next week's. Then, keep up. Ta-da!

 

I always have my eye on long distance planning. I know now what I'm teaching between now and Christmas, and have warned my kid that they'll need a calculator (and which one) after Christmas (just in case Santa wants to put it into their stockings.)

Part of the job-- part of any job-- is adhering to deadlines. Unless there's a crisis, don't ask to be an exception to a deadline. Everyone is busy. Most people have more than one prep. Unless your week has included a trip to the ER or a you've lost a loved one, you're no busier than anyone else.

Focus and find a way to do the job as required. This is what you signed up for when you applied for the job.

 

Just curious: You've obviously done all the planning. Why not hand it in??

Why risk a bad evaluation over something it would be so very easy to do? Can't you just print up what's on the website and hand it in, at the very least??

Perhaps THIS was the weekend someone checked to see who had submitted plans.

Or perhaps next week will be the time you have a crisis and can't get to work, and someone will check for those lesson plans.

 

Ours are due Monday by noon. I know that other depts. are due on Fridays or even Sundays. I also know that my admin actually DOES look over our plans.

I have a long-term plan, but honestly, if I don't get up early on Saturday or Sunday morning, the weekly plan doesn't get written. I need the quiet time to sit down and bang them out - no TV, no neighbors in the parking lot, boyfriend blissfully snoring away.

Try to carve out a time either the weekend before or one afternoon a week and dedicate it solely to writing the next week's plan.

 

I teach one grade level with all subjects so I have a template for each day. That way I do not have to constantly rewrite basic things that are done every day. This does save some time.
I agree we are all busy. I plan for language arts ( which includes 5 spelling groups and 4 guided reading groups), math, social studies and science. Just copying and pulling the materials together for spelling and guided reading is a lot of work! I also plan and organize 3 math centers weekly.
You have to find some little tricks to make it all easier. For example, when I pull books for my guided reading groups, I pull enough for each group for two weeks. This saves me a trip to the book room. When I copy the spelling words, I copy the spelling tests to save a trip to the copier.
I also have a magnetic clip that sticks to my one desk drawer. That is where I clip things I need to copy or deal with in the office. I don't leave for the office without it.
Also, are you maybe over thinking your lessons if you are researching them?

 

Our plans can be submitted up until Monday 8 am at the latest. I know some teachers who seem to get their plans done during the week, but I do mine over the weekend.

 

How can they expect you to do lesson plans for the following week when you have not completed the prior week?

I know this sounds like a whiney excuse, but I NEVER do my lessons plans (specific ones) until the weekend or Friday afternoon when I've finished teaching the previous week.

 

Our's our due Wednesdays. I teach 3 subjects and I do them, but often on the weekends I reflect on the prior week and decided on something different that was already turned in. I would like to do plans Sunday evening. This is my first year teaching 6th grade and 3 subjects so I need to tweak lesson plans. I do have a templet that is easy to change but admin has a print out of what I turned in on Wednesday. I

 

I do see your point. In her case, being she's being monitored by administration for previous decisions and performances, I would just do them the best I could and sumit them on time. We are constantly told that what we do in the classroom today must directly influence what we do tomorrow. Which makes sense. So I'd do the plans, but when I'm spending an extra day a given topic because the day before taught me the students didn't have the prior knowledge necessary to grasp the content (for example), administration must not only be understanding but pleased.

I have an entire year roughly planned out, and then prior to each unit get more specific.

 

That's part of the reason that I do my plans Thursday nights. I've done enough of the week that I know what I'll probably/actually do on Friday.

I've usually over planned early in the week so that my Friday plans look very vague, as I sometimes I just write catch-up.

Since I have to email my plans I do them on the computer. I love the copy/paste function as I move things back a day or 2 in my plans.

What I turn in & what I actually do may be 2 totally different things. Like someone else said, if they don't get something I can't go on. Or if I forgot about an assembly or there was a fire drill or whatever can change the actual plans.

We also have to post our objectives & schedule with the correct date. (that date part gets me every time). I've had to put it into my mind to keep the objectives updated, I'm usually pretty good with the schedule, but than I'll notice that it's Thursday & the schedule is still for Tuesday!

 

One Sunday a month, you knock out a whole month, do it online, so then as the weeks go by you can just move a lesson from one day to the next if needed. Thursday evening you would just spend twenty shuffling things around a bit. I know it is overwhelming, but you can do it. I do it with six preps and it works out pretty well.

 

Ours are due Wednesdays too. I almost never end up following what I turn in exactly cause things change! It sucks...but it's nice to have that weekend time "free." (It's never free for me though haha.)

 

We don't need to submit lesson plans (never have), but we are expected to have at least 3 days of plans on our desks at all times. As with all requests by administration, I would comply, regardless of how I felt about it.

 

We have to do an 8-step lesson plan. It's due at the beginning of every week. I struggle b/c I don't have an item for each of the 8 steps every day.

