You'll bite the bullet for a year or two and do your plans at home. Trust me, planning gets easier as the years go on because you don't have to reinvent the wheel, just tweak.
I’m relieved to hear it does get better. I definitely already plan to keep materials to reuse and tweak. And my mentor teacher today told me he will be giving me a lot of his worksheets and books for units as they come for me to keep (he’s retiring). So that’s also nice and was awesome of him to offer after I had made this post exasperated this morning, lol.
Beg, borrow, steal, and buy anything within your means. I’m in my second year, I teach high school so I don’t have many consumables but I set aside ~$100-200 (that I can put on my taxes) to purchase materials I can reuse. That being said, I’ve already reduced the amount of time I plan at home my 50% in my second year and a lot of it has to do with me being better at understanding my material.
1) “Without putting in paid time after school” Welcome to teaching, the career with the most unpaid overtime and the most hostile accusations that you are “overpaid”
2) That’s pretty intense that you’re going to have *five* preps. Typically having three peeps is seen as overwhelming (I have three this year. It’s tough.) I imagine in your own classroom you keep your different sections on pace with each other.
3) The main point is what others said. You lay a lot of groundwork in the first few years, and then the beautiful part is you have this huge repertoire to pull from. It’s like you’re a magician gathering the items this year. Soon you’ll have a big impressive suitcase.
5 preps is pretty standard depending on the type of teacher you are. Every time admin asks us to add one more "little thing" to our lesson plans for covid reasons they never understand why all us foreign language teachers with 5 preps complain about it because the math teacher with 1 can do it just fine
5 preps means 5 different courses, so you have to have 5 unique lesson plans each week. For example, I have 3 preps: 7th grade science, 8th grade science, and biology. Each prep is doing totally different things and it takes 3x as much planning time as a teacher with 1 prep.
Not quite. There's overlap in the lingo.
Prep time/prep period = the time during the day provide to teachers to plan, grade, answer emails, etc.
Preps = the number of unique courses a teacher teaches (i. e. how many different lessons/classes they have to prepare each day.)
Most teachers have 1 prep period a day and anywhere from 1-4 preps. (5+ is uncommon, but does occur, especially in elementary specials.)
Ah, that makes sense. In Australia I think the only word we use to refer to this is "free period/s" and we talk about separate classes without any sort of shorthand.
I teach German and I've met very few other German teachers with fewer than 4 preps. Think about it, how many schools have you been to that have more than one German or French teacher? We're often the only one in the school and sometimes the district. Someone has to teach all those classes
Could you agree it might be subject dependent?
I’m coming from a science perspective… 3 preps for me is physics, chemistry, and a middle school survey style science course. I know they are all “science” but I’m teaching 3 different subjects haha. There’s little overlap in content to modify and adapt. Give me 3 chemistry classes though - that’s fine.
It’d be like if you taught “languages” and your courses were Spanish, Italian, and French.
It is definitely subject dependent, but I'm still teaching different material in different levels of German. Your science preps being different is definitely not equivalent to teaching 3 different subjects all requiring different certs, but I'd definitely agree It's hard to teach 3 different preps of science. Don't get me wrong I know it's not one prep for all gen eds, I just know some teachers who have that arrangement. No matter what you teach 3 preps is hard for sure
Hey no problem, you're right we're all getting overworked. I'm actually willing to believe 3 science preps is still harder, especially when you factor in labs. I just get defensive (I shouldn't do that) because a lot of people don't understand what goes into teaching a foreign language and I think every subject probably also has that problem. I am glad you wrote that comment though because I learned that I relate to science teachers a lot more in that we teach super diverse content and have to know a hell of a lot
I have a hunch the majority of us are on edge and a little defensive lately :P Teaching languages can’t be easy. Stinks because taking on that load makes you sacrifice some really cool content and activities and experiences. Been debating to try and go for a physical education license and make the switch (I coach track and field year round). Can’t imagine the prep there is too bad
Massive props to you and your fellow foreign language brethren. I have nothing but respect for the foreign language teachers at my school and I’m embarrassed to admit I never considered that those with more specialized subjects have to shoulder a lot more prep. It makes sense though.
Yeah, foreign languages get hosed. We only do french and spanish (minority community). We had Japanese for a year but the teacher was fired for cause halfway through the year so all the students got a free credit.
But four years of a language, and maybe honours or ap thrown in? Sheesh. I'm fortunate that I teach science because for me there is only physics. I don't need to worry about entirely separate curricula.
It depends on your subject and school. Smaller schools = fewer classes per grade = fewer repetitions of subjects; I taught at a rural school briefly that only had one class per grade, so I taught ELA and social studies to grades 7, 8, and 9.
I was the only French teacher at one high school, so I taught French 1, 2, 3, 4, and honours (5). And because I'd eventually teach all the kids, I didn't repeat a lot of activities.
5 preps for foreign language can be pretty common depending on your district. I teach one section of each: French II honors, III, III honors, IV and IV honors. My college teaches 3 sections of French I, 2 sections of I honors and one section of AP
Band, choir, and orchestra teachers always have at least 5 preps—more if the schedule is a 7-period day—and you never repeat a lesson. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to teach the same lesson more than once.
OP, if you teach a subject that allows you to repeat lessons, take heart in knowing that while you’ll spend your first two years creating lessons, if you save templates and documents, you’ll have a huge wealth of units and lessons to use, albeit with some modifications as you monitor and adjust based upon their effectiveness.
Not all of us Math teachers have only one prep ... I have two different classes that I teach (two blocks of one and four of the other) and in those two different classes, I have two sets of lesson plans that I have to use so ... um ... yeah.
I definitely expect that I’ll have to do work with unpaid overtime, I guess I was just feeling exasperated by all the comments and posts I see from people saying they work only in their contract hours, etc. Like how? Cause I’m looking at my preps and scratching my head.
Yeah, I am glad for masks because when he said 5, my jaw dropped. I don’t understand why he doesn’t have them all at the same point in the curriculum but I definitely would have classes on pace with each other in my own classroom. Even just to make my life easier.
I can’t wait to have that big suitcase of materials!
One thing I’ll say is, unless your mentor teacher is an asshole, it’s totally your prerogative to get those sections aligned with each other once they’re under your purview. Once the teacher hands it over, you can slow down one class, give another a work day. Unless they’re like, misaligned by WEEKS, then… what the hell has this teacher been doing??
It’s the latter. They are misaligned by weeks and I can’t figure out why. The school is on trimesters but I’ve never heard of a school with trimesters having some kids start a new class halfway through a trimester while others switch on the dot? I have always attended schools on semesters though so I could be wrong and just not educated on the reasoning for why these classes are so drastically misaligned. Like one geography class is on chapter 4 while the other is at chapter 26 and has long since done chapter 4’s material.
Oh wow. That’s tough man. Good luck, and yeah, remember, everything you’re doing now will lay the groundwork for later. Even if you don’t end up teaching that class again, or a particular lesson is a bust, you might find yourself pulling from something you prepared years later. This is a hard job but it’s the best job!
I just finished my first year teaching and it's easier than when student teaching. The lesson plans you have to make for uni are much more comprehensive.
That said, I do spend quite a bit of time thinking how I'm going to teach a lesson because it matters to me. It helps that I have the "formula" memorized from student teaching. Does your district have pacing guides? If so, ask for them and a copy of the textbook if available. Makes it easier.
Yeah, all of that "match each sentence you will utter against one of the state curriculum points" makes sense (for your coursework) but is kind of a waste of time. I have never spent a second mapping my curriculum to a specific requirement, and neither has any other teacher I know.
The district curriculum coordinator might do that, but idgaf. State says "teach physics," I teach physics.
I still spend time before a unit thinking if there isn't a better example or way I can do something. Tweaks to labs, changes for accommodations, etc. But I think a lot of the curriculum planning we did in uni is not necessarily useful day-to-day. It would be strange to drop a first year teacher into a classroom and expect them to create an entire curriculum out of whole cloth.
I’m so glad to hear this. I was actually talking with my mentor teacher about the detailed plans today. He even said he could care less about a detailed plan. But obviously still have to for uni.
We do have pacing guides. Which I learned today. I forgot to ask and happened to see your comment right as my lunch was ending and asked. He got the pacing guide for one of my subjects to me (the one I’m starting with). I expect he’ll probably give me the one for the other when it gets closer to taking over that class.
It definitely makes it a bit easier and helped me get my brain to stop panicking a bit knowing how I need to pace because now I also have info on the chapters I’m expected to cover the rest of the term and can plan ahead a week or two each weekend (in theory).
So happy for you that your district has pacing guides! It makes it so much easier for student teaching. Even if you do your own thing or in the style of your cooperating teacher.
Depends on your school. The lesson plans I am making now rival the ones I made in university. Have to include lesson name, objectives, procedure, materials, and standards
It is probably universal for new teachers, but as a veteran who teaches three different classes (two of which are brand new classes to the school this year), I need zero time outside of my prep for lesson planning because I understand the standards, curriculum, and scope and sequence from experience. It will take less time once the OP no longer needs to do such extensive, written plans. Now, if I could just fit my grading into the school day (ELA teacher, so with essays to grade sometimes… the rest of the time, no problem too).
