New teachers often put in 12-16 hour days during their first year of teaching. This daily routine can be incredibly stressful during the first year.
Since so much of lesson planning depends on what happened during the previous lessons, it’s difficult to plan a lesson too much in advance. But there are long and short term strategies that new teachers can easily use to help them cope in their first year before teaching takes over their lives.
Lesson Planning – Long Term Strategies
Long term strategies are those lesson decisions that relate to academic goals. For example, where does the teacher want his/her students to be in a month’s time? Two months time? Using the curriculum and the textbook are excellent starting points for helping to raise the standards and close the gaps of students’ knowledge. Again, it also important to plan the week’s lesson around what students can actually do keeping the long term target in mind.
Long term strategies also relate to educational decisions. Perhaps, new teachers may want to train his/her students to work more cooperatively. Over time, he or she may start to feel more comfortable implementing pair or group work to help foster certain educational values such as tolerance and accepting differences.
Other Long Term Decisions
Take time at the end of the week or month, to catch up on “where you are” with regard to long term lesson planning decisions. What supplementary material should you add?
- If there is no book, what material should you teach? (4th grade, special education)
- How should you divide material between semesters?
- How should you deal with specific areas such as extensive reading?
Consult frequently a mentor or work with a teacher who teaches similar classes. You’ll be glad you did!
