The importance of planning to the teaching profession is EVERYTHING. We plan for: lessons, units, assessments, which resources to use, student needs where we adapt, modify and accommodate varying levels of student abilities, classroom management strategies and communication with stakeholders; just to name a few. There are a tremendous amount of ways and schools of thought on how planning should be done.
Much of what we do is done digitally, for example there are e-plan books, marks are all live online, students complete and submit work on Google Classroom, preferred communication by a lot of stakeholders is via email, Individualized Student Profiles (ISP) are living documents completed by all those teachers working with identified students and updated each term on Google Documents; need I go on?? However, personally I just need a traditional, old school teacher planbook.
It is not that I am old school and anti-technology in terms of my teaching but since I spend so much time PLUGGED IN during the day; it is nice to go back to basics…back to pen and paper. Sometimes I find technology alienating though. As much as we are a connected society we are very isolated behind our screens. Plus, it is ALWAYS good to have a back up!
I had a beloved plan book but the publishing company discontinued it and when I did find something similar; it was WAY too expensive. I spent the past two years making and formating my own on Google Docs and then printing them out and keeping them in a binder; but a binder was just too cumbersome to bring home all the time. I was in Education Station shopping for resources this past summer and I found my new perfect coil bound plan book and it was only $20! The only thing I have to do is add tabs to separate the sections.
What does my plan book look like this year? It has…
–Monthly Calendars
–Daily Plan Pages
–Seating Plan Pages (with space to write comments)
–Timetable
–Meeting Notes Page
–Parent Communication Tracker
–Record Keeping Scoresheet
–Resource List Tracker
–Directory