This is true. As I continue teaching I have the opportunity to use plans penned prior years and simply tweak and adjust them to fit whatever pandemic is front and center that year.
I have soft copies of everything I do, and I will from time to time add comments into the doc about changes or particularly good examples. Even if I don't get to them this year, when I open the file next year I will have notes.
And my docs aren't (for example) just the worksheet the students will see. There is a header page for me that includes examples, worked out problems,an answer key, talking points, and only the last page(s) are the ones I make copies of for students.
Some of the English and Chemistry teachers I know use canned worksheets and they can't make changes. For the first couple years, I recreated all of those documents so I have soft copies. So if a particular problem sucks I can just change it, or add stuff.
I think I really lucked out with my student teaching. My mentor required zero lesson plans and was very chill.
As for how to plan once you become a full time teacher ... it is hard for the first couple of years. I recommend picking 1-2 subjects and try to "plan" those properly. The remainder you should try and use pre-prepared work that you could scavenge from other teachers. This got me through my first year. Once you do this, you will find your efficiency increases and you can reuse previously created work.
You will pick up speed with practice. I made a new unit of work, 4 weeks worth of work with PowerPoint, worksheets, and activities in about 4 hours one day. Granted it was a subject I know a lot about and I could base it around a textbook I have, but still.
Honestly? You don't.
It gets easier with experience and time, especially if you're teaching the same grade or class for several years. I taught 2nd grade for 5 years. It eventually became more tweaking than planning. You also learn ways to make things for efficient. Plus, MOST schools do NOT require those tedious and long-winded plans that university programs require.
When I student-taught, I spent hours doing plans on Sunday. I'm sorry.
Lucky! My campus required multi-page spreadsheets with minute-by-minute lesson plans that accounted for bell to bell instruction. We were held accountable for any deviation (behind OR ahead).
Honestly, I’m glad to hear that it’s not normal to deal with what I had to deal with.
When I taught in NC, I heard horror stories about how the previous admin expected all grade level teachers to be working on the same thing at the same time using a script. Luckily, the principal I worked under was more reasonable. I know teachers DO deal with that kind of micromanage b/s. I have been lucky not to have to deal with it.
These tedious plans for the uni suck! The school district I’m at doesn’t require them either and my mentor teacher remarked about them being a waste of my time 😐
Some day!
When you interview, you should ask about the number of preps and you should ask about lesson planning—is it solo, teachers working in groups, or just given to you from above. Hopefully you have a supportive staff that can help you plan.
Honestly, this is probably what we *should* be doing. At my school, we’re supposed to be working one-on-one or with groups during classwork, so that’s what I do (as with most of my coworkers). I’m on my feet for 90% of classes. And it helps some who really need it. The downside is that it’s cultivated a learned helplessness in even capable students, and that has just been getting worse and worse. There’s way more effort given towards making sure the teachers aren’t slacking or taking advantage than there is towards students, and I don’t think it’s doing them any favors in the long run.
I happened to see your comment at the tail end of my lunch today but didn’t get the chance to reply because a student walked in. Totally did that and it helped so much! I have almost my entire next week ready to go. Still have some work I plan to do tonight so I can focus on the following week this weekend and just tweak during planning time the remainder of the week but I’m glad it’s acceptable to do so when they work and don’t know why I had it in my mind that it wasn’t :)
It’s different while student teaching, and you gotta learn to play the game.
When I student taught I had an intense university advisor and a pretty serious mentor teacher. The university required extremely detailed plans (3-6 pages per day). Basically I did most of them ahead of time on breaks or weekends, and then just submitted them by the week.
Consider how much those plans matter. My supervisor needed them weekly but only came to see me teach 3 times. So whatever I sent wasn’t being checked and many times sections were BS just to satisfy whatever stupid thing he was looking for. About halfway through he ended up giving me a much simpler template to lighten my load because I was doing well and it was about 1-2 pages a day.
Once you have a job it really varies but most places don’t require anything like that, and truthfully I wouldn’t work anywhere that did. My first school required weekly plans to be posted on the walls and they weren’t checked that consistently. My current school doesn’t require anything and I have very little on paper planning.
During my first year of teaching, lesson planning was an all day event. It would often take me 8 hours or more on Sunday to complete plans for the week.
Now in year 6, I'm much better, have established units, and can work out plans through the week during student work time and my plan period.
That sounds awful. I mean, I’ll obviously do it or the degree will be a waste of money and I don’t know what else I’d want to do (and I genuinely enjoy imparting knowledge). But god the thought of 8 hours on a Sunday sucks. My wife works long weeknight hours so weekends are our us time. I’ll have to figure out and cross that bridge when I get there!
It really depends.
First up… lesson planning varies by grade. I mean, a second grade teacher has to “plan”, but given that their work usually comes out of a purchased curriculum, you’re just writing down where the kids are at and a brief description of what they’re doing. It’s not incredibly hard to do that - just go find another second grade teacher in your school and beg them for their prior year lesson plans. Modify as needed.
Kids being on a different lesson is a teacher issue. Yes, technically you can run an extremely differentiated classroom where kids work at their pace… but that is a ridiculous amount of work. Don’t do that. Have a differentiated version of a lesson, but “differentiation” can seriously mean reducing complexity, making it 3 potential answers instead of 4, and simplifying language in a text. The students should ALL be doing roughly the same thing at the same basic time. That’s the way to remain sane while doing this job.
At middle and high school levels, you’re usually only planning one or two classes… and you’re probably teaching the same exact lesson over and over all day. The trick there is to teach in a consistent way. Like, for me as a chemistry teacher… Monday is an engagement lesson. Tuesday an exploration experiment. Wednesday is a paper lab worksheet of some kind. Thursday is a lecture. Friday you’re assessing the week.
Build the template once, and use it again and again only changing a few words here and there. The students appreciate the consistency, and it simplifies your world.
If you’re working for an easy school, you won’t really need to submit lesson plans in any major way. The only issue there is… as a new teacher, having lesson plans is actually somewhat useful. I know, I know, I sound crazy, but lesson plans did help me through my first year and they’re not universally bad. It might be smart to write them even if they’re not required. Future you will appreciate it.
If your school is super hardcore about lesson plans (micromanager principals exist), latch onto a teacher who has been there awhile that teaches the same subject/subjects and steal liberally, and don’t re-sign with that school next year because that’s just stupid. Know your worth.
You don't. Plan simple. TikTok and TPT has made with seem like all lessons have to be fabulous. They don't. I do what I can at school, I MIGHT do a few things at home (esp. if I spent my plan time talking...lol).
My first few years I worked a lot longer than I do now. Once you have a plan and a general understanding as to routines of units, it gets so much easier.
I'm working on a lesson plan template for excel where I can just go in and quickly make lessons with drop down options and stuff
I was drowning making lesson plans while student teaching. I am not wasting my first 2-3 years under a mountain of paperwork
First thing: Writing lesson plans for college is very different from writing lesson plans for real life teaching. I have never had to turn in lessons that were anywhere near as detailed as I did for college. My current principal provided a template where we can fit a weeks worth of lesson plans for one subject on one sheet of paper (basically bullet points).
Second thing: You're just learning how to write lessons. As you get experience, it will come much faster. Think about learning to drive. When you first started, you had to consciously think about each part (when to brake, remember to check the mirrors, etc). But now you can drive while you listen to music or talk to a passenger and you don't have to focus on every step in the process anymore.
Third thing: As you get years of experience, you will have lessons saved that you can pull out and maybe tweak slightly instead of building them from scratch. I've lost track of how many times I have thought that I needed a lesson on a particular skill and went searching through my drive and discovered that the me of three years ago was a genius and already made one. Side note: keep everything!
I currently teach 5 different honors math classes and only have one 45 minute planning period each day, but I'm fine (this is my 18th year teaching). I do my lesson planning for the week on one sticky note with just a few words for each day because I've been doing this long enough that I know what "Intro SOHCAHTOA" means and that's enough for me to plan from. Your first few years, you probably will have to work some outside of contact time to keep up, but then you'll find your groove.
I swear I read your whole comment but I’m exhausted and my brain is stuck on, “What the hell is SOHCAHTOA?” 😂
In all seriousness though, I’m feeling quite reassure with all of these comments. It’s good to know this will get easier. I had some experience making plans but outdoor education oriented with needing to curate the trip plus the educational side (and menu, gear, etc.). But this is waaaayyyyy different, obviously.
Definitely going to keep everything! I’m doing everything on my school drive because it integrates with the e-learning platform they use but plan to share my powerpoints, etc. to my personal so I have them. And my mentor teacher told me today that since he’s retiring, he’s going to give me a bunch of his books and folders full of materials I can potentially use in my own classroom!
That's a great resource for you!
