We Need Curriculum Maps, Not Lesson Plans

Why require teachers to turn in lesson plans if that information is already available somewhere else?

I've heard from so many people who've said, I have to turn in lesson plans, and yes, I do my own lesson planning, but it's a whole nother ballgame to have to actually type up lesson plans to turn in.

And the evidence is clear that, by and large, principals are not looking at them.

And realistically, there's not time in the week to look at hundreds and hundreds of lesson plans for Dozens and dozens of teachers, five days a week.

It's just not feasible to actually check them.

And I have to question the value because we've already articulated what teachers will be teaching and roughly when in the form of curriculum maps and pacing guides.

And the curriculum itself often is very specific about what will be taught when.

And I've been shocked at how many people have said in the comments on my previous videos, the lesson plans that I turn in are simply me rewriting or copying and pasting or transcribing what's in our scripted curriculum.

I don't have any discretion over what I'm teaching when.

I have to take it from the published curriculum and put it into a document that I can turn in.

And that kind of thing just makes no sense to me.

If we already have that information outlined, let's just trust that.

Let's just use that.

And I do think every district, every school needs...

some sort of pacing guide or curriculum map or scope and sequence to articulate what's going to be taught when.

Because if we don't have that, what happens from classroom to classroom is people teach vastly different amounts of content.

And I'm not super picky on what gets taught when.

I think often there is some room for discretion in those things.

But at the same time, you have to teach everything at some point, and it makes sense to coordinate.

Because at the school level, when you have different classrooms that are not teaching the same thing, even though they're the same subject, same grade, parents notice and students notice and people compare notes and that can put us in a very difficult position as a school and it can make people think that one teacher is better than the other even if that has no bearing on reality so i think it does behoove us to make sure that we're teaching roughly the same thing at every time at the same time in each classroom that is the same subject and grade but that's that does not require lesson plans that that just requires nothing more than a very concise overview for the year of what's going to be taught when.

You could include the standard.

You could include, you know, kind of a learning target and success criteria.

You could include, you know, maybe some major projects that students are going to do.

You know, if there's a paper or a project, a poster, you know, any kind of...

major work product that students are going to do.

That's the kind of thing that parents are going to notice if you're not aligned from class to class.

So I think we can do away with this idea of turning in daily or weekly lesson plans, especially if there's already a scripted curriculum that teachers are required to follow.

And even if there's not, just do a curriculum map, just do a scope and sequence, just do a pacing guide, whatever you want to call it, whatever you want it to look like, do it for the whole year and you don't have to do it week after week after week.

Let me know what you think.