Planning, Planning, Planning

Planning is key when it comes to delivering an effective math program for your students. This includes creating long range, unit and daily lesson plans as well as cross-curricular planning. On this page, I will talk about each of these types of planning and reflect on how I have planned in the past and how I will plan in the future as a classroom teacher.

Long Range Plans
Long range plans are an area that I am least familiar with in terms of the whole gamut of planning. As an occasional teacher, I only have some experience in planning long range plans for a fictitious group of students in Teacher's College. Long range plans are basically an overview of what you are planning on covering throughout the entirety of the school year. In the future, when I plan my long range plans for Math, I will first consider the curriculum - what were my students expected to achieve last year? what are they expected to achieve this year? Then I will consult with my grade partners and the previous years' teacher for advice. Questions like: where do we see these students heading this year? Which students will need more guidance/extension in Math? will be asked. Then, the planning comes. I will plan according to my other subject areas in order to accommodate cross-curricular connections and ensure that my plans are relevant to the student's daily lives. I will also ensure to leave room in my planning - for anything that may come up, for extra review time, etc.

Example
Below is a template that I would use when creating my Long Range Plans for Math. It can be found in the Guide to Effective Instruction in Mathematics: Volume One, Foundations in Mathematics Instruction.

Unit Plans
Teachers need to create units plans to ensure that they are helping students achieve the curriculum expectations for each strand in the Mathematics curriculum for their grade year. The strategy that I was taught to use while in Teacher's College, and the strategy that I carried out when creating my units for placements, is that of backwards design. Backwards design, or design down, focuses on planning with the end in mind. This way, teachers can design their lessons around the end outcome or goals (i.e. the expectations that they are looking for the students to achieve).

Example
Below is a template that I would use when creating my Unit plans for Math. It can be found in the Guide to Effective Instruction in Mathematics: Volume One, Foundations in Mathematics Instruction.

Daily Lesson Plans
For an effective daily lesson, teacher should strive to:
-Ensure their lesson/problem (being presented in the Getting Started stage) has multiple entry points. Each student should feel as if they can solve the problem in their own way using a variety of different strategies.
-Make their students active participants in their learning. Using the three-part lesson plan will ensure this.
-Encourage students to "take risks, make mistakes and get messy" as The Friz from Magic School Bus liked to say. Students should be given the opportunity to feel comfortable to delve into the problem at hand without any judgement or hesitation regarding ability levels (multiple entry points helps with this!)
-Question and prompt the students throughout the lesson. The teacher should prepare a few questions before the daily lesson but allow students to lead discussion (especially during the Reflecting and Connecting stage).

Below is the template that I would use when creating my daily lesson plans. It is from the Guide to Effective Instruction in Mathematics: Volume One, Foundations in Mathematics Instruction.

Examples
You can find an example of the Three-Part lesson that I created on the Big Ideas page.

Cross-Curricular Planning
Planning your long range, unit and daily math lesson plans to include other subjects is a great way to keep students engaged and connect their learning with the real world. In life, we do not solve problems using one skill that we gained. We need to utilize a variety of skills that are taught throughout different subject areas. Integrating different subject matter into the same unit or lesson demonstrates that. In my placements, I created many lessons and units that connected different areas of various curriculum together. This way, I could assess my students for a range of skills that I was looking for and able to create report card comments (with the guidance of my associate teacher) that were meaningful and spoke well to the students overall abilities.

Examples
Here is an example of a project that I created for my Grade 5/6 students that incorporated Media Literacy, Health and Math:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6a39WmwBKeWaHVJR2xINHlkUGs/edit?usp=sharing

Runde's Room is great blog that is written by Canadian teacher Jen Runde. Her blog is chocked full of great ideas (some of which inspired lessons that I created and carried out in my placement classes in Teacher's College). Check out this cross-curricular lesson that incorporates Science and Math (and includes a great theme that kids would love!)
http://www.rundesroom.com/2013/05/angry-birds-happy-students.html



Goals for the Future
Being a great teacher means taking the time to effectively plan out your school year from start to finish and creating engaging units and daily lessons that utilize the three-part lesson format and draw from other subject areas. When plans are made, students can learn effectively. As a classroom teacher, I will utilize all the knowledge that I have gained in this Learning Experience of the course when creating my long range, unit and daily plans. I will also consult other teachers in my school/board and look to reputable sources such as the Guides to Effective Instruction when planning.

However,

Sometimes things won't go as planned. Sometimes a whole unit will need to be re-vamped right in the middle of it. As teachers, we need to be flexible and use our pedagogical knowledge to ensure that our students are always learning at their best. Planning is never done - it is a constant process that begins well before the first day of school and really, never ends.