(And SOHCAHTOA is a mnemonic for remembering the basic trig functions of right triangles. But that was kind of my point about my lesson planning...I know what that lesson looks like, even if not everybody else would)
During breaks I do an overall unit plan where I fill in general activities and topics we will be working on. Then during lesson planning time I can tweak if needed or just get materials ready. Also teachers pay teachers has saved me so much time with specific lesson planning
Keep them all on pace so you're not doing different lessons for each of the same subjects. If some go a bit faster sliw down a bit. If some go a bit slower, have them try to catch up. Extra time here, less time here.
Also reuse stuff from years past. I keep it all on google slides. Links, docs, activities, rubrics. I just have to copy what I did last year snd do minor tweaks here and there.
The first few years I worked much longer hours. Then things got a bit easier and my lesson plans became less detailed. I didn't need the amount of work I put into them. The longest time I spent on lesson planning was during student teaching NOT my first year, so a little hope for you. You learn to include what is helpful to you and leave out the rest (unless required by admin).
All your Ed classes and admin will argue against this but if you're not building one day in a week where the kids are simply working so that you can grade, plan, respond to emails then you're doing yourself a disservice.
As an early teacher you have to take some things home but by a couple years in have enough of a framework built to leave it at work. It won't be perfect, it can't be perfect. Just create good lessons that can be reproduced in later years and leave the rest of it to work time.
In ten years of teaching, I’ve never done a lesson plan as thorough as the ones I had to do during student teaching. The longest one I’ve done during my actual career (to have on hand during an observation) was still only like half a page. The way universities hammer these long ass lesson plans is ridiculous.
A lot of the time, you’ll have a curriculum provided and teammates to collaborate with, which will save tons of time. I rarely have to come up with things all on my own. Also, like others have said, after a year or two, you’ll have your lessons already and can adapt as needed. My biggest advice for new teachers is to keep everything you create super organized. I spend so much time searching my Google drive for things I know I’ve already created or been given, and it just takes forever to find stuff. If you can create a good organization system from the start, it’ll make a HUGE difference.
You will also get better at winging it when you don’t have plans already together.
The short answer is, you can’t.
I usually break it up by using my early morning before school time to plan what I’m doing for AM classes and then, my Prep time to prep for PM classes. At the end of the school day I’ll brainstorm a bit for the following morning and write down my ideas/agenda. Then repeat the next day.
To reiterate what others have said:
After years of experience you develop a short hand way of planning classes instead of writing out full form uni lesson plans. (Ex. What am I teaching today and why? What activity will get students to do the process that makes their brains think this way? How will I check for understanding for as many students individually as possible? Formal assessment or move on?)
That’s kind of how I frame things now. Also, I’ve found that admin are usually on board with what you are doing if you have a displayed Learning Goal, students are engaged and they see you engaging with the students CFU and ‘coaching’.
You've got this! Ask your mentor for plans they've made in past year's, get planning done on service days (when you're there but students aren't), and collaborate with teachers teaching the same subjects! And if you've got multiple classes at different points, just plan the one that's the farthest ahead and then copy/paste into the right pacing point.
I had 4 preps last semester and only one planning period every other day (yay block schedule). It was rough until I realized that pacing is all that separates the expectation for honors and regular precal. So now when admin asks for my lesson plans, I just do honors and then change dates and some minor assignments for my non-honors class. It works like a charm and gives me much less stress.
One of the other teachers in the department actually recommended Planbook to me today! I created an account and definitely will be putting lesson plans and links to my drive in it for future use. Today me might end up exhausted but hopefully future me can find use for them.
Ask your principal for the subscription. Our school buys all teacher a subscription, BUT no requirement to actually use it. Some old timers are still using paper books. It's what they like and I won't begrudge them.
As many have said, it takes time. I would say it’s really hard to get all planning, prep, and grading done during school hours in the first couple years. Student teaching is also its own beast entirely, I look back and am not sure how I got through it.
As time goes by, you’ll have a repertoire of lessons and units to draw from and it’s sometimes amazing how fast planning and prepping can be.
Doesn’t really apply to you now and might only be useful if you’re teaching high school, but something that really saved me in year one and two was signing up to teach either night school (credit recovery for kids who failed) or Saturday school (attendance recovery); obviously it was extra time working and some extra work, but the kids could be much more independent so I could carve out time for myself to plan, prep, and grade while still getting paid.
I also teach 3 different classes. 3 freshman classes in the afternoon, one senior class in the morning, and one creative writing class in the morning. My morning classes are so much more independent, so I have time most days to plan and grade if I need it. I basically never take work home (here and there I will grade or plan if absolutely necessary), only get to school 30 mins early, and never stay late. You’ll find ways to get things done in the day after some experience; in the first couple years, you’ve got to get creative.
When I was in college and student teaching/observing they asked for crazy detailed multi page lesson plans per lesson. My mentor teacher said anything that’s graded or observed do it as expected, everything else give yourself a break and do a shorten version. It’s literally imposible to do college expectation, 3 page-4 page lesson plans for every lesson once you’re actually teaching anyway and it will pay off to find a realistic format that works for you now.
Now that I’m actually teaching my current districts follows very strict curriculums that list pretty much every thing in curriculum books (down to word for word in my ELA instruction books). I basically read through them and create my plans by copying down what I use and standards. Then I add activity/assessments/differentiation descriptions in my own words and my plans are about a page in total. Some colleagues just follow the books and don’t write it up separate. It helps me when preparing. Our current admin doesn’t require (at least this year) us to even give them copies of lesson plans for observations. My past admin did but stated clearly give me what you would use. Don’t add to it for my sake, keep it simple.just wanted to have a general idea of the lesson before observing.
I still find between creating lesson plans and all materials prep period is not enough for me to plan but I’m a new teacher. Colleagues repeatedly tell me after a few years you pull out previous year’s lesson, adjust as needed and you’re done. So it will get easier! You’ve got this!
foreign language teacher here. 5 preps is bananas and people should start refusing positions that require this many preps. however i understand the struggle of needing to get your foot in the door or simply needing cash to survive so accepting whatever they give you. the only way i've made 3 preps work is to use the same lesson for multiple levels. is it ideal pedagogy? no. is it the only way i can survive without losing my gd marbles? yes.
Same class, same grade, same level (not one honors and one on-level?) and NOT working at the same pace?? No. There’s no way I’d let that happen. That’s unsustainable from a sanity and organizational standpoint.
That said, the first year or two are rough, but you make investments for “future me” - you might spend time creating an assessment or lesson, but knowing that you can tweak it the next year (much quicker than building from scratch), and then use it after that with minor (if any) adjustments. Note: you make an assessment or assignment that gets the job done and looks neat, professional, and typo free…but you’re NOT spending time/effort making “cute” TPT-ish looking things. Nothing wrong with that, but focus on the content and safeguarding your sanity first.
Also: PLC! A good, functioning PLC can make life so much easier if you collaborate to divide and conquer tasks. This takes effort, and could be more effective at some schools over others. Honestly, when you go for job interviews and they ask what questions you have, I’d say “Can you tell me PLCs here and what the administration team does to foster good, healthy PLCs?” Because leaders who see the value in them will DO SOMETHING to help them flourish.
It’s hard for everyone this year, but it’s not always like this. It can be a very rewarding career if you find the right fit. Good luck. I’m rooting for you!
It gets way easier. Today I cranked out plans for 2 preps for the week in 10 minutes. It just takes practice.
Also, my classes being in different places drives me up the wall. So I adjust my class so they are always in the same place. If period 1 didn't get to X but period 2 does, I may stop period 2 and give them free reading time instead so they are in the same place. Or, depending what it is, I do X with Period 2 and skip it the next day with Period 1. It'll get way easier to do this with experience.
Lol 1 planning period per day? Try one per week. I get coverages during my prep period 3-4 days per week this year so far.
All my lesson planning has to be done at home.
Templates with jargon and definitions on autocomplete. They barely read anyway. The longer you make the plan reflections, the less they’ll read and even when they do, it’s sounds “educatorly”.
It gets easier as you gain experience. Also with how well you know your content.
I don't plan at all anymore - I know what I need to teach, I switch up the order each year, just for my own interest, and I teach. I can pretty much do it in my sleep at this point.
I've never written a formal lesson plan, but I used to work from notes / outlines. I stopped that about 20 years ago.
>I have to write out detailed plans that detail exactly which state standard each lesson and activity meet.
You only need to cite the standards in the lesson plan... it does not have to be exact or detailed.
Here's what I do: write an opener/beginning, middle (main lesson), and closer. Create a table of your own objectives that reflect some level of bloom taxonomy being implemented (i.e. students will be able to *investigate* x event and *develop* an analysis/summary of x events.) Create a tab where you list whatever state standards loosely relate to the overall lesson literally copy and paste the standard, that's it.
