Planning
Of all the aspects of Student Teaching, planning was the one that tripped me up the most, and one that, though it seemed to come easier, never came quicker. Planning always takes me a lot of time. Sometimes, hours and hours of planning birthed into one 50 minute class period. I soon realized that I am the classic over-planner. To this day, I still plan way too much to fit into one class period; however, I've learned this can be a beneficial problem for me, because I never have dull, down-time in my class.
Every week, I continually communicated with my cooperating teacher, Carmen Davis, and my University advisor, Dr. Shana Hartman, about every single one of my lesson plans. I also shared ideas with other colleagues. This proved extremely rewarding, for I was able to pull in numerous resources from others, get new ideas, and adapt them for my classroom.
The lesson plan format I ended up choosing, the Finley Plan, was ideal for me. It challenged me to constantly be considering and planning my own actions as teacher alongside the actions and work I expected of my students. In addition, the Finley Plan encouraged me to constantly address variation in learning styles and performance mode since the plan asks teachers to consider the multiple intelligences. Finally, the Finley Plan proved favorable because one of the first sections, located in the top right, asks teachers to coordinate all lessons with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.
Something I learned very quickly when it comes to planning is the necessity of being flexible. As I already mentioned, I often planned way too much to fit into one class period, and so I had to make many adjustments concerning the length of time it took to complete activities. I also learned to be flexible in that occasionally a lesson or activity I planned was a total flop--it simply wasn't working. At first, I felt very committed to the lessons I had planned, but I soon learned how to totally drop an activity that wasn't working and try something else. That, or try to shift the activity, making adjustments until I began seeing connections with students.
To see some of my lesson plans from my Student Teaching semester, see the "Unit Plans" page.
