As you get back into the swing of school, it helps to hear how other teachers have approached lesson planning and what strategies they have to share. At IXL, we’re lucky to have a number of former teachers among our ranks, so we asked a few of them what advice they would give. Read on for their responses!

Don’t lose sight of the main idea

“I planned by unit. This let me see the big picture of a topic, not just what was happening that day or week. This also let me build in review days or activity days instead of just teaching a new topic with notes each day. Planning an entire unit also let me create assessments (tests, quizzes, exit tickets, etc.) based on the Common Core standards for that unit, then work backwards to best prepare my students to fully master those concepts.”

–Jackie S.

“Keep lesson plans short enough that you will use them. If you have to create long lesson plans, or just want a detailed version, consider taking four key ideas and putting them on an index card to have with you.

Focus on the hardest, most important things to do, and make sure those are written out in detail. For example, most teachers plan on asking open-ended questions but, in the moment, it can be a lot easier to ask the familiar single-answer questions. Having the questions actually written out on a piece of paper makes it easier to remember that deeper question you wanted to ask.”

–Ann Z.

First and last impressions matter

“Always open the lesson in a way that builds background knowledge, engages students in discourse and discovery, and allows you to introduce new vocabulary and check for understanding.

Always, always close a lesson even if it is only for one minute by asking students what they learned. Remember that students need to summarize their own thinking and compare it to the thinking of others to really get the value out of a lesson.”

–Lauri S.

Organization is a teacher’s best friend

“I put all my lesson plans in binders with page protectors. Each unit had a binder, and all my originals and answer keys were in page protectors. It helped to not lose anything, and also have a clean set of originals for copies! I would keep this at the front of the classroom to help lead the day’s lesson or activity. Then if students were absent, they knew they could check the binder to see what they had missed.”

–Jackie S.

Connect lessons to the real world

“I did an entire unit on statistics and probability based on March Madness and the NCAA basketball tournament. The kids loved it because they loved watching basketball so much. It was amazing to see their engagement looking at the probability of upsets.”

–Jackie S.