 

Turning in lesson plans? My district does not require us to turn in any plans. I do, however, usually work on my lesson plans each Sunday (for the upcoming week). In the past, I'd plan for the entire school year. However, being that I'm new to middle school, I am doing week-by-week planning. Sometimes, I teach everything that I planned (occasionally, I even teach more than I had originally planned). Although, there are definitely times when I only teach 75-80% of what I had written down.

Anyway, no one sees my plans. They're for me and only me.

 

This year our district mandated a lesson plan format that is very cumbersome and tedious. For most of the seasoned teachers, it's not "user friendly". I have been teaching English III for 15 years, and my curriculum hasn't changed dramatically over the last 5. Even still, it takes me about 2 hours to write my lessons for the week using their program. To me, that's unacceptable.

I can't imagine how difficult it is for new teachers or teachers with more than one prep. Fortunately my principal lets us turn them in on Monday morning. Otherwise, I would spend a lot of time during the week that I could be using for grading and prepping to write out these lessons.

 

Look at your textbook and associated resources. My geometry book has lesson plans for each section. I don't use them for a variety of reasons but for administrative purposes I could see printing off what looked like a week's worth and handing them to somebody to satisfy an administrative requirement. I do believe in lesson plan's and do them for my own benefit but fortunately I am not required to turn them in.

 

In the OP's case, she should be turning in more than that which just 'looks like lesson plans'. She is already under scrutiny by her admin for several reasons. Writing bogus plans, no matter how good they 'look' is never a good idea, and even less so for the OP's situation.

 

Ditto! It was insane and totally unrealistic. I can see maybe doing plans like this freshman year when one is first learing what the components of a good lesson are, but we had to do them all the way through senior year and full time student teaching. My university's supposed reasoning for making us do them for full time student teaching was that plans had to be detailed enough for a sub to teach. Following their format, a lesson for just one subject (since I'm elementary, I had to do lessons for all subjects) would be 5-8 pages. I'm quite certain a sub would freak out if they came to sub and there were 5-8 pages of plans each for 6 different subjects.

Anyway, back to the OP, I don't have to turn plans in at all. My P is gracious enough to admit she's not a detailed person and wouln't read them anyway. We are required to submit them for evalutions only. I thought it seemed dishonest to beef up my plans just for evaluations, so I turned in what I always do for lessons. I have the time, the kids in the group, the goal they're working towards, a bare bones outline of the activities (maybe 2-4 bullet points), and state how I'll assess them. I got a 4 out of 5 for lesson plans on my evaluation last year with just this amount- I know teachers at my school that have a full page or 2 for a single lesson. For me, I write what I need, not what I think will impress someone else. We're all getting more and more added to our plates as more and more funding gets cut, and sometimes you have to decide what to let go. In my mind, something that doesn't benefit me, the kids, or my lessons but only serves to impress an admin (who clearly doesn't care that much anyway) is not a good use of my time.

If I'm on top of things, I plan on the thursday before for the entire next week. I often end up changing things, so if I tried to plan several weeks in advance it just wouldn't work. Occasionally, I'll have to do my planning on a sunday if I'm just behind. Very rarely (maybe two or three times a year) I'll be so swamped that I'll only have a day or two planned ahead of time.

My suggestion to the OP would be to do sort of a minimial requirement sort of plan to turn in, to ensure you have something in on time. Then, if you feel it's necessary you can beef it up for yourself later. If an admin is concerned that the plans you turn in aren't enough, you can always show them the beefed up version you created on your own.

 

Hmm... that's actually a good idea. I'd never thought of it. I keep up with the website because I know it's actually being looked at by both the admins, the students and the community. I dislike the lesson plans in part because I know that no one is looking at them. They sit on the desk in our workroom at all times and supposedly an assistant principal could drop at any time to request to look at them so we should make sure to have them in. Much like the students, my bs-detector is strong and I don't believe that for a second (you'd have to be familiar with the crazy lax approach of our admins. The students literally told me they call the principals by their first names as a sign of disrespect). The only reason we have to submit lesson plans (and they just started requiring it this year, two weeks into school) is because we switched from block schedule to traditional and the admins want to make sure we aren't "just cutting 90 minute lessons in half". Although, how they would know without seeing the originals are beyond me.

Anywho, I'll straight up and fly right. It's just that there are other aspects at the school that are frustrating me right now and I think my passive aggressive side is creeping out.

 

I'll be the first to admit lesson planning is one of my biggest weaknesses. Organization is not my strong point. But I do understand the importance of lesson plans, both for myself and for admin. So, like other members suggested, I created a template on the computer that I can quickly "adjust" for each unit. That makes it very easy to write up and print out lesson plans for each week.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is admins perspective on this.

If you think you don't have enough time to write lesson plans for different grade levels and/or subject contents, just imagine how admin feels about having to look at lesson plans for EVERY grade level and EVERY subject in the entire school every week. They aren't doing this just to hassle the teachers or flex their authority. Most likely, THEY are required to show proof of these lesson plans to the Super and maybe even the School Board, in addition to all their other duties and requirements.

Just like the poster who said she has to have her plans done before another teacher can complete hers, your admin is depending on you to turn in lesson plans to help him/her meet part of their requirements from the Super.

