make plan B as solid as plan A.
A back up plan is necessary and it should not be inferior to your original plan. It has been my experience that my back up plan ended up being my main plan for the next cycle.
Kristen,
Another benefit to alternate plans is for when a teacher needs to spend more time with struggling students, the stronger students can be given a similar topic to work on.
Barry Westling
For most of my assignments, I have a "first string" and "second string" version at the beginning of each course. After assessing the students' abilities, I choose which assignment would be best suited to the class as a whole and give that one. Both versions can be challenging and enlightening, but I've found that bogging students down with especially difficult assignments for their skill level simply does not benefit anyone.
Yevette,
I think good back-up plans can be substituted for regular course material and the students wouldn't even know the difference! Making them meaningful, available on short notice, low tech, and directly related to the subject matter all will contribute to seamless transition from the planned to the back-up plan.
Barry Westling
It is always good to have different plans of teaching to accomodate different learning styles.
Samuel,
Right.I have maintained this very point, that a Plan B can be a Plan A if we want. That is, all factors such as delivery, media, resources, activities, all can be developed into a number of different teaching components. We select what we think is best for the moment, knowing we have other, just as satisfactory lesson activities in the bag as needed. Of course, a good Plan B is also good for when nothing goes as planned and the teacher needs something to make the class time meaningful.
Barry Westling
I have found through experience that sometimes the best 'Plan B' isn't a reinvention of the wheel - just a different package. The same content can be modified and delivered in such a way that offers variety, critical thinking opportunities, direct engagement and an atmosphere that fosters self-direction.
Taking a long paper-based assignment and putting into an interactive PowerPoint, or taking numerous pages of drawn out text and demonstrating the summarized content on a video or DVD - can really go a long way to maintaining interest while delivering the same content and objectives of the course with some 'academic freedom'. Plan B should never be a "watered down version" of the real plan, just a different way of packaging it......
Francis,
Great thought! And you're right, a good back-up plan is not second rate, it's just idling there, waiting to be reved up!
Barry Westling