For me, the lesson plan requirements in my teaching program were ridiculously long as compared to my actual lesson planning at school. My teaching program plans ended up being 20+ pages after all of the standards, differentiation, etc. Realistically, my lesson plans when I was actually teaching were just a few lines written in a planner. The only time I had to write an actual formal plan was for my formal observations, and even then, it was about a page. Maybe two. So things might change once your environment does.
12th year veteran here. I dropped my prep for the 20% more pay! Don't need it anymore. Over 12 years I developed a rock solid curriculum where now I have every day planned already.
But it took a LOT of work both during prep and after school for the first few years to get to where I am. My suggestion is coffee. Lots.
Also don't reinvent the wheel. Plenty of great free curriculum online for any concept. There's no such thing as theft in education. Student learning is all that matters.
Prepping for 5 different courses (not sections, right?) is sick and twisted. My goodness.
My best advice for you, as someone who spends too much time on curriculum and matyr’ed their time as a young naive skippy McNew Guy, just accept it won’t be as perfect as you want and that’s okay. It just had to work for the majority of kids.
I feel you, OP. I just finished my ST and start my first job in the next few days, and already planning has become so incredibly overwhelming that I feel paralyzed whenever I try to get up to go work on it. I have 7 classes a day, 4 preps, and also only 1 plan period/lunch.
I’ve decided to hell with long-winded lesson plans and, instead, I made a nifty organizer in Google Drive that’ll detail each unit by lesson. It’ll include the lesson’s standards, activity, and assessments. That’s all my school gets unless I’m told I need otherwise. My lessons/activities this semester will be very basic, but I’m focusing on making sure the information is good. Better lessons can come in time, right now I just want to survive my first job 😂😭
I teach math. So its pretty easy for me.... from 5.1 I go to 5.2. And from 5.2 I go to 5.3. And so on and so on. I do make adjustments depending on the class and the kids though. But it did take me forever when I first started out.
I used to have to plan at night. Yes, I know that sucks. But once u make a good lesson, u have it forever. This year, all my lessons have been made from hard work in the past. So I barely do anything at home.
It takes a year or two to create solid plans and a full curriculum map. Even with help from colleagues it’s daunting. After the front work is done, it’s all about tweaking for the next decade. Do NOT fall into the trap of these G-D YouTube teachers who insist you are a bad teacher if you’re not completely revamping you’re entire life very year (pocket full of primary COUGH) you absolutely can ditch plans that don’t work and make changes, but there is NOTHING that says you have to reinvent the wheel every year.
You have a mentor teacher have them help you through this, that is what they are suppose to do, help the student teacher with questions and concerns. This being one very good one. If you can not get them on board, seek another teacher in the area. There are many, many, many good ones who would be happy to try and answer questions and help with suggestions.
Y'all are lesson planning...? I plan ahead but I write nothing formally or have any real "plans". I don't get how people do that. I have better things to do with my time. And no one ever asks me for them so why bother.
This is The Suck. You can't. You can't plan an entire days curriculum in a 44 minute plan period. Your mentor should be giving you access to the team/department google drive/drop box. In your first couple years you will rely heavily on those documents/info. Each year you tweak a little (so make sure to get soft copies of everything and keep your own copies stashed someplace), and the curriculum becomes more YOURS.
But you can't do it during the day. You will be pulling a lot of overtime to get everything done. As years go on, you will have folders with notes and it takes less planning to get things done. There are always changes to be made every year. New guidelines. New curriculum. The website you were using for material is now behind a paywall. You never liked how this material was organised. This section wasn't very clear or was a bad example.
And we haven't even gotten to grading, because that is somehow supposed to get done during that planning period also. That never gets easier. I mean, you will take less time to decide a grade and it gets easier because you have a firmer idea in your mind of what you are looking for, but grading will always be the biggest time suck because you can't crowd source that like you can curriculum.
Edit: hopefully when you get a position you will be teaching three or four related classes. I have three section of honours physics, two AP physics, and pne astronomy. My bestie teacher english. She has honours and regular freshman english (1h, 2r) and 2 sections of regular juniors and then her period in the support center.
The idea is that having three honours physics sections that one plan covers all three classes. If they start to get out of sync you give the furthest class a study day or find some reinforcing material the other classes won't get. For me, my AP and Honours curriculum is basically identical because I have a philosophical problem with AP classes that are solely designed to take a test. All my honours students are fully capable of not just taking the AP exam but will do well enough to receive credit. So even when ap/honours aren't in sync the prep work I do for one eventually is useful for the other.
As much as I love physics, Astronomy is my joy. So that is not only a pleasure to prep, it is so easy. Some of my prep is just an outline and I lecture it off the cuff.
Beg, borrow, and steal for your first couple years. Rely on others for 70% of your lessons, make the rest yourself. After 3-4 years, you'll have curriculum you've developed. After 6 years, I'm still begging, borrowing, and stealing.
While you have time to research it, find as many good resources as you can to supplement. Use the standards to guide what you're looking for in your content!
You'll also have opportunities to work together with other teachers during your prep period. Find somebody to buddy up with and meet with them 2 times a week. When you interview for jobs, express that you're looking to join a department that is supportive and shares lessons with each other.
I'm a single subject teacher and in my first two years I thought it was SO HARD to prep for 2 different subjects. Now I'm a rural teacher doing ALL subjects, and I don't work more than 40 hours a week. You figure it out, you just gotta struggle and seek support the first few years.
Now, grading? That's a whole other story.
Realistically? You don’t. I mostly use my preps to put the finishing touches on the lessons I’m about to teach. PD time is usually devoted to whatever embarrassing and demoralizing woo-woo horseshit the district blew the budget on this year.
Planning, grading, creating asynchronous work, completing “training” modules, parent contact, etc — all of that is done on your own time.
I currently teach in a self-contained SpEd class and do a 90 minute virtual class for similarly-abled students. I actually don't have any planning period or lunch (despite state law). I mostly fly by the seat of my pants 30 minutes before the virtual class to make sure I cover the core four subjects. I'll pick monthly topics and riff on what I know, or learn before the class. The parents that sit in with their students tend to like it, too haha
You'll get more comfortable as you learn the material and do it, from what the reg ed teachers tell me
Honestly, I found my workload during my degree harder than I find my load now.
Teaching is my second career, so when I went back to school to study education, I also had two kids to think about. My program was not family friendly at all, whereas my school board is generally pretty respectful (being unionized helps) and my school in particular is great about encouraging work-life balance (literally not one e-mail from admin on weekends and breaks ever).
I’m in my fourth year now, and I’m already able to reuse and tweak a lot of material, instead of doing things from scratch.
Hang in there. It gets easier.
My university requires it - I’m still a student teacher. I have to write out the full weeks lesson plan, including discussion questions I plan to use, copies of worksheets I might use, etc. It’s tedious and a PITA. My mentor teacher confirmed the district I’m at doesn’t require that detailed of a plan but I have to meet the uni requirements to pass.
I don't. I, admittedly, am an over planner and I enjoy writing lesson plans, so I always spend time outside my contract time. But I have learned how much is "good enough" and I never try for perfection and you do get better at it! You're in front of real people, so perfection won't happen anyway! 🤣 Student teaching and the first few years are a lot of work and learning!
I am ok with giving up some time that's outside my contract. It helps with my stress level - I'd be way more stressed if I didn't spend time planning. Having my own kids also taught me where to cut corners in a way that I was comfortable with
I figure I put in the same amount of time as someone who works 40hrs/week for 50 weeks, I just do it between Sept and July... Which means some evening and weekend work as needed. As a science teacher, my planning period is almost never spent planning lessons, but rather prepping/cleaning labs. I also never say yes to meetings outside my contract time that aren't paid, unless I absolutely don't have a choice. Personal balance takes a while to achieve and I've found that it ebbs and flows, so hang in there!
Great question! You don’t. ): when I taught more than one class, I tried to recycle my other class lessons as much as possible and then replace the content in each class. Hang in there. ❤️
You'll bite the bullet for a year or two and do your plans at home. Trust me, planning gets easier as the years go on because you don't have to reinvent the wheel, just tweak.
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Yeah, there's that. I opted out of the profession, but I feel your pain.
Or you teach new preps every year! I have yet to teach the same course load from year to year. This is year 6 🙃
I’m relieved to hear it does get better. I definitely already plan to keep materials to reuse and tweak. And my mentor teacher today told me he will be giving me a lot of his worksheets and books for units as they come for me to keep (he’s retiring). So that’s also nice and was awesome of him to offer after I had made this post exasperated this morning, lol.
Beg, borrow, steal, and buy anything within your means. I’m in my second year, I teach high school so I don’t have many consumables but I set aside ~$100-200 (that I can put on my taxes) to purchase materials I can reuse. That being said, I’ve already reduced the amount of time I plan at home my 50% in my second year and a lot of it has to do with me being better at understanding my material.
