Teacher Peas, Lesson Plans

I do when asked. Usually my principal asks for a week each trimester- by Thursday afternoon of the week she’s asking for. I just copy my assignment/plan book and scrawl in the topics we’re doing, not the full standard.

I’m retired so I’m currently not riding lesson plans but we did not have to turn them in until the end of the school year. Which made no sense because supposedly the head of our special education department was going to go through them which he did not. In fact one year I refuse to turn them in and he never argued with me. He had never ever written a lesson plan or an IEP in his life yet he was going to tell us how to do it. I’m so glad I’m retired.  

No, never ... thankfully ... what a nightmare that would be   

My only detailed lesson plans are made when I have to make a substitute plan    

I never had to turn them in but I had one principal that said our lesson plan book needed to be opened on our desk for her to check if she wanted to. She did a couple times at the beginning of the year.

Well, thanks to politics in CA, every teacher does! Up until COVID, it has been decided by my principal if we had to. Usually, it was only for struggling teachers so the principal could offer support.

Some random bill passed in California that requires every teacher to submit their lesson plans for the week, attendance records for every student, and all forms of communication with your students (e-mail, referral to guidance, tutor support, etc.). It's all done digitally. Supposedly, it's tied to funding. What we all want to know is who's going to look at all that information?!

We plan together as a team, and our team lesson plans have to be uploaded into Google Drive. My old principal used to check them and would email us if our plans were not done by the Monday before the week they were to be taught (so another words, a week in advance). My current principal, to her credit, doesn’t really check. She might look if she has a question about something that we’re teaching, but she does not look just to check up on us.

Years ago, teachers were told that plans should be on their desks so they could be checked at random. I don't know that that was ever done. 

These days, hardly anyone uses an actual plan book anymore. Plans are usually done digitally. I remember the days of teachers in labor running into the building on their way to the hospital so that they could drop off plans for the substitute. These days, they just upload sub plans to AESOP. 

Our general education teachers follow a week-by-week pacing guide for all subject (that they've created as grade-levels) so it's pretty spelled out what they should be doing and where they should be, though there's some variation from class to class. 

I am not a gen ed teacher, but I do write daily plans for my groups. No admin has ever asked to see them. Before an evaluation I have to write up a narrative stating what the administrator will be observing, the goals and objectives, etc. 

As a SLP, I am required to keep daily attendance logs, along with a brief record of what was worked on in a session, which IEP goals it connects to, any accommodations provided, and any relevant data. I've developed a google form and it dumps it all into a spreadsheet. 

I'm also no longer teaching, but when I was (up until the end of 2009) we were expected to have our lesson plans for the week online by Monday when classes started. We were able to change things during the week, if necessary. The main reason was so that plans were there in cases of unexpected absence.

Wow! things have changed. I taught in the 80's and 90's and was required to turn in lesson plans with the objectives listed for each lesson. We had a list of objectives that were to be covered in each course for the year and they even had how many hours should be spent on each objective. The lesson plans were required to be turned in before first period on Monday. A teacher had to map out the course for the year to be sure everything was covered that was needed to be covered.

Teachers that taught more than one subject had more to do than those who only taught one. There were some years I taught three different courses. Which meant more planing and more paperwork etc. But it helped me a lot to stay on track. Teachers got one period off a day for planning. If a teacher planned it right, worksheets for the week were run off before the week started. We were also required to have emergency plans for the substitute, with worksheets, etc. (Substitutes generally did not have the skills to teach what was planned.)

We didn't have to turn them in, but we were observed between 3-7 times a year and the observer had to be able to see the plans. We also had to have the objective posted and the kids had to be able to tell the observer what they were learning, why they were leaning it and how they would know if they learned it.

Yes, detailed plans every Monday by 9 am (it’s been this way for all 20 of my years). I’m shocked others don’t have to!

That is one of the reasons I got out of teaching. I did it briefly at my first teaching job, but only as continued learning experience and they only asked for them for a couple of months to make sure I was comfortable and doing alright. 10 years later at another school everything was fine until a brand new teacher threw a fit that it was not fair that I did not have to turn things in. So they started asking for lesson plans AND to get tests/projects approved before we could give them. They got so backlogged that they made it impossible to get any teaching done because they weren't approving things on time.

Add to that getting pulled from all of my preps and lunch so I could sit in some other new teachers rooms because they couldn't control their classes (high school) and I was just DONE! I was pregnant with my son and it was an easy decision to not go back to teaching. I still do consulting with families to help with reading placement and other things as needed (for free), but the red tape does not tempt me to go back into the classroom even though I love it still.

I agree with this. Is the equivalent ever required of other professionals? 

The majority of the teachers I know are working on planning outside of school hours, and they don't have the conventional red planning book anymore. Administrators are present at the grade-level team meetings. 

This year our teachers are all using Google Classroom and they have slide shows with the week's activities spelled out in detail. 

We are still required to have a red sub folder visible on our desk in case of emergency.