Of course, if you think about how many lesson plans they have to review, then it makes sense they will be satisfied with simple, one-page plans that list the standard being addressed and a few lines (or bullet points) explaining HOW the lesson will do that, then an assessment to make sure the standard has been reached. Think of it like a cover letter; it needs to be short, simple and to the point

 

Right.

I admit that I don't have to hand in lesson plans. But my planning is done ahead of time; my plan book is currently filled in up until Christmas break. The rest of the year is outlined.

But the point is that:
a) Teachers need to plan. They need to have long range and short range planning done. It's non-negotiable. To choose not to plan is simply not fair to your kids or to the teachers down the road who will have to pick up the pieces for all the important things you don't get to.

b) Administration has a right, and a duty, to know that the teachers are teaching what they should when they should. Constant observations would be one way of doing that. But I have a feeling that, aside from the time constraints, most of the people who dislike handing in plans would like this even less.

c) It's part of the job you signed up for. So you do it. And you do it on time.

I can't imagine any admiistrator expecting you to stick to the letter of what you have planned; we all know that things come up and you can end up a little ahead or behind where you planned to be-- that's why it's a "plan" and not a "promise."

But I think administration is absolutely justified in asking for those plans. And for setting any deadline they choose. And in giving a poor review to any teacher who chooses to ignore that very important part of the job.

 

I didn't read into her post...

that she was under scrutiny. I also believe the lesson plans associated with my book would be satisfactory (and they are pre-made!!).I don't like them because I want to create my own...I think the rigor of preparing them myself is beneficial to me. If I had to give a week's worth in advance I would not hesitate to do this but I would still create my own for actual classroom use. again, the workload is heavy and what works for one may not work for another.

 

She is under scrutiny due to previous issues.

 

I don't have to turn in lesson plans, but I am expected to do them and have them up to date. I had a surprise observation by my supervisor the other day and my only negative comment was that I needed to put the times on my lesson plans... I was pretty proud! A shortcut I take is that I typed up all of my standards and objectives into a Word document at the beginning of the year. It took hours, but it was worth it. Now when I write up my plans on the computer, I can just copy and paste my objectives/standards. I spend about an hour a week doing my lesson plans, but since I'm not working in a typical setting, I don't think that's a typical timeframe.

 

Last year I typed all the standards, based on the pacing guides, for that month. We changed the beginning of the sentence to something more friendly like "students will" and sent this to parents each month so they would know what we were covering. If we had ongoing standards, we included those too. The same list got posted in the classroom and was easy to reference. I could easily remember my goals, figure out where we were headed, see if I still had a lot to cover, use it during lesson planning, etc. it was my partner's idea and one that I really benefited from.

 

We only need to turn in plans if we are in our first 3 years of teaching (probationary period).

I still complete lesson plans, but they are not very detailed. It's basically an outline of what I want to cover, and includes some talking points/questions I want to remember.

Like the OP, however, I spend a lot of time on my plans and usually finish sometime on Sunday. I would have a difficult time turning my plans in on Friday. I am always adjusting my plans and making changes based on weekly progress and assessments. If I planned a week in advance, it would be such a waste of time because I would have to change everything anyway!

 

I would also find it difficult to turn in my plans on Friday--I would have a lot of late nights at school on Thursdays! I have long-range plans, but I'm always looking for new ideas and activities. So, while I know we will be working on verbs in language this month, I only have specific plans for this week's objectives. Our plans for the week are to be done (and available to our principal) on Monday morning. In my 5 years here (with 3 principals) no one has ever looked at my lesson plans, even when I was a first year teacher!

 

I completely agree with you. I did what you suggested, printing off my six weeks at a glance lesson plan from my website (no clue why I didn't think of that before). I went and showed it to my department head and asked if it was ok to submit that if I put the "I can" statements on the back. She said that was find "since [Administrator who requested the lesson plans be submitted] has never come to pick them up or look at them. You aren't the only one who isn't doing it. If she ever starts to come in and ask for them, I'll give you guys a heads up." Yeah...

 

Wow!
We don't turn in our lesson plans until the end of the year!
I'm amazed to see the amount of you who have lesson plan deadlines! Is this normal to most schools?

 

We didn't have to turn in lesson plans at my last school but we were expected to be where we were supposed to be in the pacing schedule (1 week ahead or one week behind was allowed) for math and language arts. We also had to write down where we were in our lesson plan book (but didn't have to go into details, just write down what page and lesson). So, if an admin came into our room, they should know what lesson we were on that day.

 

I type everything on the computer. I used the same format each week. Plus I found a website by another teacher that uses my reading series, I cut and paste from her plans. I also keep it simple. I was spending hours working on the and I discovered that other teachers were turning in simpler plans, so now I do too!

 

We have lesson plans we do and must be turned in each week. The lesson plans we turn in though are never the same as what I actually use to know what I am actually doing in the classroom. Any formal paperwork turned in is just that, something to turn in and make admin happy so that I can go on and do things the way I need to for my own sanity.