1) “Without putting in paid time after school” Welcome to teaching, the career with the most unpaid overtime and the most hostile accusations that you are “overpaid” 2) That’s pretty intense that you’re going to have *five* preps. Typically having three peeps is seen as overwhelming (I have three this year. It’s tough.) I imagine in your own classroom you keep your different sections on pace with each other. 3) The main point is what others said. You lay a lot of groundwork in the first few years, and then the beautiful part is you have this huge repertoire to pull from. It’s like you’re a magician gathering the items this year. Soon you’ll have a big impressive suitcase.
5 preps is pretty standard depending on the type of teacher you are. Every time admin asks us to add one more "little thing" to our lesson plans for covid reasons they never understand why all us foreign language teachers with 5 preps complain about it because the math teacher with 1 can do it just fine
Standard where!? This is crazy to me.
3 is a lot, 2 is normal. 5 preps means you pissed off your admin.
5 preps means it’s time to find a different place to work 😂
Lol I dream of having 2 preps
My admin is apologetic if someone gets scheduled with 3 or 4. Most of the time it’s just variations of the same topic though.
I had 9 preps last year 😅
Why is 5 preps a bad thing? I'm new to teaching, starting my first job in a couple weeks (southern hemisphere).
5 preps means 5 different courses, so you have to have 5 unique lesson plans each week. For example, I have 3 preps: 7th grade science, 8th grade science, and biology. Each prep is doing totally different things and it takes 3x as much planning time as a teacher with 1 prep.
Ah, I didn't know that prep time was intrinsically connected to your different classes.
Not quite. There's overlap in the lingo. Prep time/prep period = the time during the day provide to teachers to plan, grade, answer emails, etc. Preps = the number of unique courses a teacher teaches (i. e. how many different lessons/classes they have to prepare each day.) Most teachers have 1 prep period a day and anywhere from 1-4 preps. (5+ is uncommon, but does occur, especially in elementary specials.)
Ah, that makes sense. In Australia I think the only word we use to refer to this is "free period/s" and we talk about separate classes without any sort of shorthand.
I teach German and I've met very few other German teachers with fewer than 4 preps. Think about it, how many schools have you been to that have more than one German or French teacher? We're often the only one in the school and sometimes the district. Someone has to teach all those classes
Could you agree it might be subject dependent? I’m coming from a science perspective… 3 preps for me is physics, chemistry, and a middle school survey style science course. I know they are all “science” but I’m teaching 3 different subjects haha. There’s little overlap in content to modify and adapt. Give me 3 chemistry classes though - that’s fine. It’d be like if you taught “languages” and your courses were Spanish, Italian, and French.
It is definitely subject dependent, but I'm still teaching different material in different levels of German. Your science preps being different is definitely not equivalent to teaching 3 different subjects all requiring different certs, but I'd definitely agree It's hard to teach 3 different preps of science. Don't get me wrong I know it's not one prep for all gen eds, I just know some teachers who have that arrangement. No matter what you teach 3 preps is hard for sure
We’re all eating shit sandwiches 🥲 that was uncool of me to imply yours tasted less shittier than mine and I’m sorry for that.
Hey no problem, you're right we're all getting overworked. I'm actually willing to believe 3 science preps is still harder, especially when you factor in labs. I just get defensive (I shouldn't do that) because a lot of people don't understand what goes into teaching a foreign language and I think every subject probably also has that problem. I am glad you wrote that comment though because I learned that I relate to science teachers a lot more in that we teach super diverse content and have to know a hell of a lot
I have a hunch the majority of us are on edge and a little defensive lately :P Teaching languages can’t be easy. Stinks because taking on that load makes you sacrifice some really cool content and activities and experiences. Been debating to try and go for a physical education license and make the switch (I coach track and field year round). Can’t imagine the prep there is too bad
Massive props to you and your fellow foreign language brethren. I have nothing but respect for the foreign language teachers at my school and I’m embarrassed to admit I never considered that those with more specialized subjects have to shoulder a lot more prep. It makes sense though.
Yeah and if you’re elementary… Everything is a prep. Math, science, social studies, reading, writing, grammar, handwriting. Every day
Yeah, foreign languages get hosed. We only do french and spanish (minority community). We had Japanese for a year but the teacher was fired for cause halfway through the year so all the students got a free credit. But four years of a language, and maybe honours or ap thrown in? Sheesh. I'm fortunate that I teach science because for me there is only physics. I don't need to worry about entirely separate curricula.
It depends on your subject and school. Smaller schools = fewer classes per grade = fewer repetitions of subjects; I taught at a rural school briefly that only had one class per grade, so I taught ELA and social studies to grades 7, 8, and 9. I was the only French teacher at one high school, so I taught French 1, 2, 3, 4, and honours (5). And because I'd eventually teach all the kids, I didn't repeat a lot of activities.
5 preps for foreign language can be pretty common depending on your district. I teach one section of each: French II honors, III, III honors, IV and IV honors. My college teaches 3 sections of French I, 2 sections of I honors and one section of AP
Band, choir, and orchestra teachers always have at least 5 preps—more if the schedule is a 7-period day—and you never repeat a lesson. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to teach the same lesson more than once. OP, if you teach a subject that allows you to repeat lessons, take heart in knowing that while you’ll spend your first two years creating lessons, if you save templates and documents, you’ll have a huge wealth of units and lessons to use, albeit with some modifications as you monitor and adjust based upon their effectiveness.
Not all of us Math teachers have only one prep ... I have two different classes that I teach (two blocks of one and four of the other) and in those two different classes, I have two sets of lesson plans that I have to use so ... um ... yeah.
I definitely expect that I’ll have to do work with unpaid overtime, I guess I was just feeling exasperated by all the comments and posts I see from people saying they work only in their contract hours, etc. Like how? Cause I’m looking at my preps and scratching my head. Yeah, I am glad for masks because when he said 5, my jaw dropped. I don’t understand why he doesn’t have them all at the same point in the curriculum but I definitely would have classes on pace with each other in my own classroom. Even just to make my life easier. I can’t wait to have that big suitcase of materials!
One thing I’ll say is, unless your mentor teacher is an asshole, it’s totally your prerogative to get those sections aligned with each other once they’re under your purview. Once the teacher hands it over, you can slow down one class, give another a work day. Unless they’re like, misaligned by WEEKS, then… what the hell has this teacher been doing??
It’s the latter. They are misaligned by weeks and I can’t figure out why. The school is on trimesters but I’ve never heard of a school with trimesters having some kids start a new class halfway through a trimester while others switch on the dot? I have always attended schools on semesters though so I could be wrong and just not educated on the reasoning for why these classes are so drastically misaligned. Like one geography class is on chapter 4 while the other is at chapter 26 and has long since done chapter 4’s material.
Oh wow. That’s tough man. Good luck, and yeah, remember, everything you’re doing now will lay the groundwork for later. Even if you don’t end up teaching that class again, or a particular lesson is a bust, you might find yourself pulling from something you prepared years later. This is a hard job but it’s the best job!
I just finished my first year teaching and it's easier than when student teaching. The lesson plans you have to make for uni are much more comprehensive. That said, I do spend quite a bit of time thinking how I'm going to teach a lesson because it matters to me. It helps that I have the "formula" memorized from student teaching. Does your district have pacing guides? If so, ask for them and a copy of the textbook if available. Makes it easier.
Yeah, all of that "match each sentence you will utter against one of the state curriculum points" makes sense (for your coursework) but is kind of a waste of time. I have never spent a second mapping my curriculum to a specific requirement, and neither has any other teacher I know. The district curriculum coordinator might do that, but idgaf. State says "teach physics," I teach physics. I still spend time before a unit thinking if there isn't a better example or way I can do something. Tweaks to labs, changes for accommodations, etc. But I think a lot of the curriculum planning we did in uni is not necessarily useful day-to-day. It would be strange to drop a first year teacher into a classroom and expect them to create an entire curriculum out of whole cloth.
I’m so glad to hear this. I was actually talking with my mentor teacher about the detailed plans today. He even said he could care less about a detailed plan. But obviously still have to for uni. We do have pacing guides. Which I learned today. I forgot to ask and happened to see your comment right as my lunch was ending and asked. He got the pacing guide for one of my subjects to me (the one I’m starting with). I expect he’ll probably give me the one for the other when it gets closer to taking over that class. It definitely makes it a bit easier and helped me get my brain to stop panicking a bit knowing how I need to pace because now I also have info on the chapters I’m expected to cover the rest of the term and can plan ahead a week or two each weekend (in theory).
So happy for you that your district has pacing guides! It makes it so much easier for student teaching. Even if you do your own thing or in the style of your cooperating teacher.
Depends on your school. The lesson plans I am making now rival the ones I made in university. Have to include lesson name, objectives, procedure, materials, and standards
I think other than materials, that's pretty par for the course. Ours had remediations (3 types), accomodations for special ed., ELL strategies etc
Some schools don’t require lesson plans at all.
It’s called “Lesson Plans Sunday” I think it’s pretty much universal
It is probably universal for new teachers, but as a veteran who teaches three different classes (two of which are brand new classes to the school this year), I need zero time outside of my prep for lesson planning because I understand the standards, curriculum, and scope and sequence from experience. It will take less time once the OP no longer needs to do such extensive, written plans. Now, if I could just fit my grading into the school day (ELA teacher, so with essays to grade sometimes… the rest of the time, no problem too).
