Teachable Moments [4] - Lesson Planning

Whereas last semester had me busy with essays and reflections on the basics of educational theory and child developement, this semster has me absolutely swamped with lesson and unit plans. I have to create 3 entire Unit Plans from scratch. This means all the assignment outlines, tests, assessments and each individual lesson that belongs in that Unit. All the while keeping in line with the Ministry of Education expectations and requirements. In other words, a crap load of work.

All the work I'm doing now will come in handy later when I can (hopefully) put these lessons and units to actual use, but for now all the work has me very tired.

I really never gave any thought to the amount of work that teachers had to go through. I suppose I always thought someone just gives them the lessons to teach and then they stand in front of a class for 75 minutes and deliver.

I could not have been more wrong.

Creating each individual lesson is very time consuming, and as a new-teacher, quite panic inducing. I implemented my first self-created lesson plan at my placement on tuesday. And I was terrified. Terrified that it would not work the way I planned and I'd be standing there in front of a class for over an hour with nothing worthwhile to do with them. Knowing that I had to do this lesson had me panicked for days before hand.

In the end it seems that my fears were unfounded because the kids actually loved my activity! It was actually a pretty amazing feeling to walk around the class and see them busily working on my activity in their table groups. The best part is that they seemed to actually enjoy it! 

This doesn't mean I'm any less panicked to create and teach my next lesson this coming tuesday. Oh, and because I did such a good job on my lesson, my placement teacher sent me an e-mail last night announcing that she is going to be away the following tuesday (March 1st) and asked me to teach all 3 of her classes that day.

Can you say panic. Good panic. But panic nonetheless.