Careful and early planning
I am in total agreement with early and careful planning. It's another good habit one must exercise in order to be a professional.In order to be successful we must create good habits and using a things to do list is a priority for me.
Hi Alexander,
You are right about needing prep time. This is one of the often overlooked areas since it is easy for other activities to crowd it out. It needs to maintained as a daily part of teaching and the result will be a much more relaxed setting for the students.
Gary
The challenge is to have ample time to prepare yourself well in advance of classtime. If your prep-time is taken over by other activities--professional or personal--you are still left to scramble when class time comes. Prep time should be well-defined and untouchable so the instructors can count on the fact that they will have dedicated time to prepare. If other areas of life have to be sacrificed to take care of preparation needs, then not only do you lose out on those other areas of life, but the preparation will suffer as well.
I, too, am the type who writes out a detailed lesson plan for every single class session. I often find myself straying from the plan as dictated by time or student understanding or whatever, but it's nice to have everything laid out so that I know what needs to be finished during that class period, moved to the next class period if time runs out, etc.
Hi Margaret,
Way to go with your planning. You can't plan too much when it comes to teaching, as you well know. The more you have things organized the better prepared you will be to make changes as they are needed.
Gary
I live and die by my lesson plans. I am the type of personwho writes everything out in quite a bit of detail. Every quarter I tweak my lesson plans to make them better. Student feedback is invaluable to improving lesson plans.
Hi Samuel,
Isn't it a good feeling to know you are prepared for a class? Then you can go in and enjoy working with your students since you aren't trying to develop things on the fly. Good job.
Gary
Early and careful planning allows me the flexiblity to adjust content before time to deliver.
Hi Donald,
Way to go with your planning. Making and using a list is a way to make sure you don't forget some critical aspect of the course content or announcements.
Gary