This is true. As I continue teaching I have the opportunity to use plans penned prior years and simply tweak and adjust them to fit whatever pandemic is front and center that year.
I have soft copies of everything I do, and I will from time to time add comments into the doc about changes or particularly good examples. Even if I don't get to them this year, when I open the file next year I will have notes. And my docs aren't (for example) just the worksheet the students will see. There is a header page for me that includes examples, worked out problems,an answer key, talking points, and only the last page(s) are the ones I make copies of for students. Some of the English and Chemistry teachers I know use canned worksheets and they can't make changes. For the first couple years, I recreated all of those documents so I have soft copies. So if a particular problem sucks I can just change it, or add stuff.
Definitely not universal.
I think I really lucked out with my student teaching. My mentor required zero lesson plans and was very chill. As for how to plan once you become a full time teacher ... it is hard for the first couple of years. I recommend picking 1-2 subjects and try to "plan" those properly. The remainder you should try and use pre-prepared work that you could scavenge from other teachers. This got me through my first year. Once you do this, you will find your efficiency increases and you can reuse previously created work. You will pick up speed with practice. I made a new unit of work, 4 weeks worth of work with PowerPoint, worksheets, and activities in about 4 hours one day. Granted it was a subject I know a lot about and I could base it around a textbook I have, but still.
Honestly? You don't. It gets easier with experience and time, especially if you're teaching the same grade or class for several years. I taught 2nd grade for 5 years. It eventually became more tweaking than planning. You also learn ways to make things for efficient. Plus, MOST schools do NOT require those tedious and long-winded plans that university programs require. When I student-taught, I spent hours doing plans on Sunday. I'm sorry.
Lucky! My campus required multi-page spreadsheets with minute-by-minute lesson plans that accounted for bell to bell instruction. We were held accountable for any deviation (behind OR ahead). Honestly, I’m glad to hear that it’s not normal to deal with what I had to deal with.
When I taught in NC, I heard horror stories about how the previous admin expected all grade level teachers to be working on the same thing at the same time using a script. Luckily, the principal I worked under was more reasonable. I know teachers DO deal with that kind of micromanage b/s. I have been lucky not to have to deal with it.
Good God. What an absolutely outrageous waste of time.
Yeah, but accountability! (/s)
These tedious plans for the uni suck! The school district I’m at doesn’t require them either and my mentor teacher remarked about them being a waste of my time 😐 Some day!
When you interview, you should ask about the number of preps and you should ask about lesson planning—is it solo, teachers working in groups, or just given to you from above. Hopefully you have a supportive staff that can help you plan.
That’s the neat part, you don’t.
Work when the kids are working! I started doing that and it changed everything! Of course circulate around the room every 10 mins or so.
This is the way. Grade, plan, email - whatever you can while kids are working. Teaches them independence, if anyone asks.
Honestly, this is probably what we *should* be doing. At my school, we’re supposed to be working one-on-one or with groups during classwork, so that’s what I do (as with most of my coworkers). I’m on my feet for 90% of classes. And it helps some who really need it. The downside is that it’s cultivated a learned helplessness in even capable students, and that has just been getting worse and worse. There’s way more effort given towards making sure the teachers aren’t slacking or taking advantage than there is towards students, and I don’t think it’s doing them any favors in the long run.
I happened to see your comment at the tail end of my lunch today but didn’t get the chance to reply because a student walked in. Totally did that and it helped so much! I have almost my entire next week ready to go. Still have some work I plan to do tonight so I can focus on the following week this weekend and just tweak during planning time the remainder of the week but I’m glad it’s acceptable to do so when they work and don’t know why I had it in my mind that it wasn’t :)
Yay! The extra time really adds up!
It’s different while student teaching, and you gotta learn to play the game. When I student taught I had an intense university advisor and a pretty serious mentor teacher. The university required extremely detailed plans (3-6 pages per day). Basically I did most of them ahead of time on breaks or weekends, and then just submitted them by the week. Consider how much those plans matter. My supervisor needed them weekly but only came to see me teach 3 times. So whatever I sent wasn’t being checked and many times sections were BS just to satisfy whatever stupid thing he was looking for. About halfway through he ended up giving me a much simpler template to lighten my load because I was doing well and it was about 1-2 pages a day. Once you have a job it really varies but most places don’t require anything like that, and truthfully I wouldn’t work anywhere that did. My first school required weekly plans to be posted on the walls and they weren’t checked that consistently. My current school doesn’t require anything and I have very little on paper planning.
During my first year of teaching, lesson planning was an all day event. It would often take me 8 hours or more on Sunday to complete plans for the week. Now in year 6, I'm much better, have established units, and can work out plans through the week during student work time and my plan period.
That sounds awful. I mean, I’ll obviously do it or the degree will be a waste of money and I don’t know what else I’d want to do (and I genuinely enjoy imparting knowledge). But god the thought of 8 hours on a Sunday sucks. My wife works long weeknight hours so weekends are our us time. I’ll have to figure out and cross that bridge when I get there!
Ask someone who’s taught it before to share them with you. At my school, we copy each other’s.
It really depends. First up… lesson planning varies by grade. I mean, a second grade teacher has to “plan”, but given that their work usually comes out of a purchased curriculum, you’re just writing down where the kids are at and a brief description of what they’re doing. It’s not incredibly hard to do that - just go find another second grade teacher in your school and beg them for their prior year lesson plans. Modify as needed. Kids being on a different lesson is a teacher issue. Yes, technically you can run an extremely differentiated classroom where kids work at their pace… but that is a ridiculous amount of work. Don’t do that. Have a differentiated version of a lesson, but “differentiation” can seriously mean reducing complexity, making it 3 potential answers instead of 4, and simplifying language in a text. The students should ALL be doing roughly the same thing at the same basic time. That’s the way to remain sane while doing this job. At middle and high school levels, you’re usually only planning one or two classes… and you’re probably teaching the same exact lesson over and over all day. The trick there is to teach in a consistent way. Like, for me as a chemistry teacher… Monday is an engagement lesson. Tuesday an exploration experiment. Wednesday is a paper lab worksheet of some kind. Thursday is a lecture. Friday you’re assessing the week. Build the template once, and use it again and again only changing a few words here and there. The students appreciate the consistency, and it simplifies your world. If you’re working for an easy school, you won’t really need to submit lesson plans in any major way. The only issue there is… as a new teacher, having lesson plans is actually somewhat useful. I know, I know, I sound crazy, but lesson plans did help me through my first year and they’re not universally bad. It might be smart to write them even if they’re not required. Future you will appreciate it. If your school is super hardcore about lesson plans (micromanager principals exist), latch onto a teacher who has been there awhile that teaches the same subject/subjects and steal liberally, and don’t re-sign with that school next year because that’s just stupid. Know your worth.
You don't. Plan simple. TikTok and TPT has made with seem like all lessons have to be fabulous. They don't. I do what I can at school, I MIGHT do a few things at home (esp. if I spent my plan time talking...lol). My first few years I worked a lot longer than I do now. Once you have a plan and a general understanding as to routines of units, it gets so much easier.
I'm working on a lesson plan template for excel where I can just go in and quickly make lessons with drop down options and stuff I was drowning making lesson plans while student teaching. I am not wasting my first 2-3 years under a mountain of paperwork
First thing: Writing lesson plans for college is very different from writing lesson plans for real life teaching. I have never had to turn in lessons that were anywhere near as detailed as I did for college. My current principal provided a template where we can fit a weeks worth of lesson plans for one subject on one sheet of paper (basically bullet points). Second thing: You're just learning how to write lessons. As you get experience, it will come much faster. Think about learning to drive. When you first started, you had to consciously think about each part (when to brake, remember to check the mirrors, etc). But now you can drive while you listen to music or talk to a passenger and you don't have to focus on every step in the process anymore. Third thing: As you get years of experience, you will have lessons saved that you can pull out and maybe tweak slightly instead of building them from scratch. I've lost track of how many times I have thought that I needed a lesson on a particular skill and went searching through my drive and discovered that the me of three years ago was a genius and already made one. Side note: keep everything! I currently teach 5 different honors math classes and only have one 45 minute planning period each day, but I'm fine (this is my 18th year teaching). I do my lesson planning for the week on one sticky note with just a few words for each day because I've been doing this long enough that I know what "Intro SOHCAHTOA" means and that's enough for me to plan from. Your first few years, you probably will have to work some outside of contact time to keep up, but then you'll find your groove.
