Summertime Lesson Planning

Individuals outside the realm of education joke about summers being the perfect reason to teach. Educator’s know that even though school may not be in session and teachers may not be in the classroom every day, their jobs are far from over. Once one school year ends, the planning for the next begins. Summertime presents an excellent opportunity to get a head start on updating lesson plans, reviewing areas to improve and organizing for the next year. Planbook Plus is the perfect tool to use to divide the workload through collaboration, enhance current plans and miss as little time in the sun as possible.

Planning on the Go

Don’t let looming lesson plans shade your sunny summer days or temper your tan. Bring Planbook Plus poolside and catalog those new resources to make next year even more successful than the last. The ability to utilize Planbook Plus anywhere you can access the Internet ensures you won’t miss a beat buried under a pile of papers while you could be outside enjoying the weather. Planning in segments throughout the summer rather than in one burst at the end allows for revision, creativity and much better lesson plans.

Divide and Conquer

One way to cut your planning time in half is by planning with a friend. Planbook Plus is designed so that users can develop part of a curriculum or unit and consolidate their work at the end. If you are part of a team, each member can do a portion of the work. By utilizing the Timeline feature in Planbook Plus, one collaboration session can set the scope and sequence for the year. Set team goals and divide and conquer. Planning as a team has several benefits including the integration of several perspectives, different instructional approaches and a diffusion of workload, when pulled together can elevate a good lesson into an excellent one. In Planbook Plus, each team member can build individual lessons or compose full units, share resources and compose a portion of the yearly plan.

Gathering Materials and Rollover

As you think about next year, perhaps you have some ideas to strengthen lesson plans, replace others, and construct new projects, but you’re not quite ready to sit down and write your plans. As you’re sourcing Pinterest and catching up on educational blogs, you can save all of your resources and ideas right into your scope and sequence to revisit later. Once you start using Planbook Plus, you’ll be able to utilize the Rollover feature to review and revise Planbooks you’ve entered from the year before. This makes altering plans a cinch.

Integrate eLearning

In addition to trolling for resources online, Master Planner’s have access to thousands of eLearning lessons that can be used to diversify instruction, supplement existing lessons or as homework that grades itself. As you plan for next year, utilize the standards-based curricula in combination with your traditional plans to offer differentiated learning perspectives. Each lesson is complete with a learning component, guided practice and independent practice, along with an auto-grade feature. With access to comprehensive lessons in all of the core areas, you can leverage these eLearning lessons for remediation or test prep. Gathering resources throughout the summer, lesson planning in segments and utilizing a system that can help you organize those plans will make preparing for next year enjoyable and painless.