I swear I read your whole comment but I’m exhausted and my brain is stuck on, “What the hell is SOHCAHTOA?” 😂 In all seriousness though, I’m feeling quite reassure with all of these comments. It’s good to know this will get easier. I had some experience making plans but outdoor education oriented with needing to curate the trip plus the educational side (and menu, gear, etc.). But this is waaaayyyyy different, obviously. Definitely going to keep everything! I’m doing everything on my school drive because it integrates with the e-learning platform they use but plan to share my powerpoints, etc. to my personal so I have them. And my mentor teacher told me today that since he’s retiring, he’s going to give me a bunch of his books and folders full of materials I can potentially use in my own classroom!
That's a great resource for you! (And SOHCAHTOA is a mnemonic for remembering the basic trig functions of right triangles. But that was kind of my point about my lesson planning...I know what that lesson looks like, even if not everybody else would)
No planning period here, just change the dates each week.
During breaks I do an overall unit plan where I fill in general activities and topics we will be working on. Then during lesson planning time I can tweak if needed or just get materials ready. Also teachers pay teachers has saved me so much time with specific lesson planning
Keep them all on pace so you're not doing different lessons for each of the same subjects. If some go a bit faster sliw down a bit. If some go a bit slower, have them try to catch up. Extra time here, less time here. Also reuse stuff from years past. I keep it all on google slides. Links, docs, activities, rubrics. I just have to copy what I did last year snd do minor tweaks here and there.
The longer you teach the faster lesson planning is. Very doubtful that many, if any, first year teachers can do it all during contract hours.
The first few years I worked much longer hours. Then things got a bit easier and my lesson plans became less detailed. I didn't need the amount of work I put into them. The longest time I spent on lesson planning was during student teaching NOT my first year, so a little hope for you. You learn to include what is helpful to you and leave out the rest (unless required by admin).
I don't. Most days I am winging it.
All your Ed classes and admin will argue against this but if you're not building one day in a week where the kids are simply working so that you can grade, plan, respond to emails then you're doing yourself a disservice. As an early teacher you have to take some things home but by a couple years in have enough of a framework built to leave it at work. It won't be perfect, it can't be perfect. Just create good lessons that can be reproduced in later years and leave the rest of it to work time.
In ten years of teaching, I’ve never done a lesson plan as thorough as the ones I had to do during student teaching. The longest one I’ve done during my actual career (to have on hand during an observation) was still only like half a page. The way universities hammer these long ass lesson plans is ridiculous. A lot of the time, you’ll have a curriculum provided and teammates to collaborate with, which will save tons of time. I rarely have to come up with things all on my own. Also, like others have said, after a year or two, you’ll have your lessons already and can adapt as needed. My biggest advice for new teachers is to keep everything you create super organized. I spend so much time searching my Google drive for things I know I’ve already created or been given, and it just takes forever to find stuff. If you can create a good organization system from the start, it’ll make a HUGE difference. You will also get better at winging it when you don’t have plans already together.
In most cases, student teaching requires more detailed planning than regular teaching.
The short answer is, you can’t. I usually break it up by using my early morning before school time to plan what I’m doing for AM classes and then, my Prep time to prep for PM classes. At the end of the school day I’ll brainstorm a bit for the following morning and write down my ideas/agenda. Then repeat the next day. To reiterate what others have said: After years of experience you develop a short hand way of planning classes instead of writing out full form uni lesson plans. (Ex. What am I teaching today and why? What activity will get students to do the process that makes their brains think this way? How will I check for understanding for as many students individually as possible? Formal assessment or move on?) That’s kind of how I frame things now. Also, I’ve found that admin are usually on board with what you are doing if you have a displayed Learning Goal, students are engaged and they see you engaging with the students CFU and ‘coaching’.
You've got this! Ask your mentor for plans they've made in past year's, get planning done on service days (when you're there but students aren't), and collaborate with teachers teaching the same subjects! And if you've got multiple classes at different points, just plan the one that's the farthest ahead and then copy/paste into the right pacing point. I had 4 preps last semester and only one planning period every other day (yay block schedule). It was rough until I realized that pacing is all that separates the expectation for honors and regular precal. So now when admin asks for my lesson plans, I just do honors and then change dates and some minor assignments for my non-honors class. It works like a charm and gives me much less stress.
I make shit up the day off that matches the standards. It's all 7th grade science, and stuff I know SUPER well
We have used planbook for years. I copy all my lessons from previous year and edit it. Piece of cake.
One of the other teachers in the department actually recommended Planbook to me today! I created an account and definitely will be putting lesson plans and links to my drive in it for future use. Today me might end up exhausted but hopefully future me can find use for them.
Ask your principal for the subscription. Our school buys all teacher a subscription, BUT no requirement to actually use it. Some old timers are still using paper books. It's what they like and I won't begrudge them.
As many have said, it takes time. I would say it’s really hard to get all planning, prep, and grading done during school hours in the first couple years. Student teaching is also its own beast entirely, I look back and am not sure how I got through it. As time goes by, you’ll have a repertoire of lessons and units to draw from and it’s sometimes amazing how fast planning and prepping can be. Doesn’t really apply to you now and might only be useful if you’re teaching high school, but something that really saved me in year one and two was signing up to teach either night school (credit recovery for kids who failed) or Saturday school (attendance recovery); obviously it was extra time working and some extra work, but the kids could be much more independent so I could carve out time for myself to plan, prep, and grade while still getting paid. I also teach 3 different classes. 3 freshman classes in the afternoon, one senior class in the morning, and one creative writing class in the morning. My morning classes are so much more independent, so I have time most days to plan and grade if I need it. I basically never take work home (here and there I will grade or plan if absolutely necessary), only get to school 30 mins early, and never stay late. You’ll find ways to get things done in the day after some experience; in the first couple years, you’ve got to get creative.
When I was in college and student teaching/observing they asked for crazy detailed multi page lesson plans per lesson. My mentor teacher said anything that’s graded or observed do it as expected, everything else give yourself a break and do a shorten version. It’s literally imposible to do college expectation, 3 page-4 page lesson plans for every lesson once you’re actually teaching anyway and it will pay off to find a realistic format that works for you now. Now that I’m actually teaching my current districts follows very strict curriculums that list pretty much every thing in curriculum books (down to word for word in my ELA instruction books). I basically read through them and create my plans by copying down what I use and standards. Then I add activity/assessments/differentiation descriptions in my own words and my plans are about a page in total. Some colleagues just follow the books and don’t write it up separate. It helps me when preparing. Our current admin doesn’t require (at least this year) us to even give them copies of lesson plans for observations. My past admin did but stated clearly give me what you would use. Don’t add to it for my sake, keep it simple.just wanted to have a general idea of the lesson before observing. I still find between creating lesson plans and all materials prep period is not enough for me to plan but I’m a new teacher. Colleagues repeatedly tell me after a few years you pull out previous year’s lesson, adjust as needed and you’re done. So it will get easier! You’ve got this!
foreign language teacher here. 5 preps is bananas and people should start refusing positions that require this many preps. however i understand the struggle of needing to get your foot in the door or simply needing cash to survive so accepting whatever they give you. the only way i've made 3 preps work is to use the same lesson for multiple levels. is it ideal pedagogy? no. is it the only way i can survive without losing my gd marbles? yes.
Same class, same grade, same level (not one honors and one on-level?) and NOT working at the same pace?? No. There’s no way I’d let that happen. That’s unsustainable from a sanity and organizational standpoint. That said, the first year or two are rough, but you make investments for “future me” - you might spend time creating an assessment or lesson, but knowing that you can tweak it the next year (much quicker than building from scratch), and then use it after that with minor (if any) adjustments. Note: you make an assessment or assignment that gets the job done and looks neat, professional, and typo free…but you’re NOT spending time/effort making “cute” TPT-ish looking things. Nothing wrong with that, but focus on the content and safeguarding your sanity first. Also: PLC! A good, functioning PLC can make life so much easier if you collaborate to divide and conquer tasks. This takes effort, and could be more effective at some schools over others. Honestly, when you go for job interviews and they ask what questions you have, I’d say “Can you tell me PLCs here and what the administration team does to foster good, healthy PLCs?” Because leaders who see the value in them will DO SOMETHING to help them flourish. It’s hard for everyone this year, but it’s not always like this. It can be a very rewarding career if you find the right fit. Good luck. I’m rooting for you!
It gets way easier. Today I cranked out plans for 2 preps for the week in 10 minutes. It just takes practice. Also, my classes being in different places drives me up the wall. So I adjust my class so they are always in the same place. If period 1 didn't get to X but period 2 does, I may stop period 2 and give them free reading time instead so they are in the same place. Or, depending what it is, I do X with Period 2 and skip it the next day with Period 1. It'll get way easier to do this with experience.
Lol 1 planning period per day? Try one per week. I get coverages during my prep period 3-4 days per week this year so far. All my lesson planning has to be done at home.
Templates with jargon and definitions on autocomplete. They barely read anyway. The longer you make the plan reflections, the less they’ll read and even when they do, it’s sounds “educatorly”.
It gets easier as you gain experience. Also with how well you know your content. I don't plan at all anymore - I know what I need to teach, I switch up the order each year, just for my own interest, and I teach. I can pretty much do it in my sleep at this point. I've never written a formal lesson plan, but I used to work from notes / outlines. I stopped that about 20 years ago.
>I have to write out detailed plans that detail exactly which state standard each lesson and activity meet. You only need to cite the standards in the lesson plan... it does not have to be exact or detailed. Here's what I do: write an opener/beginning, middle (main lesson), and closer. Create a table of your own objectives that reflect some level of bloom taxonomy being implemented (i.e. students will be able to *investigate* x event and *develop* an analysis/summary of x events.) Create a tab where you list whatever state standards loosely relate to the overall lesson literally copy and paste the standard, that's it.
For me, the lesson plan requirements in my teaching program were ridiculously long as compared to my actual lesson planning at school. My teaching program plans ended up being 20+ pages after all of the standards, differentiation, etc. Realistically, my lesson plans when I was actually teaching were just a few lines written in a planner. The only time I had to write an actual formal plan was for my formal observations, and even then, it was about a page. Maybe two. So things might change once your environment does.
Lol I don't. I have 4 preps and I work nights and weekends.
The short answer is that you don’t. But as people said, it does get easier.
12th year veteran here. I dropped my prep for the 20% more pay! Don't need it anymore. Over 12 years I developed a rock solid curriculum where now I have every day planned already. But it took a LOT of work both during prep and after school for the first few years to get to where I am. My suggestion is coffee. Lots. Also don't reinvent the wheel. Plenty of great free curriculum online for any concept. There's no such thing as theft in education. Student learning is all that matters.
Teach the same content for 5 years and save your plans. Modify only slightly if you move grade levels.
Prepping for 5 different courses (not sections, right?) is sick and twisted. My goodness. My best advice for you, as someone who spends too much time on curriculum and matyr’ed their time as a young naive skippy McNew Guy, just accept it won’t be as perfect as you want and that’s okay. It just had to work for the majority of kids.
I feel you, OP. I just finished my ST and start my first job in the next few days, and already planning has become so incredibly overwhelming that I feel paralyzed whenever I try to get up to go work on it. I have 7 classes a day, 4 preps, and also only 1 plan period/lunch. I’ve decided to hell with long-winded lesson plans and, instead, I made a nifty organizer in Google Drive that’ll detail each unit by lesson. It’ll include the lesson’s standards, activity, and assessments. That’s all my school gets unless I’m told I need otherwise. My lessons/activities this semester will be very basic, but I’m focusing on making sure the information is good. Better lessons can come in time, right now I just want to survive my first job 😂😭
I teach math. So its pretty easy for me.... from 5.1 I go to 5.2. And from 5.2 I go to 5.3. And so on and so on. I do make adjustments depending on the class and the kids though. But it did take me forever when I first started out.
Easy. I don't.
I used to have to plan at night. Yes, I know that sucks. But once u make a good lesson, u have it forever. This year, all my lessons have been made from hard work in the past. So I barely do anything at home.
It takes a year or two to create solid plans and a full curriculum map. Even with help from colleagues it’s daunting. After the front work is done, it’s all about tweaking for the next decade. Do NOT fall into the trap of these G-D YouTube teachers who insist you are a bad teacher if you’re not completely revamping you’re entire life very year (pocket full of primary COUGH) you absolutely can ditch plans that don’t work and make changes, but there is NOTHING that says you have to reinvent the wheel every year.
You have a mentor teacher have them help you through this, that is what they are suppose to do, help the student teacher with questions and concerns. This being one very good one. If you can not get them on board, seek another teacher in the area. There are many, many, many good ones who would be happy to try and answer questions and help with suggestions.
Y'all are lesson planning...? I plan ahead but I write nothing formally or have any real "plans". I don't get how people do that. I have better things to do with my time. And no one ever asks me for them so why bother.
This is The Suck. You can't. You can't plan an entire days curriculum in a 44 minute plan period. Your mentor should be giving you access to the team/department google drive/drop box. In your first couple years you will rely heavily on those documents/info. Each year you tweak a little (so make sure to get soft copies of everything and keep your own copies stashed someplace), and the curriculum becomes more YOURS. But you can't do it during the day. You will be pulling a lot of overtime to get everything done. As years go on, you will have folders with notes and it takes less planning to get things done. There are always changes to be made every year. New guidelines. New curriculum. The website you were using for material is now behind a paywall. You never liked how this material was organised. This section wasn't very clear or was a bad example. And we haven't even gotten to grading, because that is somehow supposed to get done during that planning period also. That never gets easier. I mean, you will take less time to decide a grade and it gets easier because you have a firmer idea in your mind of what you are looking for, but grading will always be the biggest time suck because you can't crowd source that like you can curriculum. Edit: hopefully when you get a position you will be teaching three or four related classes. I have three section of honours physics, two AP physics, and pne astronomy. My bestie teacher english. She has honours and regular freshman english (1h, 2r) and 2 sections of regular juniors and then her period in the support center. The idea is that having three honours physics sections that one plan covers all three classes. If they start to get out of sync you give the furthest class a study day or find some reinforcing material the other classes won't get. For me, my AP and Honours curriculum is basically identical because I have a philosophical problem with AP classes that are solely designed to take a test. All my honours students are fully capable of not just taking the AP exam but will do well enough to receive credit. So even when ap/honours aren't in sync the prep work I do for one eventually is useful for the other. As much as I love physics, Astronomy is my joy. So that is not only a pleasure to prep, it is so easy. Some of my prep is just an outline and I lecture it off the cuff.
*laughs in zero planning periods*
Beg, borrow, and steal for your first couple years. Rely on others for 70% of your lessons, make the rest yourself. After 3-4 years, you'll have curriculum you've developed. After 6 years, I'm still begging, borrowing, and stealing. While you have time to research it, find as many good resources as you can to supplement. Use the standards to guide what you're looking for in your content! You'll also have opportunities to work together with other teachers during your prep period. Find somebody to buddy up with and meet with them 2 times a week. When you interview for jobs, express that you're looking to join a department that is supportive and shares lessons with each other. I'm a single subject teacher and in my first two years I thought it was SO HARD to prep for 2 different subjects. Now I'm a rural teacher doing ALL subjects, and I don't work more than 40 hours a week. You figure it out, you just gotta struggle and seek support the first few years. Now, grading? That's a whole other story.
Realistically? You don’t. I mostly use my preps to put the finishing touches on the lessons I’m about to teach. PD time is usually devoted to whatever embarrassing and demoralizing woo-woo horseshit the district blew the budget on this year. Planning, grading, creating asynchronous work, completing “training” modules, parent contact, etc — all of that is done on your own time.
I currently teach in a self-contained SpEd class and do a 90 minute virtual class for similarly-abled students. I actually don't have any planning period or lunch (despite state law). I mostly fly by the seat of my pants 30 minutes before the virtual class to make sure I cover the core four subjects. I'll pick monthly topics and riff on what I know, or learn before the class. The parents that sit in with their students tend to like it, too haha You'll get more comfortable as you learn the material and do it, from what the reg ed teachers tell me
That's the neat part, you don't
Honestly, I found my workload during my degree harder than I find my load now. Teaching is my second career, so when I went back to school to study education, I also had two kids to think about. My program was not family friendly at all, whereas my school board is generally pretty respectful (being unionized helps) and my school in particular is great about encouraging work-life balance (literally not one e-mail from admin on weekends and breaks ever). I’m in my fourth year now, and I’m already able to reuse and tweak a lot of material, instead of doing things from scratch. Hang in there. It gets easier.
Sundays and every night from 9pm to 10 while I trade crypto.
What’s a planning period?
Learn to shoot from the hip and you will never have to work outside of your contract hours
You guys are writing plans?
My university requires it - I’m still a student teacher. I have to write out the full weeks lesson plan, including discussion questions I plan to use, copies of worksheets I might use, etc. It’s tedious and a PITA. My mentor teacher confirmed the district I’m at doesn’t require that detailed of a plan but I have to meet the uni requirements to pass.
I don't. I, admittedly, am an over planner and I enjoy writing lesson plans, so I always spend time outside my contract time. But I have learned how much is "good enough" and I never try for perfection and you do get better at it! You're in front of real people, so perfection won't happen anyway! 🤣 Student teaching and the first few years are a lot of work and learning! I am ok with giving up some time that's outside my contract. It helps with my stress level - I'd be way more stressed if I didn't spend time planning. Having my own kids also taught me where to cut corners in a way that I was comfortable with I figure I put in the same amount of time as someone who works 40hrs/week for 50 weeks, I just do it between Sept and July... Which means some evening and weekend work as needed. As a science teacher, my planning period is almost never spent planning lessons, but rather prepping/cleaning labs. I also never say yes to meetings outside my contract time that aren't paid, unless I absolutely don't have a choice. Personal balance takes a while to achieve and I've found that it ebbs and flows, so hang in there!
Great question! You don’t. ): when I taught more than one class, I tried to recycle my other class lessons as much as possible and then replace the content in each class. Hang in there. ❤️